Qt dev package does not include webenginewidgets

[Ali Lakhia]

Attached is a sample project that uses several QT components. To build this, one needs to install the following packages:

apt-get install libqt5core5a qtconnectivity5-dev qtmultimedia5-dev qt5-default libqt5webkit5-dev qt3d5-dev g++

Then, run qmake. The expected result should be output of a Makefile, Makefile.debug and Makefile.release. However, I get the following error:

unknown modules: webenginewidgets

I do not see any package that provides the web engine widgets component and must conclude that the QT package is missing this.

Therefore am opening this bug and requesting that QT be packaged to include webengine. Or a separate package be provided with this.

This is for 16.04 release which packages Qt 5.5.1. Thanks.

[Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki)]

Unfortunately Qt WebEngine is not available at all in Debian or Ubuntu, because it's largely unsuitable for distribution. This bug therefore won't fix until there is someone willing to spend considerable effort (months at minimum) to package Qt WebEngine to Debian (from which it will get into Ubuntu).

Some discussion pointers from last years at:

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-kde-talk/2014-October/001970.html
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-kde-talk/2015-April/002047.html
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-kde-talk/2016-January/002289.html

[Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki)]

I'll want to add that in Ubuntu you may want to use Oxide instead which provides somewhat similar, modern up-to-date and security supported web engine with Qt/QML bindings: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/oxide-qt

[Ali Lakhia (ali-lakhia)]

Thanks for the updates and the links to the discussions. My understanding is that Debian doesn't wish to distribute Qt WebEngine because it is would be linked in statically and thus not receive any security updates. And changing it to use the library dynamically would be too much work. Is that a fair assessment?

I did look into the Oxide packages. I tried to install several of them, including even the codecs. However, this still doesn't allow me to build my test project (see attachment). So, appears that Oxide is not a drop-in replacement for web engine. Also, I found hardly any documentation on Oxide other than a blog post. I also found https://launchpad.net/oxide but that is very scare on details or documentation.

If you have any other pointers, please let us know. Otherwise, our best course of action is to package QT ourselves. Thanks again.

[Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki)]

Yes, making it call the libraries already in Debian dynamically would be a lot of work. We'll see if someone will eventually work on it or not, there are certainly applications that would require it.

And yes, Oxide is not drop-in replacement, it has different API etc. It's however a fully up-to-date and secure Chromium based browser engine similar to QtWebEngine otherwise. But then again, Oxide is currently only available in Ubuntu.

[Simon Quigley (tsimonq2)]

If I'm understanding this bug report correctly, you need QtWebEngine to be in Debian. I'll assign this to myself as I have been working with the Debian Qt people to get QtWebEngine and QtWebChannel (a dependency of QtWebEngine) packaged.

At the moment, QtWebChannel is in Debian, and we're waiting on some tweaks to QtWebEngine's debian/copyright file for it to be uploaded.

I can reasonably predict that QtWebEngine will be in Ubuntu 17.04 before Feature Freeze. I'll keep this bug report updated.