Some updates to share with you regarding Slackware software packages.

A new batch of Plasma5 packages for Slackware-current is available now. The KDE-5_20.05 release is also the last monthly update you’ll see from me for a while in my ‘ktown‘ repository. I expect Pat to add Plasma5 to Slackware-current, but I am done waiting and have an urgent need to dedicate my spare time to other matters. With PAM finally added to the core distro, there should no longer be a showstopper for getting rid of KDE4 and replacing it with Plasma5.

And remember, these packages will not work on Slackware 14.2. Along with adding the May batch for -current, I have removed the old (KDE 5_17.11) Plasma5 packages that were still in my ‘ktown’ repository for Slackware 14.2. They have been un-maintained for two and a half years, who knows what security issues they cause. If you really want or need Plasma5, migrate to Slackware-current please.

This May ktown release contains the KDE Frameworks 5.70.0, Plasma 5.18.5 and Applications 20.04.1. All this on top of Qt 5.13.2 that is in Slackware-current. Check the README for installation & upgrade instructions if you are new to this.

Deps:
I added the package libqalculate which enables interactive graph plotting capability in krunner, and recompiled speech-dispatcher to properly install the info files.

Frameworks:
Frameworks 5.70.0 is an incremental stability release, see: https://www.kde.org/announcements/kde-frameworks-5.70.0.php.

Plasma:
Plasma 5.18.5 is the final incremental release of 5.18 LTS (Long Term Support) before 5.19.x becomes available. I do not know if Pat wants to stick with 5.18 for a while or go ahead with 5.19, I hope he will leave the LTS release behind. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.18.0.php for the full announcement including several video’s portraying the strong points of KDE’s desktop environment and https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.18.5.php for information on these latest updates.

Plasma-extra;
In plasma-extra I recompiled sddm-qt5 to give it an updated set of PAM configurations. Root can now login to SDDM, some people thought that should be allowed, and so be it.

Applications;
Applications 20.04.1 is an incremental bug fix release, see also https://kde.org/announcements/releases/2020-05-apps-update/

Applications-extra:
In applications-extra I recompiled krita against the new boost libraries, updated calligra, kdevelop, kdev-php, kdev-python and kstars, okteta and added a new package: kid3, which is an audio file tagger.

Telepathy:
KDE Telepathy is no longer part of my ‘ktown’ distribution of KDE Plasma5.

Where to get KDE Plasma5 for Slackware

Download the KDE-5_20.05 from the usual location at https://slackware.nl/alien-kde/current/ or one of its mirrors like http://slackware.uk/people/alien-kde/current/ .
Check out the README file in the root of the repository for detailed installation or upgrade instructions.

Development of Plasma5 is tracked in git: https://git.slackware.nl/ktown/ .

A new Plasma5 Live ISO will be available soon at https://slackware.nl/slackware-live/latest/ (rsync://slackware.nl/mirrors/slackware-live/latest/) with user/pass being “live/live” as always.

DAW

I am regularly updating packages that are part of my ‘Digital Audio Workstation’ (DAW) collection.
And today I was able to add a new release of Ardour . After a long development process, there’s finally a jump from version 5 to 6!
Ardour is a professional-grade cross-platform DAW, and among the new features in version 6 are:

  • Full latency compensation
  • New high quality resampling engine at its core
  • Cue monitoring
  • Much better MIDI workflow
  • Improved plugin management
  • Pulseaudio output (useful for mixing/arranging using bluetooth speakers/headset)
  • ARM (Raspberry Pi) binaries available
  • A virtual MIDI keyboard was added

Let me know what you think of this new Ardour and its Slackware package. Is anything missing? Are you happy?

Have fun! Eric