Announce 3.3-alpha4

_posts/2023-10-13-calamares-3.3.alpha4-is-out.md

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+---
+published: true
+layout: post
+title: "Calamares 3.3.0-alpha4 released"
+excerpt_separator: <!--more-->
+---
+
+Another alpha along the road to Calamares 3.3, this one
+contains a huge amount of internal changes to cross off two
+items on the TODO list: Qt6 compatibility and QML support,
+and normalizing the C++ namespace used by Calamares.
+We're happy to have contributors helping out with the
+porting and with new features in Calamares modules.
+
+For -alpha5 Anke has fixes to all the QML lined up,
+Adriaan has Python bindings figured out, so expect that
+one fairly quickly.
+
+This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by first name):
+ - Adriaan de Groot
+ - Anke Boersma
+ - Emir Sari
+ - Evan James
+ - Hector Martin
+ - Ivan Borzenkov
+ - Simon Quigley
+
+## Core ##
+ - Qt6 compatibility. You can choose Qt5 (with KDE Frameworks 5) as before,
+   or choose Qt6 (with KDE Frameworks 6). This means that a Qt6-based Linux
+   distribution can use Calamares without needing an extra version of Qt.
+   Note that some KDE Frameworks are required as well, and those need to be
+   Qt6-based also (and are not released as of September 2023).
+ - QML-based modules are also supported in Qt6, but the QML is likely to
+   be source-incompatible. The *welcomeq* module shipped with Calamares
+   now has two `.qrc` files and uses the `${QT_VERSION_SUFFIX}` variable
+   to pick one of the two depending on the Qt version being used.
+   Other modules are likely to follow the same pattern.
+ - C++ namespaces have been shuffled around and `CalamaresUtils` has been
+   retired. This has an effect on all C++ plugins, since this is neither
+   a binary- nor source-compatible change.
+
+## Modules ##
+ - *keyboard* module can now be explicitly configured to use X11 keyboard
+   settings or the FreeDesktop locale1 DBus service. The latter is most
+   useful for Calamares as an "initial setup" system, not an installer,
+   in a Wayland session. (thanks Hector)
+ - *keyboard* module now writes X11 layout configuration with variants
+   for all non-ASCII (e.g. us) layouts. (thanks Ivan)
+ - *keyboard* module now can configure keyboard switch. (thanks Ivan)
+
+## TODO ##
+
+In the interest of planning the next release, here are some
+items that I think are required to get the 3.3.0 release
+out the door:
+ - Drop Boost::Python and write the (very small) Python bindings by hand
+ - Restore the installation of config files from the repo.
+   This was removed for 3.3.0-alpha2 because forking the repo
+   to modify the configuration is a terrible idea. But this also breaks
+   patching-the-configurations at build- or packaging-time,
+   which is a legitimate use-case.
+
+## Feedback ##
+
+If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it
+on the [**Calamares issue tracker**][1]. For a full change list, see
+the full list of [issues closed][2] within the current generation (which is many releases).
+
+[1]: https://github.com/calamares/calamares/issues
+[2]: https://github.com/calamares/calamares/milestone/82