V5.5+ Testing Channel Changelog

Announcements
1

5.5.0-0

Release in testing channel updates on 20th March 2026.
Leap 15.6 (multi-arch) & Tumbleweed (multi-arch) & Slowroll (x86_64).
Our International Day of Happiness release.

Overview

This is the first release of a renewed testing phase denoted in our RPM change-log via the following entry:

This one has been a long time in development, primarily due to the extensive updates in the back-end - but we are not quite there just yet. The next milestone, as yet unpublished, focuses on getting this work, and just a few similar improvements, into our Stable updates; dictating field testing. Ergo this release. So as this development progresses - and within the scope defined by the change-logs, do consider dabbling as we are eager to push what we have to where we are going. Ultimately to assist with more rapid development as we adopt more modern back-end. With the mid-term goal of modernising our front-end.

Please note that in almost every issue below, @Flox co-maintainer & openQA backend dev, @Hooverdan Rock-ons maintainer/core-developer & forum admin, and myself have played some part. Thanks to all who have played any part. I am happy to present what we have to-date.

Watch this thread if what you see here thus-far is still a little ‘Edgy’ for you.

What’s Changed

New Contributors

@delboy711 made their first contribution in #2998
@hberntsen made their first contribution in #3006
@tsx4k made their first contribution in #3051
@tjkirch made their first contribution in #3076

Test away and report rapidly as we work against the forces of kipple.

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4

5.5.1-0

Released in edge & testing channel updates on 22nd April 2026
Leap 15.6 (multi-arch) & Tumbleweed/Slowroll (aarch/x86_64).

1st Stable Release Candidate (RC1)

This is a little early for an RC, but we are shortening our testing phases, and have, in this release, introduced a new Edge repo for early package proofing. Plus we have a pressing need to update our Stable channel soon. Once more releases follow, the intention with edge is to help avoid the more severe breaking changes we often see in early testing.

Alas we can only move on; and at this point that is to thank @simon-77 & @mzyy94 for reporting, diagnosing, and fixing a quotes enablement loop that has bugged us for a while now. We also have our own @Hooverdan (core-contributor) to thank for seeing to some Python/Django make-work I missed during our whirlwind of updates that got us to 5.5.0-0 previously. Again we have a forum report by @sanderweel this time to thank for highlighting that one: broken scheduled tasks in 5.5.0-0. And of course, as always, I would like to thank @Flox (co-maintainer) for some intrepid backend progress that has yet to surface but will be worth the wait QA wise, and for assisting in a number development tasks. I’ll just leave it there.

Oh, and did I mention our Stable repo access is now open, no I don’t think I did. We have yet to achieve financial sustainability, even after having moved to a non-profit now for a number of years. So lets see if this final or first of many moves helps in that regard, or if we are sounding our own death knell. I for one hope not, but we have now been limping financially for over 13 years and we should be leaping not limping. Which leads me to the following:

The “Stable Updates subscription” tier is retained, but is now requested, not required.

What’s Changed

New Contributors

@mzyy94 made their first contribution in #3099

Test away and report rapidly as we work against the forces of kipple.

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6

5.5.2-1

Release in edge and testing channel updates on 1st May 2026.
*Leap 16.0 & Leap 15.6 (multi-arch) & *Tumbleweed/Slowroll (aarch/x86_64).

2nd Stable Release Candidate (RC2)

We have our next installment in the RC move towards Stable. I’ll keep this brief as there has, frankly, been little feedback on the last testing release and its associated announcement for that matter. A big change that has likely been missed by some of our visitors here.

In this release we have, due to over a years preparation, now enabled Poetry managed standalone Python - and at the same time moved all, including the now EOL leap 15.6 target, over to using Python 3.13 to run our code - something that was not packaged at-all in Leap 15.6 - a severe constraint in our ability to enable this update. As such we conditionally still use Py3.11 to host our Poetry only on Leap 15.6, but now use the OS Py3.13 as Poetry host on all other build targets.

Speaking of build-targets, did you notice the Leap 16.0 reference above. We are experimenting with this OS as a future platform but due to having only just incorporated it we have little community feedback on capability as-yet. The name is shared with Leap 15.0 - 15.6, our entire openSUSE history there, but it is quite different in a number of ways. It is, for us, a little closer to Slowroll/Tumbleweed than it is to 15.6 - which was a long running variant to give the upstream folks time to assemble this much newer variant. Our capabilities on this OS are likely more akin to those on SR/TW so keep that in mind when testing - contributing fixes. Also note that we have yet to incorporate our own SELinux policy - something we would welcome assistance with, if you have working knowledge in that area. I would prefer a hand-crafted / though-out policy to one auto created without care however.

As always thanks to all here on the forum who have tried to help with our development, and of course to the core team of @Flox & @Hooverdan both of which have, as usual, contributed to this release - which is actually 2 releases as I forgot to bump the version number at the last minute and we are still tied to GitHub in this regard - more on that to come :slight_smile: .

Also note that, while moving to the newer Poetry and having it manage our now standalone python, we have also added robustness to how we install/update our Poetry. I.e. we now uninstall Poetry and reinstall on each rpm update. This allows for smoother upgrades and host venv arrangements managed by pipx in this case. As it was found that prior installs were gathering ‘dust’ of sorts - and as a result could not support the standalone python move.

5.5.2-0 (no rpm)

What’s Changed

5.5.2-1 (rpm)

What’s Changed

Test away and report rapidly as we work against the forces of kipple.

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