Boutique - Suggestions for KeepassX and Wine

Development Discussion
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#1

I noticed that KeepassX hasn’t been updated since October of last year, so it seems pretty much dead. There is a new version called KeepassXC that was forked from KeepassX has bugfixes and some new features compared to the old one. I think it would be better if we changed KeepassX from the Software Boutique to KeepassXC. Has a snap package too:

 sudo snap install keepassxc

As for Wine, I would recommend using the staging version of Wine since it usually performs better than the development build since it builds from there and adds some patches that havent been added to the development version of Wine yet like CSMT(Commandstream multithreading) which brings better graphic performance.

Youtube user Manero666 has been doing some benchmarks comparing WIne versions for a while, here’s a short one showing Batman Arkham City. The Gallium Nine version beats all of them, but for that you need to use the open source drivers and have an AMD card since Nvidia’s open source driver is pretty bad for games. There were some talks on adding Gallium Nine to wine staging, but havent seen any update yet.

Installing wine-staging:

wget -nc https://repos.wine-staging.com/wine/Release.key 
sudo apt-key add Release.key
sudo apt-add-repository 'https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/'
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-staging

Thoughts?

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#2

[quote=“Cold, post:1, topic:13756”]The Gallium Nine version beats all of them[/quote]Highly hardware dependant though. I’m on AMD (but an APU, not a GPU) and for me, Wine Staging usually wins out over both Gallium Wine and wine-devel. Both in terms of performance as well as in terms of stability/reliability. There are things Staging will run that neither devel nor Gallium Wine will run.

Anyhow, I’m thinking this is more something to take up with base Ubuntu’s maintainers. Particularly things like dead projects such as KeepPassX.

#3

Thanks for the info about KeePassXC – I’ve switched over to it :slight_smile: It could be a snap for the new Boutique, @Wimpy!

As for Wine Staging, I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that staging should only be used if there’s a patch or something not yet in the main Wine builds that prevents certain types of applications/games from running… that advise might have changed now. :confused:

I’d say whichever Wine version offers the most stability for a wide range of programs, and preferably one that won’t break easily.

I’ve noted these potential changes on Trello @Wimpy.

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#4

Woops, had a wrong vid on wine benchmarks. That should be fixed.

Yeah, thats why I recommend the staging version instead of gallium nine. Tried it with Nouveaou, and it was a mess.:disappointed:

Happy to help. :kissing_heart:

Well, I use wine only on steam and some freeware games without a Linux version, so I don’t know if staging has a problem with other type of programs like Windows Office et al. Kinda new at the wine stuff, so better ask someone else.

#5

If only snaps would theme properly, it looks so ugly without a matching theme…

#6

I’m trying KeepassXC, installed on Xubuntu 16.04 via sudo snap install keepassxc, but the interface looks fugly; it’s totally functional but visually unpolished (even the mouse pointer looks different when hovering inside the window). Something to do with the snap install? would a .deb install be different?

Thanks.

#7

Yes, a deb install would look fine.
Lack of theme integration is a known problem with snaps (and to be honest, something they should have solved ahead of time before they pushed it out with 16.04).

#8

A .deb install? I couldn’t find such a file. I only found the snap package.

#9

Here https://github.com/magkopian/keepassxc-debian/releases

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#10

I thought there was a recent update supporting themes, or was that flatpaks?

Speaking of that @lah7 are ppa and snaps the only way you guys will consider adding them to the Boutique? What about flatpaks and appimages? Would imagine it might get messy updating all those different sources though…

#11

It was flatpaks: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/05/flatpak-theme-issue-fix

#12

For now, good ol’ Apt and Snaps are currently being considered, but with the new Boutique underway, it’ll be much easier for us to expand to other sources, such as Flatpaks and AppImages should they prove to be a better way of delivering stable software securely… and of course if @Wimpy gives the thumbs up. :wink:

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#13

I agree [that KeepassXC works well]. I’ve been using KeepassXC for several months, and it’s great except for the theming[, which I think is is an OK trade-off for a security-related app].

[Edited to remove ambiguities about what I was agreeing with that I maybe seemed to contradict below.]

#14

Good point about the theming – this was the first snap I installed and wasn’t impressed (it wanted many tens of MBs too?).

I decided to use the unofficial Debian package instead, there’s no PPA either :thinking: Ideally, the developers should fix this before it lands in the (new) Boutique as a snap.

#15

Since it’s security-related, and probably not usually something you look at too much, I think the benefits of the snap outweigh the ugly theming.

2 Likes
#16

Go and say that to someone who downloads the app unknowingly and finds a UI out of Windows 95.

Yeah, noticed that too.

#17

It’s more that the Boutique stocks applications that “integrate well with the MATE desktop”, and since the theming is completely off, we haven’t met that objective. :slight_smile:

#18

And, on a more unrelated note, exactly because of the nature of this application, more technical users will benefit more if they just clone the git repository and build it themselves. KeePassXC build is very simple and with few dependencies.

Then, because of the typical usage pattern of an offline password manager and because KeePassXC is an improvement on the already pretty much stable and bug free KeePassX code, one could just forget all about it. Delete the git repository and, frankly, stay with the same version for next years. “If it works, don’t fix it”.

I also moved to KeePassXC a couple of months ago. Prior to that I had stayed with the same KeePass version for 4 full years. And my only motivation to move to KeePassXC was really just an irrational desire to check it out. In all truth KeePassX could have stayed my password manager for eternity, until it stopped working for one reason or another. Unless there are some serious security issues around, this is the type of application we just want to freeze in time. I have close to 200 randomly generated passwords on my keepass wallet. I don’t want this to become a source of immense grief because I started to pay attention to the application version number. Hell, no!

And this is perhaps the reason why I would rather prefer if you guys forgot about including KeePassXC on Boutique. I know, I know… But food for thought.

#19

Good timing on this Ubuntu Insights blog post:

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/06/19/distributing-keepassxc-as-a-snap/

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#20

[quote=“marfig, post:18, topic:13756”]we just want to freeze in time[/quote]I’d rather not have any security related application freeze in time, ever. Audits, leaked security risks, hardware improvements constantly lead to the discovery of flaws, insecurities and other such reasons to keep improving.

Instead of going with applications such as Keepass… (X, XC or otherwise), which I find to not only be going about the whole concept of password management all wrong (which to me is not about fluff and mostly superfluous utility but should be all about the easy of use combined with the strongest possible encryption methodology) but it just looks awful as well, I coded my own password manager.

Which uses AES256, SHA512 and PDKF2 for its encryption. Now, for the time being, none of those are in any direct danger but the moment I hear of a even just a theoretical attack on AES256, I’m updating the codebase. And that moment is going to come.