README

Unofficial libqt6pas

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Please Note : you probably don't need these files unless you are using Lazarus Main and Qt6. Several LTS distros will not have a viable Qt6 at present.

Download packaged libraries (Debs, RPMs and a tar ball) for x86_64 from https://github.com/davidbannon/libqt6pas/releases/latest

The packages should work on distributions like Ubuntu 21.10, Fedora 35 and RH EL9. Note that ones like Debian Bullseye, Ubuntu 20.04 for example will not work with these libraries, their official repos do not have Qt6. In paractis, you need a Qt6 6.2.3 and GLibc 2.34 or later. But there are no guarantees folks !

Its possible libraries pacman and for arm and arm64 will appear in the not too distant future.

libqt6pas is an interface between Lazarus and the Qt5 libraries. Not all Qt6 functions are available, only those necessary for Lazarus functionality. See https://wiki.freepascal.org/Qt6_Interface

This is an unofficial copy of the libqt6pas code from the Lazarus Main (aka Trunk, master). It is very new, should be regarded as experimental but does appear to work ! At some point in time, the distros will catch up and, if you can, you should use a distro distributed verion of the library. However, its possible that the libraries here will often be ahead of your distro.

The code here will never be ahead of that in the Lazarus trunk but will track it, superficially tested as changes are made to the relevant content in Lazarus Main.

Bug reports about the library itself should be submitted to the normal Lazarus bug tracking system, https://gitlab.com/groups/freepascal.org/lazarus/-/issues

Bug reports relating to this repository's packaging or currency should be reported here.

Names and Numbers

The main library Deb package looks a bit like this - libqt6pas6_2_0-0_amd64.deb

• The package name is libqt6pas

• The "6_2" indicates its based on Qt6.2 LTS series, works fine with later Qt6 too.

• The "_0" will indicate later release of the bindings, still with Qt6.2

• The "-3" is the usual debian packaging release, I'll increment that if I release new packages with same library. Yeah, '3', I am not doing well !

The library itself, is called libQt6Pas.so.6.2.0, note the upper case letters, its a Qt thing apparently. It will normally have symlinks from libQt6Pas.so.6.2 and libQt6Pas.so.6. If you have the -dev package installed, it will add a symlink from libQt6Pas.so

Note that in the early release stages of this library, its version number was 6.2.3 (reflecting the exact release it was first built on). That was wrong, you should remove and discard that package. It number conflicts ....

Repackaging

OK, we are now on the third packaging of the same library. All to do with version numbers and issues relating to building the library in the correct Linux Distro. Note, it does not matter which distro you use it in (as long as its new enough), but it must be built on, eg, Fedora 35 (my problem, not yours!).

Building this Library

Right now, seems the only way to make a generic library package is to make the Library on a Fedora 35 box and then package on an Ubuntu 20.04 box. This is because

• Fedora 35 has the older Qt6 6.2.3 that the interface is based on. If built on a later Qt6, then the earlier end user systems will not be supported.

• The box where its packaged needs to be a deb based one, but not a newer eg Ubuntu because Ubuntu now has a dpkg that uses zstd compression and Debian's dpkg cannot read that.

The Build - Fedora 35

So, its necessary to build the library on, in my case, a Fedora 35 VM, install qt6-qtbase-devel 6.2.3, pulldown the github files and -

wget https://github.com/davidbannon/libqt6pas/archive/refs/heads/master.zip

// unzip the above somewhere

cd libqt6pas-master/cbindings
qmake6 -query   // just to have a look
qmake6   // to build the Makefile
make     // build the library, slow !

Then copy the resulting library back somewhere where it can be used on build the debs, for me that my U2204m VM.

The Package - Ubuntu 20.04

Setup - sudo apt install qt6-base-dev alien rpm lintian, vim  // bit over 400Meg
Setup - a git controlled repo from github.com/davidbannon/libqt6pas


cp <The newly built library> libqt6pas-master/cbindings/.
cd libqt6pas-master/cbindings/package
// edit PACKVER in script, '1' if new release, inc if repackage
./deb-package   // Make debs, RPMs and tarball

Upload the packages, do the git stuff !