Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

qyntyn · 2026-03-14 13:51:12

On my system, I was investigating what was pulling in qt5 dependencies and found that it was KeePassXC and when searching their Github issues to determine whether a QT6 port was in progress, I came across:

KeePassXC is about to get last-rited, respectively masked for removal, on Gentoo due to this iusse. Ubuntu and ArchLinux will follow soon. Please keep this great piece of software alive. Thank you very much! See https://
bugs.gentoo.org/949231

Source: https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepa … 3912974164

That is worrying as I rely on KeePassXC a lot.

Is there any ongoing thread or piece of work wrt to removing QT5 and apps which depend on it from Arch Linux that I can follow?

SimonJ · 2026-03-14 14:31:44

There is a keepassxc and qt6 in the AUR, latest version I have installed is keepassxc-qt6-2.8.0qt6.r17.81e1e89-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/keepassxc-qt6

Last edited by SimonJ (2026-03-14 14:32:44)

mpan · 2026-03-14 14:45:36

That GitHub post mentions no source for the statement about Arch. At the same time I don’t know who Christian Tietz. I can see he adopted one orphaned package in Gentoo, and has no relation to Arch Linux I could trace.

Doubtlessly Qt5 is going to be removed from official repos at some point, but so far I heard of no specific time frame. Some unneded and unmaintained Qt5 packages were dropped (e.g. qt5-webkit), but Qt5 itself is still required by over 400 packages. Even if it’s going to be dropped from official repos, the PKGBUILD remains public and available in AUR. Just like Qt4 is. So we’ll certainly not be left without access to KeePassXC.

Current major reworks are tracked at the Arch Linux TODO list. You may keep an eye on that and the arch-dev-public mailing list, and of course on the news.

qyntyn · 2026-03-14 14:48:11

Thank you for the links and the information.

seth · 2026-03-14 15:16:45

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/qt5-base/ has quite some consumers still
Gentoo bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/949231

mpan · 2026-03-14 16:39:55

You may also take a look at these data:

 $ pkgstats show qt5-base keepassxc
qt5-base       79.98
keepassxc      23.28

Package’s popularity is not a blocker for removal. It’s not without weight either and nobody’s going to just carelessly drop a password manager installed on a fourth of machines.

Qt versions popularity over time (via pkgstats webapp)⁽¹⁾ paints a picture too. Qt4 first saw drop in popularity, less and less packages depending on it. Only then it was dropped, popularity already falling down quickly. Nobody is going to cut off Qt5 without a warning.
____
⁽¹⁾ Image copy

stu · 2026-03-14 17:50:16

Hmmm, reading through that bug, the reasoning of not wanting to support Qt6 initially because of staying compatible with stable release distros is odd.
I can somehow understand not wanting to support two separate configurations, but even then, that choice should have been the newer technology, not the obsolete one...
So what if your newest package isn't comatible with the libraries provided by such distros? Well, that to me would be a valid use case for flatpacks. But even thinking back to my debian and ubuntu days, here have always been backports...
From what I can see, the brach with Qt6 is not up to date with the current release, so the AUR package doesn't have the same feature level.

But for now there are other packages that also will make removing Qt5 not so easy for now...
krita and vlc for example, but there seems to be work on supporting Qt6 for those. I can only hope keepassxc devs catch up...

002445 · 2026-03-14 18:05:31

stu wrote:

I can only hope keepassxc devs catch up...

You can always fork the repo and do the work yourself if it is that important to you...

stu · 2026-03-14 18:45:46

002445 wrote:

stu wrote:
I can only hope keepassxc devs catch up...
You can always fork the repo and do the work yourself if it is that important to you...

It's not. First there are alternatives to keepassxc, and second I personally don't have any problem with having qt5 libs on my system at the same time as qt6. I don't really see the immediate need to pruge them. If it means installing all of it from AUR, so be it...
I just find the decison to not invest early in qt6 compatibility strange, and it hurts their software in the end, but that's the devs choice.
I am grateful for the work they do and the software they provide.

Everything2067 · 2026-03-15 05:10:11

002445 wrote:

stu wrote:
I can only hope keepassxc devs catch up...
You can always fork the repo and do the work yourself if it is that important to you...

Please. Stop telling people that if application X is important then they can always fork it. Not everyone is a software developer and not everyone has the time to do it and then maintain it, apply security fixes, etc.

As for keepassxc, I also do hope that they will catch up. I don't mind installing an AUR package for it but it would be sad to see it getting dropped from the official repos if they fail to catch up.

Last edited by Everything2067 (2026-03-15 05:14:49)

002445 · 2026-03-15 06:58:01

not everyone has the time to do it and then maintain it

.

So there is time to worry about a package being dropped after reading a random comment on a Github issue from someone who wouldn't know whether a package would be dropped or not.

But there is no time to be constructive and put in work.

seth · 2026-03-15 08:55:29

Everything2067 also wrote:

Not everyone is a software developer

Depending on the individual, there's a huge difference in the amount of time it takes to scare-jump off a random internet post and become accustomed to cpp, Qt and an existing codebase (can be 5s vs. 10 years difference)

Looking at the bug, they're apparently intending to wait until 2030 when the 2020 LTS version of Ubuntu loses support.
That would probably really mean that they're losing support for the majority of distros to support one legacy one, ie. "insane".

The reasonable upstream action would be to branch off qt5, move the master to Qt6, continue development there and only fix CVEs in the qt5 branch.

Everything2067 · 2026-03-15 10:21:16

There is a PR for transitioning to Qt6: https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/pull/11651. Last activity was 3 weeks ago.
I did not care looking at the issue, but now I can see that they are still supporting Ubuntu 18.04 for some reason. I haven't heard that version for like 3-4 years. They should have ended support for 18.04 and prioritise moving to Qt6.
Also, I have been looking at some alternatives and they have left me ... unsatisfied.

Arch Linux

#1 2026-03-14 13:51:12

Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#2 2026-03-14 14:31:44

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#3 2026-03-14 14:45:36

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#4 2026-03-14 14:48:11

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#5 2026-03-14 15:16:45

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#6 2026-03-14 16:39:55

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#7 2026-03-14 17:50:16

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#8 2026-03-14 18:05:31

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#9 2026-03-14 18:45:46

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#10 2026-03-15 05:10:11

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#11 2026-03-15 06:58:01

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#12 2026-03-15 08:55:29

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

#13 2026-03-15 10:21:16

Re: Regarding KeePassXC and QT5

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