The KDE community released the source code to Plasma 5.2.0 today, and some of you are dying to see what it looks like.
You just need to wait a little longer.
I have built all the packages, and I am doing a final quality check. Then I’ll have to write a proper README generate the repository files (time-consuming).
One note in advance:
The Plasma 5.2.0 desktop packages (completed with Frameworks 5.6.0 and Applications 14.12.1 accompanied by some of the “old” KDE 4.14.x libraries) are built to replace your current KDE 4.x desktop! My KDE 5 preview, posted in August 2014, was meant to be co-installed with an existing KDE 4 desktop and was built so that its configuration files would be written to different directories than your existing KDE 4 configuration. This allowed the curious among you to have a sneak peak of KDE 5 with the option of completely removing it again afterwards, with no pain. The new KDE 5 release I will be presenting tomorrow, means that you have to choose: do you want to stick with KDE 4 or migrate to KDE 5 (Plasma 5.2.0)?
If you are not willing to swap a stable KDE 4 desktop environment for an adventure with KDE 5 (stable enough, with exciting new features, but may have bugs or missing features that are deal-breakers for you), it may be better to wait a bit and let the early adopters tell their story of the upgrade before you decide to join them.
If you are using slackpkg+ to manage your 3rd party packages and have added my “testing” repository http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/testing/x86/ or http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/testing/x86_64/ , then please double-check your /etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf file and make sure that you remove one of the following:
- http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/testing/x86_64/ (or http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/testing/x86/)
- http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/latest/x86_64/ (or http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/latest/x86/)
Having the first in your slackpkg+ configuration means that your KDE 4.14.3 will be migrated to Plasma 5.2.0. Keeping the second repository will ensure that you keep KDE 4.14.3 installed.
If you want to know when KDE 5 will be added to the Slackware core distro… my guess is that that will at least take another year. The stable Slackware release which we are working towards, will likely see its ageing KDE be refreshed with the latest KDE 4.14.3 enhanced with the LTS (Long Term Support) versions of kdelibs, kdepim* and kde-workspace, but not with KDE 5.
Also, remember that this release of KDE 5 is meant to be run on slackware-current. If you are running Slackware 14.1 or even one of the older stable releases, then KDE 5 is something you will only be reading about. By the way, I still have KDE 4.13.3 for Slackware 14.1 of course, if you think Slackware’s own KDE 4.10.5 is getting stale.
The git history of my development process towards a “stable enough for daily work” Plasma 5 desktop is here: http://taper.alienbase.nl/cgit/ktown/log/?h=5_15.01
I hope to have packages no later than tomorrow, and proper instructions in a blog article no later than thursday.
Eric
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