Myrlyn Linux Package Manager GUI

(Formerly known as YQPkg)

Myrlyn is a graphical package manager to select software packages and patterns for installation, update and removal. It uses libzypp as its backend and Qt as its GUI toolkit.

This started in the 11/2024 SUSE Hack Week to make the SUSE YaST Qt package selector usable as a standalone Qt program without any YaST dependencies.

Image generated by OpenAI / DALL-E / ChatGPT

License

GPL V2; see file LICENSE.

Development Status

Late Alpha.

It is now well usable and fairly feature complete.

Features

Features Taken over from YaST

• Repos are automatically refreshed at the start of the program with some visual feedback what is going on.

• Search for packages

  • by name, summary, description
  • by RPM provides and requires
  • in their file list (installed packages only)

• See package details:

  • Package description
  • Technical details (rpm -qi)
  • Dependencies (RPM provides, pre-requires requires)
  • Versions (installed and from all active repositories)
  • File list (installed packages only)
  • Change log (installed packages only)

• Install, update and remove packages

• Pick a specific package version for installation or update

• Install and remove patterns

• Browse and select packages by repository

• Browse and select language/locale-specific packages by language/locale

• Browse and select packages by classification:

  • Suggested packages
  • Recommended packages
  • Orphaned packages
  • Unneeded packages
  • Retracted packages
  • Retracted installed packages
  • All packages

New Features in Myrlyn (No YaST Counterpart)

• "Updates" view that shows packages that could be updated (where a newer version than the installed one is available)

• Update all packages that can be updated without a dependency problem (the same as zypper up)

• Dist Upgrade (the same as zypper dup): Take package splits and renames, pattern updates and more into account and update all packages that can be updated without a dependency problem

• Read-only mode for non-root users: You can search packages, view their details, even experiment what would happen if you tried to install or remove them and see the dependency resolver results.

  You can do everything except actually apply any changes.

• During the commit phase (where packages are actually installed, updated or removed), in addition to the large progress bar, you can now also switch to a details view to see which packages are waiting, downloaded, being processed, or finished.

• You can decide during the commit phase whether or not you want to see a summary page as the next step. That summary page exits the program after a selectable countdown (30 seconds by default), but you can go back to the package selector to mark more packages for installation, update or removal.

  It's now very easy to keep working with the package selection and install, update or remove a few packages at a time and then do some more without fear that a lot of work might be lost when you get into a large dependency problem cycle.

Fixes

• Improved performance during startup as well as during package selection.

• Improved visual appearance; we don't need to "pixel pinch" anymore with today's screen resolutions, unlike back when the YaST package selector created.

• The annoying tendency to get too narrow columns in the package list is now fixed. You will find yourself very rarely adjusting the column widths manually.

• The package list is now filled automatically (as it should always have) when appropriate; you don't need to click on the left "filter" pane anymore to make that happen. See also issue #10.

• Similar with the details views (bottom right): They are now shown automatically when a package is selected, be it manually or programmatically. Previously, you had to click on the automatically selected package again to see anything there. This is also explained in issue #10.

• Reasonable initial window sizes for the main window as well as for the many pop-up dialogs.

Limitations

• No GPG key import from repos yet for repos that were just added and never refreshed yet.

• 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.

Work in Progress

• Patches view. You can already use it if you hit the [F2] button (like in all YaST versions since time immemorial), but it may still have some quirks and bugs.

  But since SUSE patches are only (mostly?) a collection of updated package versions, the new "Updates" view and the "Package Update" button there is a very adequate replacement. And of course only Leap has patches anyway; Tumbleweed and Slowroll don't have any.

Development Progress and Screenshots

See issue #1.

Scroll down all the way to see the latest news and screenshots.

Stability

It's quite stable and usable now.

Of course, since it's still in development, the occasional bug may appear, but it should now only be minor ones. See also the open issues in the GitHub issue tracker.

I have been using it exclusively since Christmas 2024 for all my package operations, including keeping my Slowroll laptop, my Leap 15.6 desktop PC and my Tumbleweed virtual machine up to date. There was never any real problem, especially not during the commit phase when packages are actually installed, updated or removed.

Ready-Made Packages

The latest version from Git: myrlyn-git

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/myrlyn

After sudo make install:

myrlyn

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

Reference

• Development status and screenshots: issue #1

• Original project that this was forked from

• 2024/11 SUSE Hack Week Project