Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Day: November 9, 2016

Q4 2016 fixes for Java 8 (openjdk)

November 9, 2016 / / 1 Comment

icedteaThe icedtea project have released version 3.2.0 of their IcedTea build framework. This was done to mirror Oracle’s recent Critical Patch Update which brings OpenJDK to version 8u111_b14 or “Java 8 Update 111 Build 14”  (and the JRE too of course).

Here is the long-ish list of security fixes and CVE‘s as taken from the announcement on Andrew Hughes’s blog:

Download locations for the JDK and JRE packages (updates for Slackware 13.37 and 14.0 are still pending):

http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/openjdk/

http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/openjdk/
(rsync URI: rsync://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/openjdk/)

If your applications are not yet ready for Java 8, I still maintain the Java 7 packages under new names:”openjdk7″ and “openjre7”. Note that my Java 7 and Java 8 packages (e.g. openjdk7 and openjdk) can not co-exist on your computer because they use the same installation directory.

There is no more need for a separate “rhino” package (implementation of the JavaScript engine used by OpenJDK) because in OpenJDK 8, this functionality is provided natively using the internal “nashorn” library.

Note about usage:

Remember that I release packages for the JRE (runtime environment) and the JDK (development kit) simultaneously, but you only need to install one of the two. The JRE is sufficient if you only want to run Java programs (including Java web plugins). Only in case where you’d want to develop Java programs and need a Java compiler, you are in need of the JDK package.

Optionally: If you want to use Java in a web browser then you’ll have to install my icedtea-web package too. While Oracle’s JDK contains a browser plugin, that one is closed-source and therefore Icedtea offers an open source variant which does a decent job. Note that icedtea-web is a NPAPI plugin – this prevents use of Java in Chrome & Chromium because those browsers only support PPAPI plugins, but you’ll be OK with all Mozilla [-compatible] browsers of course.

Have fun! Eric

KDE 5_16.11 available for Slackware 14.2 and -current

November 9, 2016 / / 103 Comments

plasma5_startupBack after a hiatus due to my changing employment status: KDE 5_16.11 is my November release of the combined KDE Frameworks 5.27.0, Plasma 5.8.3 and Applications 16.08.2 for Slackware, built on top of Qt 5.7.0. You can use the latest KDE 5 on Slackware 14.2 and -current.

My intention is to keep releasing versions of the stable Plasma 5 software through the “14.2/latest” and “current/latest” URLs. I still carry a “testing” repository but that does not get updated nearly as often and is currently outdated. So please disregard that “testing” area until further notice and be sure to check your automated package management programs for the correct repository URL.

What’s new in KDE 5_16.11?

  • Frameworks 5.27.0 is an enhancement release with no new frameworks this time. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/kde-frameworks-5.27.0.php
  • Plasma 5.8.3 is an incremental bug fix release for the 5.8 series. Note that this is the first Plasma 5.8 that goes into my ‘ktown’ packages as you will notice straight away when starting a Plasma session. There is a new ‘loading’ animation again.
    Plasma 5.8 is labeled a Long Term Support (LTS) release. In part this has been done because the developers think that 5.8 marks the point where users who loved KDE 4 and turned away from Plasma 5 should re-evaluate this desktop environment and hopefully want to stay.
    The 5.8 LTS release should work with Qt 5.6.1 but I think it is better to stick with the Qt 5.7 which I already used for the previous ‘ktown’ iteration.
    See https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.8.3.php and if you want to know more about the LTS, go read: https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.8.0.php
  • Applications 16.08.2 is a maintenance upgrade. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-applications-16.08.2.php .
  • Upgrades for kdeconnect and sddm can be found in the ‘plasma-extra’ subdirectory, while a newer skanlite can be found in ‘applications-extra’.

This upgrade should be straightforward if you already have Plasma 5 installed. See below for install/upgrade instructions. And if you want to check it out before installing, I will be generating a new Live ISO’s soon for the PLASMA5 variant. Look for that ISO on http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackware-live/latest/ soon. Check the timestamp of the “slackware64-live-plasma5-current.iso” ISO.

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

You can skip the remainder of the article if you already have my Plasma 5 installed and are familiar with the upgrade process. Otherwise, stay with me and read the rest.

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“, “kdepim“, “plasma“, “plasma-extra“, “applications“, “applications-extra” and “telepathy“.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult, especially if you already are running KDE 5_16.08. You will have to remove old KDE 4 packages manually. If you do not have KDE 4 installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware’s own KDE 4 packages manually.

What I usually do is: download all the ‘ktown’ packages for the new release to a local disk. Then run “upgrade –install-new” on all these packages. Then I check the status of my Slackware-current, upgrading the stock packages where needed. The slackpkg tool is invaluable during this process of syncing the package installation status to the releases.

Note:

If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_16.08 and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should “mostly” work but you still need to check the package lists displayed by slackpkg to verify that you are upgrading all the right packages. Feel free to send me improved instructions if needed. In below example I am assuming that you tagged my KDE 5 repository with the name “ktown” in the configuration file “/etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf“):
# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install ktown (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 (upgrade all existing packages to their latest versions)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)

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 such as LXQT 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 repository):

The same goes for Frameworks for Slackware 14.2 (change ‘current’ to ‘14.2’ in the above URLs).

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

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