Yesterday there was a new release for the KDE Applications. I know that I updated my KDE 5 package set barely a week ago, but there were a few updates that I wanted to push anyway, so adding the updated Applications packages seemed like the proper thing to do.

So here is my first (there will probably a second) June release: KDE 5_15.06. Components are Frameworks 5.10.0, Plasma 5.3.1 and Applications 15.04.2. The updates to Applications contain KDE 4 Long Term Support (LTS) releases of kdelibs, kdepimlibs, kdepim, kdepim-runtime and kde-workplace.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.06?

The highlights of 5_15.06 (June release) are:

  • KDE Applications have been updated to 15.04.2 (a maintenance release containing the aforementioned KDE4 LTS updates)
  • KDE 4 Extragear has one package now: kdeconnect4, a barebones version of the kdeconnect-kde package that comes with slackware-current. It contains just those files that are required to access your Android device’s filesystem through Dolphin (which itself is still KDE 4 based). The rest of the old KDE 4 extragear is now part of slackware-current itself: grab these extragear packages (calligra, k3b, kdev-python, kdevelop, kdevelop-php, kdevelop-php-docs, kdevplatform, kio-mtp, kwebkitpart, oxygen-gtk2, oxygen-gtk3, partitionmanager, skanlite) from any slackware-current mirror.
  • KDE 4 based package kactivities no longer ships with the daemon kactivitymanagerd. The daemon is incompatible with the Frameworks version of kactivities, and in some cases this file overwrote the Frameworks version of kactivitymanagerd, causing severe desktop crashes.

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. Note that the packages are available in several subdirectories below “kde”, instead of directly in “kde”. This makes it easier for me to do partial updates of packages. The subdirectories are “kde4”, “kde4-extragear”, “frameworks” “plasma”, “plasma-extra” and “applications”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult this time, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.04 or later. You will have to remove old KDE packages manually. If you do not have KDE installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware’s own KDE 4 packages manually.

Note:

If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_15.01 or newer and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should work but feel free to send me improved instructions if needed (assuming in this example that you tagged my KDE 5 repository with the name “ktown_testing” in the configuration file “/etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf”):
# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install ktown_testing (to get the newly added packages from my repo)
# slackpkg install-new (to get the new official Slackware packages that were part of my deps previously)
# slackpkg upgrade ktown_testing (upgrade all existing packages to their latest versions)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)
# removepkg sddm-theme-breeze (gone after KDE 5_15.01)
# removepkg libmm-qt5 (gone after KDE 5_15.03)
# removepkg qt-gstreamer0 (gone after KDE 5_15.04)
# slackpkg reinstall qt-gstreamer (ensure that none of the overlapping files of qt-gstreamer0 are left)
# slackpkg reinstall kactivities-framework (ensure that you are using the frameworks version of kactivitymanagerd)

And doublecheck that you have not inadvertently blacklisted my packages in “/etc/slackpkg/blacklist“! Check for the existence of a line in that blacklist file that looks like “[0-9]+alien” and remove it if you find it!

Recommended reading material

There have been several posts now about KDE 5 for Slackware-current. All of them contain useful information, tips and gotchas that I do not want to repeat here, but if you want to read them, here they are: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/tag/kde5/

A note on Frameworks

The KDE Frameworks are extensions on top of Qt 5.x and their usability is not limited to the KDE Software Collection. There are other projects which rely (in part) on the KDE Frameworks, and if you are looking for a proper Frameworks repository which is compatible with Slackware package managers such as slackpkg+, then you can use these URL’s to assure yourself of the latest Frameworks packages for Slackware-current (indeed, this is a sub-tree of my  KDE 5 “testing” repository):

Where to get the new packages for Plasma 5

Download locations are listed below (you will find the sources in ./source/5/ and packages in /current/5/ subdirectories). If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.

Using a mirror is preferred because you get more bandwidth from a mirror and it’s friendlier to the owners of the master server!

Have fun! Eric