[Qgis-user] QGIS 3.18.0 and QGIS 3.14.4 (LTR) packages released and OSGeo4W reboot

[Julien Cabieces]

Hi Jurgen,

Great work!! Thanks! 

> The package recipes currently reside at
> https://github.com/jef-n/OSGeo4W.

Do you plan to accept PR on packages? Would it be possible to build
automatically packages with CI in the future? 

Kind regards,
Julien

> Hi there,
>
> I'm happy to announce that the QGIS packages of 3.16.4 (LTR) 'Hannover' and the
> our latest release 3.18.0 'Zürich' are ready on
> https://qgis.org/de/site/forusers/download.html.  This includes Linux, Mac and
> Windows packages.  With the availability of a new regular release the current
> long-term release 3.16 replaces the previous long-term release 3.10 in the long
> term package repositories.
>
> The Windows standalone installer are as usual made from the OSGeo4W packages.
>
> In OSGeo4W there has lately been a big effort to reboot it, meaning that it has 
> been completely rebuilt using newer source versions of mostly every package 
> using a newer compiler.  As this happened shortly before the QGIS release the
> new packages are still in a separate repository for testing.
>
> You can install them using the osgeo4w installer on
> http://download.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/testing/osgeo4w-setup.exe (note the testing -
> the old installer will also work, if you point it to the new site, but it will
> default to the old).
>
> Within the reboot a lot of old packages were dropped (including dependencies to 
> old microsoft runtimes), new packages were introduced and also package names
> were revised.
>
> Long story short: you cannot upgrade from old installs and have to remove and
> reinstall or use a separate directory.  As the new OSGeo4W only supports 64bit
> the default root directory was changed to C:\OSGeo4W, which might help with
> that if you were on 64bit earlier.
>
> Also note that it now only has one version of Python - namely 3.9, which
> doesn't support Windows 7 anymore.  Other updates include Qt 5.15, GDAL 3.2,
> PROJ 7.2 and SAGA 7.8.
>
> It also has PDAL 2.2 which is required for native support of point clouds in 
> QGIS - something that you find lacking in the "old" OSGeo4W repository and in
> turn in the current standalones.
>
> The new installer also doesn't require administrator privileges anymore.  
> Unless you run it elevated (ie. as Administrator) the option to create 
> shortcuts for all users will be unavailable.
>
> The testing repository will eventually replace the old repository and also be
> used to make standalone installers.   As it has grown to exceed the 2GB limit 
> of NSIS the standalone installers will then be switched to MSI.
>
> The package recipes currently reside at https://github.com/jef-n/OSGeo4W.
>
> Please test and report packaging issues to the OSGeo4W TRAC at
> https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w.
>
>
>
> Jürgen