YQPkg - Standalone Qt Package Selector

This is a fork of the YaST Qt package selector as a standalone Qt program without any YaST dependencies. It works directly with libzypp.

License

GPL V2; see file LICENSE.

Development Status

Alpha.

It is usable, and it has most of the key features.

• You can run it as root with all functions, and as a normal user in read-only mode.

• You can select packages and patterns for installation / update / removal.

• It does dependency resolution.

• You can commit the changes, and packages or patterns are actually being installed / updated / removed.

• You get a plain moving progress bar on the commit page while the transactions are performed.

• You can switch details on or off on the commit page.

• You get a summary page from where you can go back to select more.

• There is a configurable countdown on the summary page to close the program automatically. And a "Stop" button to halt the countdown, of course.

Limitations:

• No repo refresh yet. If needed, use sudo zypper ref before program start.

  Repo refresh is now implemented; now even with progress feedback._

• No GPG key import from repos, no failed package GPG signature fail prompt.

• No repo operations like adding, removing, setting priority, enabling, disabling. You get the repo view, though, where you can view and select packages by repo.

For details and screenshots, see issue #1.

Caveat

There be dragons. And bugs.

Nothing bad should happen, but don't use it on a critical production system for now.

You've been warned.

The Name: YQPkg

(Pronounced Y-Q-Package)

YQPkg is just a working title. Suggestions for a better one are welcome; see the naming suggestions issue.

Motivation: Why?

Explained in greater detail at the Hack Week 11/2024 YQPkg project page

YaST will be phased out soon in favor of Agama and Cockpit, and then there will be a huge gap between low-level zypper in and high-level application installers of the desktop environments; those know and promote their own desktop's video post-production software, but what about other packages?

How do you browse through all the existing packages of a large distro like Tumbleweed or Leap? How do you find software about some specific topic?

How do you install a different kernel version from a specific repo when your new laptop doesn't want to suspend?

How do you help a friend who asks you what software openSUSE has to offer for his HAM radio or his music band?

How do you find language-specific packages for your native Estonian?

Right now, you use YaST sw_single. What if there is no YaST anymore? That's where this project comes in.

Is this an Official SUSE Project?

Not yet. It started as a one-man project during the SUSE Hack Week in 11/2024, and it's been a mixture of private Open Source project and a SUSE-sponsored one at the same time.

Hopefully SUSE will recognize the importance of this and keep sponsoring it.

Build Requirements

You need at least a C++ and Qt5 development environment plus CMake and libzypp-devel.

sudo zypper install -t pattern devel_C_C++ devel_qt5
sudo zypper install cmake libzypp-devel

Building

make -f Makefile.repo
cd build
make

Installing

After building, add

sudo make install

Cleaning up a Build

rm -rf build

Starting the Built Executable

From the build directory (without sudo make install):

cd build
src/yqpkg

After sudo make install:

yqpkg

(it's now in /usr/bin/yqpkg)

Reference

• Development status and screenshots: issue #1

• Original project that this was forked from

• 2024/11 SUSE Hack Week Project