Wt (pronounced ‘witty’) is a C++ library and application server for developing and deploying web applications. The API is widget-centric and offers complete abstraction of any web-specific application details. You could say it’s like Qt but for the web.

I have been packaging Wt for Debian and Ubuntu, and providing backports for Ubuntu, for years now.

So far, Wt packages were just one more citizen amongst the many other packages in my PPA. Invariably, I received complaints and suggestions pointing in the direction of chaos and havoc: installing Wt from my PPA and running apt-get full-upgrade meant many packages were updated (just try and do that on a Hardy: half the distribution is upgraded :-)). Some of the updated packages were as essential as g++, Boost, Qt, Samba, ALSA and GStreamer. While I seldomly broke anything, I understand people would be worried for their systems, especially people running servers.

From today on, Wt packages will no longer be available from my PPA but from a new, dedicated repository: the Wt PPA.

The Wt PPA contains only the essential packages required to install Wt on a basic system. You do not need to enable backports, proposed or anything: just add the Wt PPA repository to your out-of-the-box Ubuntu and install the libwt* packages. Currently, packages for Hardy, Jaunty, Karmic and Lucid are available. Packages for Maverick will be available as soon as bug 647597 is fixed.

Click here to go to the Wt PPA

I hope you enjoy it.

PS If you need packages for Debian Lenny, check my OpenSuse Build Service repository. Read more at the Wt wiki