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):
- http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/testing/x86/kde/frameworks/
- http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/testing/x86_64/kde/frameworks/
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!
- http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/ (the master repository), rsync URI: rsync://alien.slackbook.org/alien/ktown/
- http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/ (my fast US mirror), rsync URI: rsync://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/
- http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/ (willysr’s Indonesian mirror), rsync URI: rsync://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/
- http://slackware.org.uk/people/alien-kde/ (fast UK based mirror, run by Darren Austin), rsync URI: rsync://slackware.org.uk/people/alien-kde/
Have fun! Eric
Thank you Eric!
I’d like to report that the upgrade worked flawlessly. No bumps this time!
Btw, I think the README should mention that no special install/upgrade work is required when upgrading from 5_15.05. Thanks again!
Thanks, once again, Eric, it works just fine here, this is really going to be a *VERY* fast, responsive and comfortable desktop!!
One little snag here, though: Yahoo presents an error message, when I try to open the Flickr homepage https://flickr.com:
“Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
Size of a request header field exceeds server limit.
Cookie
/n”
No problems with other web sites, including other Yahoo services. Konqueror has become *very* fast, and seems to have no problem with the pages it couldn’t handle in previous incarnations. Great!
Alex
How stable is KDE5 now?
Does everything work in KDE5?
I’m on current and i am curious to try KDE5 but i think it might be to early still, i don’t want the hole move to kde4 all over again.
Stable? Yes, so far, here.
Reccommended for a (more or less) critical production system? No.
It’s much better than KDE4 was at the same stage of development, but it’s still in a transition phase and incomplete. Once it is up and running, it won’t crash often (it didn’t crash a single time here, so far), but it doesn’t offer quite the functionality or the configurability of the very mature KDE4, yet. There are some rough edges, also. E. g., the Shutdown function of SDDM, the display manager that is replacing KDM, doesn’t work, to name just one obvious issue.
It gets better with every version, though, and it is already fun to use. I would just not yet rely on it for critical work. But give it a few months or a year more of development, and it will be a GREAT desktop.
If possible, I’d recommend that you install Slackware-current in a virtual machine with KDE5 on top of it, so that you can check out yourself, if it is already good enough for you, or not.
Thanks for the answer.
It’s my home laptop so it’s not critical more then things might make me angry.
I might try it in a virtual-machine or an live dist.
But it sounds that it still a bit to early, but it seems to get better by every release.
Hi Eric,
Thanks for all you do. I’m still experiencing the problem I had before with the desktop / taskbar showing up and then not showing up….visible / invisible – the key short cuts bring it up (shift + Ctrl + F12). I’m not sure why this happens, sometimes when I reboot, the taskbar comes up blank, and sometimes doesn’t load at all.
Any ideas on what I should be looking for? It is an older machine I run all my Alpha & Beta testing on…could be something as simple as video issues I guess.
Thanks for any input or direction you can provide. I also realize I’m not providing any useful info for you to look at, let alone you have time : )
Take care,
Owen
Hi Owen
I had that a couple of times, and it turned out that trayer was the cause. Trayer is a software which exposes the old XEmbed interface to applications, it will allow Dropbox and other programs to show their systray icon because Plasma 5 dropped support for XEmbed.
When trayer starts before Plasma, it will grab the space that the Plasma taskbar also wants, and the net result is an apparently empty area at the bottom which hides the taskbar from sight.
Does that sound like a situation you are experiencing? I discussed this in the “observations” section of http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/kde-5_15-05-packages-are-available-for-slackware-current/
Let’s just say it’s intermittent, I always boot to CLI, then run startx – it matters not I guess, which way X is loaded. But sometimes it loads properly, and then most of the time it doesn’t. I haven’t tried the Trayer yet, so I’m not sure if it will solve the problem or make it worse : )
Also, I haven’t reinstalled plasma-workspace either – just stock install.
Obrigado Eric Hameleers
Translating for my fellow countryman carlos moura and for me “thank you Eric Hameleers”. Running smoothly here. Will the new LTS packages hit -stable as before?
Thanks for the updates. After this updates, my old laptop is a bit cooler. With 15.04 the cpu fan spins high, now much slower.
After upgraded to KDE 5_15.06, does anyone still having the problem as described by Willy Arana, posted on May 29,2015 at 23:37 in the blogpost of”
KDE 5_15.05 packages are available for slackware-current”?(http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/kde-5_15-05-packages-are-available-for-slackware-current/)
I am still facing the same issue with the almost same backtrace output.
I also tried by re-fresh-installed slackware-current(updated 12 Jun15) and follow the instruction in the Readme file to install Plasma 5. Followed steps in the Removepkg listed before proceed to install KDE 5. I even reinstalled plasma-workspace but till no improvement.
Where else should i look into now? Thank you.
Hi, I am facing issues with kwin. No window decorations on any apps. When I manually run kwin_x11, below error is seen:
kwin_x11: error while loading shared libraries: libxcb-cursor.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Rahul, that missing file is part of the “xcb-util-cursor” package in the x/ series. It was added to Slackware 14.1 and had a couple of version bumps in slackware-current.
If you do have that package installed, you might be missing a dependency package; did you install every package that has been added to Slackware-current so far?
Eric, the issue is solved. Did a fresh install of kde5. I think i had some old kde3 packages lying around and things got messed up.
have a new issue now, okular does not open things. xpdf is working though.
Hi Eric,
could you update please kdeconnect package?
At least versions 0.8 and 0.9 available already
Why post in this old article? There’s a KDE 5.15_11 release already which includes “kdeconnect-framework-0.9_04d52fb_20151111git” and that is essentially the 0.9 release minus a couple of commits.
The real 0.9 will be added to my December release. I usually don’t upgrade individual packages inbetween unless there’s a security issue or an incompatible Slackware-current update.
Next questions please add to a recent article, OK?
Ok, sorry,
it turned out my Gslapt does not pull up updates from ‘current’,
so I just didn’t notice that kdeconnect-kde-0.8-x86_64-3 appears.
Nevermind