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There have been big changes in the installer framework since the last 4.6 release. One of the big changes was to update the underlying qt version from Qt 5.15 to Qt 6.6.0. We wanted to support platforms available in Qt 5.15 as long as possible. This is why we have postponed the Qt version update until now.
The Qt version update resulted that a newer version of the glibc library was needed as well. Qt Maintenance Tool is not automatically updated anymore. The tool is updated only, if a recent enough glibc version (2.28 or newer) is found. This is fully transparent to the user. In case of an older glibc version, Qt Maintenance Tool is not updated. There will be notification to the user though.
We have fixed some Qt framework dependencies to X Window System in the installer. For example, the user does not have to explicitly install the lib-cursor dependency before running the installer.
Creation of Offline Installers
As we have not provided users with ready-made offline installers for a long time, there has been a need to create offline installers in the GUI in addition to the CLI. So, this is now possible by just a single button click, as depicted in the image below.
Offline installer generation in the GUI
Command Line Improvements
The installer framework allows now to define component aliases. Using a command line installer has been quite challenging, as component names has reflected the repo structure. Using component aliases, it is possible to define alias names, containing one or more installer components. This will make it much easier to install Qt versions or Qt tools.
Linux on ARM support
There are more and more users, running their desktop on ARM processors, so we have added support for Linux on ARM. Windows on ARM is planned to be supported later this spring. The goal is that Qt 6.7 can be installed on both X86_64 and ARM64 architecture computers.
Linux on ARM support in the installer is a technology preview, as we were not able to test it intensively yet, due to some issues in the test framework.
Other Improvements and Fixes
The progress bar on the Welcome page has frozen for dozens of seconds on 0% in some cases. This has been now fixed.
Admin rights handling during the installer, updater, or uninstaller runs has crashed in some use cases. We have carefully studied the cases and fixed the admin rights handling.
We have also prevented uninstalling components when an error occurs. An error may be caused, for example, that there is an installation process running at the same time. Now modifications to the installation folder are not allowed in Maintenance Tool, when the installation is in progress in the same folder.
The full list of all changes can be read also in the Changelog.
Where to get the IFW and the installer?
Precompiled binaries for the Installer Framework can be downloaded from Qt Online Installer, sources and binaries can be found also on the Qt Downloads page (open source) or in Qt Customer Portal for commercial users. The latest documentation can also be found online.
Qt Online Installer 4.7.0 is available in Qt Downloads or in Qt Customer Portal for commercial users.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this release.
