Upcoming release of sett 5.7.0

Tags:
Categories:

Update in the OS requirements for running upcoming sett-gui versions on Linux

Technologies used in software development are moving fast (we leave it up to you to decide whether this is a feature or a bug), and the sett codebase has to keep-up with this evolving environment.

In its upcoming 5.7.0 release, sett will migrate to Tauri 2.0, a new major version of the Tauri framework - the Rust 🦀 library that sett depends-on for its graphical user interface (sett-gui).

This update will have some impacts on the operating system requirements necessary to run sett-gui (the sett Desktop App with a graphical user interface) on Linux machines.

Specifically:

  • Older Linux operating systems such as RockyLinux 8 or Ubuntu 20 will no longer be able to run the base binary executable sett-gui.
  • To mitigate that issue, starting with version 5.7.0, a flatpak version of sett-gui will be made available - see below for more details.
  • MacOS, Windows 10/11, as well as modern Linux operating systems (e.g. Ubuntu >= 22) are unaffected and will be able to run the upcoming sett-gui 5.7.0 binary out-of-the-box.
  • Important: these changes only affect GUI version of sett. The CLI and TUI versions can still be run exactly as before, even on older operating systems.

Installing and running upcoming sett-gui versions on older operating systems

Running the upcoming sett-gui 5.7.0 (Desktop App) on older operating systems such as Ubuntu <= 20 and RockyLinux 8 remains possible with a couple of minor adaptations:

  • Instead of using the regular binary executable, users will need to run the flatpak packaged version of sett-gui. The flatpak version of sett will be made available starting with version 5.7.0.
  • On relatively old systems, such as RockyLinux 8, users will also need to install the OS package xdg-desktop-portal-gtk via their package manager for the flatpak version to run properly. Here, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk serves as an update for the older xdg-desktop-portal package that is installed natively on RockyLinux 8.
    • ⚠️ Warning: while the installation of xdg-desktop-portal-gtk fixes the main usability issues for the flatpak version of sett on RockyLinux 8, the drag-and-drop action to select files remains non-functional. While not ideal, this is a minor usability aspect that should have only limited impact on the overall user experience.

If, for some reason, running the flatpak version of sett should not work, it always remains possible to run sett in CLI (command line) or TUI (terminal user interface) modes, as these are unaffected by changes in OS requirements.

Please note that the new version 5.7.0 of sett has not been release yet, but should become available in the next few weeks. As usual, it will be available via our official download page.

Need Help or Have Feedback?

As always, the BioMedIT team is happy to help and/or hear from you at biomedit@sib.swiss.