BusKill v0.5.0 released

We’re happy to announce the release of BusKill v0.5.0

Upgrading

You can upgrade your BusKill app to the latest version either by

1. Clicking “Update” in the app or
2. Downloading it from GitHub

Changes

This update includes many bug fixes and new features, including:

1. Added FUNDING.yml to GitHub for donations since we were accepted by Open Collective
2. Added a new “Debug Log” screen to display and copy the runtime Debug Log in-app. This will make it easier for us to debug issues when a user reports a bug.
3. Various improvements to the build scripts
4. Adds warnings to Pull Requests containing potentially malicious unicode (Trojan Source)
5. Updates our PGP KEYS
6. Updates CI process to download libusb1 at build-time, now that Vincent Pelletier is signing python-libusb1 releases
7. Adds a script to create the files to be copied onto the BusKill USB Storage Drive sold with the BusKill cable

You can find our changelog here:

• https://docs.buskill.in/buskill-app/en/stable/changelog.html

And you can find a complete diff of all the changes from v0.4.0 to v0.5.0 here:

• https://github.com/buskill/buskill-app/compare/b0724ad9513627ad4aff2ee9d1d8a0c7605b0e2d..bffeeaab398bb19609b6792b05f79f5372e0b221

Documentation Improvements

We’ve also made many improvements to our documentation

1. We’ve added a section to the GUI Software User Guide showing how to upgrade the app from inside the app
2. We’ve added a section to the Support chapter on how to get and send us a Debug log if you encounter a bug.
3. We’ve added a few cool projects to our Attribution chapter that are similar to BusKill that our users may be interested in checking out
4. We’ve added a new section to our Hardware Developer Guide describing how to Initialize USB Storage Drives that are being packaged into the BusKill kits for sale
5. We’ve updated the assembly gif image from the prototype to the injection-molded BusKill cable that we’re now manufacturing.
6. We’ve added a link to our .onion site as an additional out-of-band location to obtain our PGP key fingerprints
7. We’ve updated our Contributing chapter with a link to make fiat donations to the project since we’ve been accepted by Open Collective

Testers Needed!

We do our best to test the BusKill app on Linux, Windows, and MacOS. But unfortunately it’s possible that our app doesn’t fully function on all versions, distributions, and flavours of these three platforms.

We could really use your help testing the BusKill app, especially if you have access to a system that’s not (yet) listed in our Supported Platforms.

Please contact us if you’d like to help test the BusKill app 🙂

Manufactured Hardware Progress

It’s been almost two years since our last software release. This has been primarily because software development has been secondary to our work on the hardware (which is much harder and slower than software!).

We’re very happy that our crowdfunding campaign successfully raised $18,507 earlier this year. After fees and Crowd Supply’s cut Alt Shift International OÜ (the company we’ve partnered with to manufacture and sell BusKill cables) received €13,150.68 in February 2022. This funding allowed ASI to build injection mold plates, manufacture the magnetic breakaway cables, sample & order other components, build kits, rent warehouse space, stock inventory, etc.

As work is now finished on manufacturing and the first production round of products are almost finished being stocked at ASI’s and their distributor’s inventory with BusKill cables, we’ll be publishing an update with more detail about the work on our open-source hardware shortly.

We hope to return primarily to software development soon!

3D-Printable Hardware Progress

You can also track the development of our 3D-Printable hardware designs on GitHub here:

• https://github.com/BusKill/usb-a-magnetic-breakaway/issues/2

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