Request for next Raspbian update: Qt 5.7

[yodermk]

Not sure who to direct this to, but a post here may be a good start. Why not put Qt 5.7 in the next Raspbian release? Note especially the newly GPL'd Charts, Data Visualization, and Virtual Keyboard. I think these things could make a lot of aspiring Pi programmers very happy, and would allow deployment of programs built with these things on the Pi.

Raspbian currently has Qt 5.3, and getting Qt updated on the Pi appears to be rather a chore (I haven't done it). Having the latest in the next release would be sweet!

If not that, is there some kind of add-in repo that has packages for 5.7?

Thanks!

[kusti8]

Raspbian follows Debian which has a conservative stance on updates: no updates and only security updates and bug fixes. There is no real way you could get 5.7 into Jessie. You could make your own repo and set a bot to compile it, but for the average user it is not worth it. Compile it yourself is the only solution.

[gkreidl]

Raspbian Jessie follows Debian Jessie and Debian doesn't upgrade versions during life time of a release. (only bug and security fixes are applied).

[fruitoftheloom]

Not sure who to direct this to, but a post here may be a good start. Why not put Qt 5.7 in the next Raspbian release? Note especially the newly GPL'd Charts, Data Visualization, and Virtual Keyboard. I think these things could make a lot of aspiring Pi programmers very happy, and would allow deployment of programs built with these things on the Pi.

Raspbian currently has Qt 5.3, and getting Qt updated on the Pi appears to be rather a chore (I haven't done it). Having the latest in the next release would be sweet!

If not that, is there some kind of add-in repo that has packages for 5.7?

Thanks!

Stretch Testing has QT5.6 is that any good ???

[Romonga]

I understand that you can build it. This does make this somewhat palatable. Lots of features in the newer version of QT that would make IOT development a bit easier.

[yodermk]

I get that Raspbian follows a stable OS with view version bumps, but it is its own operating system. It adds things, makes config changes, etc. I see no reason at all why it *couldn't* pull in a new Qt. Doing so would be a clear benefit to its users. Especially the virtual keyboard, which would be fantastic on PI's with touchscreens, and the charts and dataviz stuff could be quite useful in education.

Is the testing distro available on the Pi? Even so, Qt 5.6 would not have the new modules I mentioned. Hopefully 5.7 would get pulled in before the next final release.

[fruitoftheloom]

I get that Raspbian follows a stable OS with view version bumps, but it is its own operating system. It adds things, makes config changes, etc. I see no reason at all why it *couldn't* pull in a new Qt. Doing so would be a clear benefit to its users. Especially the virtual keyboard, which would be fantastic on PI's with touchscreens, and the charts and dataviz stuff could be quite useful in education.

Is the testing distro available on the Pi? Even so, Qt 5.6 would not have the new modules I mentioned. Hopefully 5.7 would get pulled in before the next final release.

Could you make a list of packages which will be affected with QT5.7 as the default in Raspbian Jessie, it would help to decide how big an undertaking it will be.........

[6by9]

So that big thing of stability - according to https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_5.7_Release 5.7 was only finally released on 16th June 2016 (all of 2 weeks ago!), compared to Jessie being originally released April 26th, 2015.
Accepting anything that fresh off the release pipe into a distro would be a stability nightmare, and what other dependent packages need bumping to support it?

Raspbian is a distribution. Linux is the Operating System. With the exception of a couple of additional packages and the Foundation's kernel and firmware, Raspbian is the same as Debian.

[fruitoftheloom]

Just had a thought ArchLinuxArm is a rolling release and does have QT5.7

https://archlinuxarm.org/packages

armv6h extra qt5-base 5.7.0-1
armv7h extra qt5-base 5.7.0-1

[yodermk]

Qt tries very hard for binary backwards compatibility in the same major version (5.x), so *theoretically* (of course), there should be no breakage at all. Obviously, there should be a lot of testing with the apps in the repo that use Qt. Doing so thoroughly might be a pretty big undertaking, but the benefits would seem to be worth it.

Running Arch might be a feasible workaround in some specific cases (I use it on my main desktop computer and love it). But Raspbian is the premier OS for the Pi; putting it there would do the most good.

[fruitoftheloom]

Qt tries very hard for binary backwards compatibility in the same major version (5.x), so *theoretically* (of course), there should be no breakage at all. Obviously, there should be a lot of testing with the apps in the repo that use Qt. Doing so thoroughly might be a pretty big undertaking, but the benefits would seem to be worth it.

Running Arch might be a feasible workaround in some specific cases (I use it on my main desktop computer and love it). But Raspbian is the premier OS for the Pi; putting it there would do the most good.

Yes a big undertaking, when are the staff going to get time, the RPF have better things to do like achieve the goals of their "Mission Statement"

Even Debian Experimental has only recently gone to 5.7......

[Heater]

Romonga,

Lots of features in the newer version of QT that would make IOT development a bit easier.

Could you elaborate on that statement?

What features would do such a thing?

My understanding is that:

a) At one end we have the "things" connected to the internet. They have to be as small, cheap and low power as possible. Normally with no display.

b) At the other end we have cloud services that these "things" connect to.

After that you deal with the whole thing via a web browser or an app on your mobile device.

Now, I can see use cases for Qt in embedded systems with a screen. We already do that with earlier Qt versions. Hardly IoT though.

[yodermk]

Is it possible to crowdsource testing to the community? If so that should get everything tested in short order. I'd help for sure.

As for IoT I'm not exactly sure what he has in mind. I know that newer versions of Qt have more sensor support, but I think that might just work on Android and iOS. I'm not actually sure if its sensors can work on desktop Linux (which includes RPi).

BTW I just tried to compile Qt 5.7 last night and got an error 47 minutes in.

[kusti8]

It's impossible. Raspbian follows Debian. Debian has a conservative approach. Therefore Raspbian won't get a new version. The dependencies and all the mess it could make is unbelievable. If you want that version, it's in Debian stretch, which you could apt-get source or Arch. That's your only options.

[fruitoftheloom]

It's impossible. Raspbian follows Debian. Debian has a conservative approach. Therefore Raspbian won't get a new version. The dependencies and all the mess it could make is unbelievable. If you want that version, it's in Debian stretch, which you could apt-get source or Arch. That's your only options.

Debian Stretch has QT 5.6: https://packages.debian.org/stretch/qt5-default

QT 5.7 is in experimental: https://packages.debian.org/experimental/qt5-default

[Heater]

It's a mystery to me why nobody in the Qt "community" cares about Qt on the Pi.

A year or so a go, after very much difficulty trying all kind of recipes on the Qt site, I managed to compile Qt 5.x (Whatever x was) on a Pi. It took the addition of a lot of swap space over NFS and about 24 hours of compilation time!

It was great, Qt GUI straight into the frame buffer. No X Windows required. Accelerated OpenGL. Wonderful.

What would be great now is if the Qt webview would work into the frame buffer complete with GPU accelerated webgl.

Maybe I'll find the time to to try a Qt compilation again with a more recent version.

[yodermk]

It's impossible. Raspbian follows Debian. Debian has a conservative approach. Therefore Raspbian won't get a new version. The dependencies and all the mess it could make is unbelievable. If you want that version, it's in Debian stretch, which you could apt-get source or Arch. That's your only options.

I don't agree it's "impossible." It shouldn't even be that hard since there's backwards compatibility. Pull it in and test!

Maybe the best argument against it is "slippery slope" - if you pull in Qt 5.7, why not the latest version of program or library X with great feature Y?

Hopefully it will make it in to Stretch, at least. :/

[fruitoftheloom]

It's impossible. Raspbian follows Debian. Debian has a conservative approach. Therefore Raspbian won't get a new version. The dependencies and all the mess it could make is unbelievable. If you want that version, it's in Debian stretch, which you could apt-get source or Arch. That's your only options.

I don't agree it's "impossible." It shouldn't even be that hard since there's backwards compatibility. Pull it in and test!

Maybe the best argument against it is "slippery slope" - if you pull in Qt 5.7, why not the latest version of program or library X with great feature Y?

Hopefully it will make it in to Stretch, at least. :/

Stop hoping and use Arch.......

[Pithagoros]

would be a stability nightmare

Like the browser that ships with Jessie then.