Today saw the announcement of a new chapter in the KDE 4.8 series. I was already very pleased with the point release 4.8.0 – it is amazing how the developers managed to keep their desktop environment stable when transitioning from 4.7 to 4.8. And the first maintenance release 4.8.1 brings us bug fixes and more.

Thanks to the fact that the KDE team makes the sources available to packagers ahead of the public announcement, I am again able to provide you with Slackware KDE 4.8.1 packages on time, and they are up for the taking!

It appears that I finally raised Patrick’s interest in the current generation of KDE. He has built his own set of packages and I received excited reports from him. That is a good sign! Perhaps there will be a nice update to slackware-current in a not-too-distant future.

Please note that my own KDE packages have been compiled on Slackware-current. There has been an incompatible update to slackware-current recently (the glibc package) which will cause run-time errors if you attempt to start these KDE programs in Slackware 13.37. If you consider using KDE 4.8.1 on one of Slackware’s earlier (stable) releases, then you have no other option than to compile packages yourself. I have written down the guidelines in another blog post..

Read the accompanying README file for installation and upgrade instructions!

You will find a lot of additional information about what the new KDE offers in comparison to the old version in Slackware, in my announcement post for KDE 4.8.0  Worth checking out if you had not read it before.

Highlight of this new set of Slackware packages:

  • I have added Calligra 2.4_rc1. Calligra is the continuation or “fork” if you wish of the old KOffice. Near the end of 2010 there was a fall-out between the developers of the various KOffice components, and the majority (everyone except the KWord developer) walked off to start the Calligra fork.  The Calligra office suite is fianlly entering Release Candidate stage, and it is stable enough to use it on a daily basis. Don’t forget to “removepkg koffice”!  Calligra’s technology is already being used on tablets: the MeeGo Office suite has Calligra at its core. There is already support for Plasma Active as well, you will find the “Active” applications in your KDE menu.

The KDE 4.8.1 packages for Slackware-current are available for download from my “ktown” repository and several mirrors (taper is in sync when I post this, the other mirrors will catch up soon):

Have fun! Eric