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Packaging Changes

This page is meant to serve as a changelog of sorts for the Solus packaging environment and the packaging instructions. Refer to specific help pages for more details.

  • This list is not exhaustive
  • This list is in reverse chronological order (newest first)

2026​

September​

Added tidy command to packaging Taskfile​

  • When in a package directory within the packages repository, you can now run go-task tidy to do some basic find-and-replace cleanups of a package.yml file.
  • The command will try to replace old-style install commands with the new-style macros (see July 2026 changes)
  • The command will also add curly braces around path variables. For example, $pkgfiles/example.patch becomes ${pkgfiles}/example.patch
  • This command cannot fix existing packaging errors, and the changes it generates should be reviewed carefully.

Added additional macros​

  • %cmake_unity
  • %cmake_build
  • %cmake_install
  • %cmake_test
  • %meson_unity
  • %meson_build
  • %meson_install
  • %meson_test

August​

Added chroot aliases to Taskfile​

  • Added aliases to the packaging Taskfile to make chrooting into solbuild simpler.
  • Added section to "Packaging practices" explaining chrooting into solbuild.

July​

Added additional macros​

  • %install_bin
  • %install_dir
  • %install_exe
  • %install_file
  • %pyproject_build
  • %pyproject_install
  • %pytest
  • %python3_sitepackages%
  • %sysusers
  • %tmpfiles

Removed Python 2 macros​

Old macros for Python 2 packages have been removed, since Solus does not support Python 2 since Solus 4.8.

May​

Added go-task info as a helper utility​

  • This little helper returns eopkg info for the current directory.
  • For example, when you are in ~/solus-packages/packages/n/nano, go-task info will output the same as eopkg info nano

April​

Began re-licensing packages repository with MPL-2.0​

  • Require a checkbox on package PRs so contributors acknowledge explicit licensing
  • See blog post for more detail here

2025​

December​

Mandate installation of license files​

  • Packages must now have license files installed so we are compliant.
  • License files can be easily installed with the new %install_license macro. 
    install    : |
        %ninja_install
        %install_license LICENSE
        %install_license LICENSES/*

November​

Initial language server integration for package.yml files​

  • All package.yml files now specify a YAML schema on the first line.
  • Install yaml-language-server, and use an editor with language server support to see hints on valid package.yml field values.

September​

Added autoupdate as a go-task taskfile commands​

  • Like the go-task update command, but automatic
  • If a package has a completed monitoring.yaml file, and a new version is available, the go-task autoupdate command tries to guess the new tarball link and update the package.yml file

Disallowed other Boolean values than true or false in package.yml​

  • To enable JSON schema work for package.yml files and increased compatibility with YAML 1.2 Booleans must now only be set to true or false.
  • yes, no, on, off and all other variations are no longer allowed

July​

Changed behaviour on several go-task taskfile commands​

June​

gui and private headers have been split out from qt6-base​

  • Qt::CorePrivate is now provided by qt6-base-private-devel
  • Qt::Gui is now provided by qt6-base-gui

April​

pip3 and setuptools debundled from python3​

  • pip3 and the python module setuptools are no longer provided by python3
  • python-setuptools now provides the py3 version of setuptools instead of the py2 version
  • pip now provides the py3 version of pip instead of the py2 version
  • A temporary package python2-setuptools provides the py2 version of setuptools pending full python2 deprecation
  • A temporary package pip2 provides the py2 version of pip pending full python2 deprecation

PEP517 is now the preferred method to build python modules​

  • The %python3_setup macro now attempts to build python modules with PEP517 if a pyproject.toml file is found, it will fallback to setuptools otherwise
  • The %python3_install macro now attempts to install python modules with PEP517 if a pyproject.toml file is found, it will fallback to setuptools otherwise
  • If a python module contains a pyproject.toml file and now fails to build it'll minimally need python-build and python-installer. Then, it'll need the python build system, in ~90% of cases it'll be python-setuptools, and, python-wheel may also be required. Note, however, there are several valid python build systems such as python-flit-core, python-poetry, meson-python as well as others that may be used in place of python-setuptools. However, in the majority of cases only python-build, python-installer and python-setuptools are required
  • If a python module doesn't contain a pyproject.toml file and instead contains a setup.py file it'll need python-setuptools as a build dependency

January​

monitoring.yml changed to monitoring.yaml​

  • The file extension used by monitoring.yml was changed to monitoring.yaml
  • This allows us to use some Serpent OS tooling and share the monitoring.yaml files

2024​

December​

New go-task functionality to check for package updates​

Mandatory rss field in monitoring.yaml​

November​

AppStream metainfo is required for all graphical applications in the Solus repository​

  • All packages providing a graphical application must include AppStream metainfo. For details see AppStream metainfo page

Add Sync Notes checkbox to PR template​

  • The PR template now contains a checkbox used to recommend its inclusion into the next Sync Notes post

Update solbuild images for eopkg/solbuild changes​

  • The solbuild images have been refreshed due to extensive changes to both solbuild itself and eopkg (see here and here for details)
  • Packagers should re-initialize their solbuild images using go-task solbuild-reset

October​

Add check for monitoring.yaml​

  • Commits are now checked for monitoring.yaml files and their inclusion is strongly recommended. See monitoring.yaml page

Add check for included static libraries​

  • Commits are now checked for included static libraries
  • Packages with necessary static libraries have to be added to the allow-list in common/CI/config.yaml in the packages repository

Pre-filled commit titles for package inclusions and "No functional change"​

  • Commit titles for package inclusion are now created with pre-filled version information (for example, "nano: Add at v1.2.3")
  • For "No functional change" commits with no changes to the pspec_x86_64.xml "[NFC]" is automatically added to the commit title

August​

Pre-filled commit titles for package updates​

  • Commit titles for package updates are now created with pre-filled version information (for example, "nano: Update to 1.2.3")

June​

New go-task functionality to list packages without AppStream metadata​

  • To use it, run go-task check-appstream-progress
  • Packages that should be ignored can be added to the list in common/Scripts/appstream_ignored_packages.txt in the packages repository

May​

New go-task functionality to clean local repository​

  • Removes all .eopkg files in the solbuild local repository and refreshes the index
  • To use it, run go-task clean-local

Remove 'Test Plan' and 'Checklist' from commit messages​

  • These are no longer needed in commit messages.
  • They must still be included in the pull request description.

Add Rust macros to package.yml​

  • We now have macros for building Rust packages. Example: %cargo_build. Rust packages should be switched to use the new macros as they are updated.
  • See the "Rust (cargo) actionable macros" section on the package.yml page.

Add guidance for SourceForge sources in package.yml​

  • We now require SourceForge sources used in package.yml files to follow a specific format.
  • See the package.yml page.

February​

Begin adding monitoring.yaml to packages​

  • A new per-package file was introduced: monitoring.yaml. Used to monitor packages for releases and security advisories; see monitoring.yaml.
  • This is not enforced by automatic checks yet, but we may ask that it be added.

2023​

October​

Adding checkdeps in package.yml​

  • A new type of packaging dependency was added: checkdeps. They behave the same as builddeps, except they are not considered when determining build order for automatic builds. See the package.yml page.

Git hooks​

  • Run go-task init to initialize Git hooks for the packages repository. See Prepare for packaging.
  • Use git commit for committing packaging changes and fill in the template shown. It is no longer required to manually copy-paste the template or use git commit --cleanup=scissors.

Requiring homepage in package.yml​

  • The homepage key in package.yml has become mandatory. Use the address to the upstream source repository (eg: the GitHub page) if a package does not have a homepage.
  • This is enforced by checks on all pull requests.

Recommending amending commits in Pull Requests​

  • Amending commits and force pushing the changes works better with our build tooling.
    • It was thought that abandoning this practice would be okay, but it turns out not to be the case.

September​

Switch to asterisk bolding for PR template​

  • The initial PR template for the packages repository used markdown header styling (## Heading text), but solus-sc does not render that styling, so the template was changed to asterisk bolding (**Heading text**)
  • https://github.com/getsolus/packages/pull/366

Switching From make to go-task​

  • All packaging actions are now handled by go-task rather than make.
    • Building a package can be done using go-task rather than make.
    • Commands are the same: make local, for example, is replaced by go-task local.
    • You can see all available commands by either browsing to Taskfile.yml in the packages repository OR running go-task -l somewhere in your updated clone of the packages git monorepo.
  • Packagers should install go-task on their machines if they have not already.
  • The Makefile included with every package is no longer required. Please delete it from a package when updating, and do not include it when making the initial commit of a new package.

GitHub Monorepo Migration​

  • Packages were moved from the initial multirepo setup to the packages monorepo: github.com/getsolus/packages Now packagers only need to clone/fork one repository for all packages.
  • The recommended migration strategy is to fork this repository and start with a clean clone. Any local changes to packages should be moved over manually.
  • Packagers should now title commits like packagename: Action; for example: nano: Update to 9.0. Generic titles like Update to 9.0 should not be used, except for rebuilds.
  • Packagers should use the pull request template for package updates, filling out the Summary and Test Plan sections as usual.

August​

Initial GitHub Migration from old Phabricator Dev Tracker​

  • This change was superseded by the later monorepo migration.
  • The new multirepo setup for packages was under github.com/solus-packages organization, packages were updated with PRs to individual repositories.
  • Issues were migrated to github.com/getsolus/packages from Phabricator. Closed issues were not migrated.
  • A read-only instance of the old Dev Tracker is available at phab.getsol.us. This will eventually be shut down.

April​

The repository index was moved to cdn.getsol.us.

2022 and Earlier​

Not included in this list.