KDE Software Compilation 4.6.3.

Here it is again, the monthly update to the KDE 4.6 series. Sources have been available publicly since friday, but due to Mother’s Day it took a while to upload my packages.. KDE team anounced the new release as usual.

Built on Slackware 13.37, it will work fine on -current (because at this moment, there is little difference). Exactly when KDE 4.6 will enter Slackware’s -current tree I don’t know, but I will happily keep building packages in the meantime.

If you want to try out KDE SC 4.6.3 instead of Slackware’s 4.5.5 (or my previous 4.6.2) please follow the installation/upgrade instructions in the accompanying README file!

Besides the KDE packages (in the kde/ directory) some of Slackware’s own official packages need to be upgraded, or even removed. There are also a few packages that are required by KDE 4.6.x but are not yet in Slackware. All of those packages are found in the “deps” directory. Don’t miss out on them, or you will have a less than pleasant experience.

One thing that I have added since my 4.6.2 packages is bluedevil, the new bluetooth connection manager for KDE. It integrates well with KDE (you will find a “send to bluetooth device” in Dolphin’s context menu for instance). The old “kbluetooth” application is no longer developed and the GTK application in Slackware “blueman” is not as featureful.

By the way, if you want to make your GTK applications blend better into the KDE desktop, then there is a new GTK theme engine for you – which was created by KDE’s own Oxygen artwork team. It is called “oxygen-gtk” and I have a package for it in my main SlackBuilds repository: http://slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/oxygen-gtk/ .

I installed oxygen-gtk on my laptop running KDE 4.6 and the effect it has on the looks of applications like Firefox, Gimp, Pidgin etc.. is stunning. Of course, the integration is most effective if you are using the Oxygen theme in KDE as well! After installation, be sure to copy or merge the content of the file “/usr/share/themes/oxygen-gtk/gtk-2.0/gtkrc” to your homedirectory into the file “~/.gtkrc-2.0”

The KDE 4.6.3 packages for Slackware 13.37 should be available for download from my “ktown” repository by now (the Indonesian mirrors may need a bit of time to sync up):

Please note that I have removed the old 4.4.5 directory – it contained an older version of KDE4 which could be made to run on Slackware 13.0 with a bit of effort. At this moment in time, I think it is wiser to upgrade to Slackware 13.37. I removed the old stuff to free up space on my own machines.

Have fun! Eric