The Consistency & Cleanup Update

🛠️ What's New in v0.5.6

This release focuses on stability and ensuring apsta behaves perfectly across different Linux distributions and installation methods.

✨ Key Improvements

• State Consistency Fix: Resolved a "Ghost State" bug where the UI could report the hotspot as "Active" even if the physical interface was down or disconnected.
• Smarter UI Validation: The GTK4 interface now performs a hardware-level check on startup to ensure the reported status matches the actual system state.
• Clean Uninstalls: Added a prerm (pre-removal) script for the Debian package. This ensures that when you uninstall apsta, any temporary network configurations are wiped, leaving your system in a pristine state.

📦 Distribution Status

• PyPI: Updated to 0.5.6. Install via pipx install apsta.
• Ubuntu PPA: v0.5.6 is now building for Noble, Jammy, and Focal.

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🚀 How to Update

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade apsta

Python/Universal:

pipx upgrade apsta

The "Universal Install" Update

🚀 Release v0.5.5: The "Universal Install" Update

apsta is now easier to install than ever! With this release, we've brought apsta to the major Linux package ecosystems. You no longer need to clone the repository or manually manage dependencies—installation is now a seamless, one-line process across almost all Linux distributions.

📦 How to Install

🟠 Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, & Debian-based (Official PPA)

Get automatic updates and seamless system dependency management directly through apt:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:krotrn/apsta
sudo apt update
sudo apt install apsta

🟢 Fedora, openSUSE, & Universal Linux (PyPI)

For all other distributions, install the isolated package globally via pipx (ensures a clean system environment):

# Ensure system dependencies are installed: NetworkManager, iw, iproute2, hostapd, dnsmasq
pipx install apsta

# To use the GUI, ensure you have GTK4 dependencies:
# sudo dnf install python3-gobject gtk4 libadwaita

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✨ What's New in the 0.5.x Series

If you haven't updated in a while, apsta has evolved into a complete, bulletproof hotspot manager:

• 🖥️ GTK4 / Libadwaita GUI (apsta-gtk): A beautiful, native three-page interface to manage your hotspot, configure settings, and detect hardware—working flawlessly on GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and more.
• 🧠 Smart Hardware Detection: apsta detect now accurately identifies split-block interface capabilities (like the Intel AX200) and automatically switches to a hostapd + dnsmasq NAT strategy to keep your WiFi connected while broadcasting.
• 🔌 USB Adapter Scanner: Built-in card not supported? Run apsta scan-usb to detect compatible plugged-in adapters, or apsta recommend for a curated list of Linux-friendly dongles to buy.
• 💤 True Persistence: Run sudo apsta enable to install a systemd service and a custom sleep/wake hook. Your hotspot will now survive reboots and laptop lid-closes automatically.

🐛 Bug Fixes in 0.5.5

• The "Ghost State" Fix: Addressed an issue where improper uninstallations could leave behind a stale /etc/apsta/config.json file, trapping the UI in an "Active" state. The UI now actively verifies the physical existence of the network interface before reporting it as active.
• Streamlined the codebase for architecture-independent packaging across Debian, PyPI, and Arch.

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Enjoying apsta? Please consider giving the repository a ⭐ to help other Linux users find the project! If you run into any issues with the new installation methods, please [open an issue]

v0.5.2

Full Changelog: v0.5.1...v0.5.2

v0.5.1

Full Changelog: https://github.com/krotrn/apsta/commits/v0.5.1