Arkane Systems Genie Versions Save

Welcome to the probably-last release of genie, seeing as WSL now has its own native systemd support. (To help out with which, by the way, see its cousin, bottle-imp.) We'll still be supporting genie, at least until WSL's native systemd support becomes ubiquitous, but new features are unlikely to happen.

Changes in this edition include:

• Fixed Debian multiarch packaging.
• Dynamically build WSLInterop.conf based on existing (fixes #287, #295).
• Fix for schrödinbug (fixes #298).
• Allow for faster timeout when system in degraded state.
• Added note and referrer about native systemd support.
• Added bottle-imp conflict to packages.

A multitude of changes and fixes in this one:

• Deprecated support for Debian buster and Ubuntu bionic.
• (The above should still function but will no longer be tested.)
• Python refactoring.
• Fixed no-command-specified error for genie -c.
• Added cwd preservation note to help for genie -c.
• Added proper return values for status checks (fixes #269).
• Properly configure WSLInterop binary format (fixes #267, #264).
• Carries through real UID from wrapper (fixes #258).
• Use systemd-tmpfiles for WSLg support (fixes #214, #175).
• Warn user if unsupported Unicode hostname (warns on #268, no fix).
• arm64 package for Fedora.
• Miscellaneous packaging fixes, including full packaging by GitHub Actions.

No arm64 package for Arch yet, since I had enough trouble getting the basic packaging for Arch to work in an Actions container. If any of my Arch users would like to submit the needful to cross-compile and package, it would be very much appreciated.

This release fixes a few issues and regressions that showed up in 2.2, adds the new -a option to let you act as any user, supports Jammy Jellyfish in the packaging, and most importantly, comes with an ARM64 build.

(Said ARM64 build is currently packaged for Debian only, because I can only figure out so many multi-arch packaging processes at once. Anyone who wants to contribute mods to the Arch or Fedora packaging to build ARM64 packages for them, too, will be greatly appreciated.)

Changelog:

• Paths-containing-spaces fix (#240).
• Makefile updates for CI build.
• Fixed WSL 1 detection.
• Added -a/--as-user option to allow shell/command as any user.
• Added support for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish).
• Greater robustness against misconfigured hosts files (fixes #247).
• arm64 support.
• Miscellaneous fixes.

As with 2.1 and 2.2, if you feel inclined to contribute to genie development right now, I hope you'll consider contributing to Ukraine instead.

This release updates 2.1 slightly and includes packages for the non-Debian distros:

• Single-file package python scripts.
• Man page fixes.
• Fixed building on Python 3.10.
• Dropped the "local" install option (little used; use tarball instead).

As with release 2.1, if you feel inclined to contribute to genie development right now, I hope you'll consider contributing to Ukraine instead.

This is a major release of genie which features a complete rewrite of the application in python, eliminating the .NET dependency. As such, please report any anomalies during operation or installation.

Other features include:

• Major rewrite in Python, eliminating .NET dependency.
• Moved executables from /usr/libexec/genie to /usr/lib/genie.
• Allow configuration of hostname suffix.
• Support for AppArmor namespaces.
• Work to better handle simultaneity.
• Extra warnings for problematic states.
• Documentation updates.
• Miscellaneous fixes.

There are unfortunately no other packages than the Debian one available at this time, including the tarfile and local installation options. These will follow as I find the time to rebuild them. Thank you for your patience.

If you feel moved to contribute to genie development at this time, please consider instead contributing to help Ukraine in its struggle against tyranny.

Thank you.

This is a beta release of the new genie 2.0.

It's a beta release because it's a complete rewrite in Python of the original. It does include new features (apparmor support, better handling of simultaneity, configurable hostname suffices, deprecation of the unshare= setting, etc.), but the documentation is still in the process of being rewritten. (It is, however, almost entirely backwards compatible with the 1.x series in operation.)

Looking for a few daring folks to give this a whirl from the attached .deb and report back on how it goes.

Also, since I'm not up on python-script-dependent app packaging for Debian, I could also use someone to check over my packaging, and for that matter, I could also use people with some experience in packaging for Arch and Fedora to look at rehabilitating the packagers for those systems, which I haven't gotten around to yet.

UPDATE: updated readme now readable at https://github.com/arkane-systems/genie/tree/dev-2.0

• Standardized use of /usr/lib rather than /lib.
• Updated ArkaneSystems.WSL to 0.2.13.
• Made genie resolv.conf stub option-controlled.
• Misc fixes.

Note that unlike 1.43, automatically adjusting /etc/resolv.conf for systemd-resolved use is an opt-in feature. See README for full details.

This is a fake release for testing automatic packaging workflows.

• Based on collated systemd-analyze results, re-upped default systemd startup timeout to 240s.
• Added automated creation of resolv.conf symlink (per #130).
• Added fix for binfmt mount (per #142).

• Regression fixes.