In one of my previous articles, where I wrote about the upcoming Slackware Live edition, I added some premature screenshots of the Plasma 5 packages I am announcing today. Just when I was preparing for upload, Pat released his big November 14th batch of updates to Slackware-current (including new kernel, compilers and X.Org), dubbing it “almost a beta”. That delayed the release process for my November Plasma 5 packages because I needed to check the impact of these updates to my already compiled packages.
Here it is finally, since I could not find any showstopper bugs: KDE 5_15.11 . It contains the following updates: Frameworks 5.16.0, Plasma 5.4.3 and Applications 15.08.3.
What’s new in KDE 5_15.11?
- Frameworks 5.16.0 is an enhancement release. Interesting are the two new Frameworks: breeze-icons and oxygen-icons5. They were moved here from other collections, and the visual enhancement they cause on the Plasma desktop is immediately visible. Lots more colored icons that are replacing the bland and boring Plasma icons of previous releases. Still, the bland systemtray icons remain but I hope that something will be done about that. You can read the details on https://www.kde.org/announcements/kde-frameworks-5.16.0.php
- Plasma 5.4.3 is a bugfix release and should be the last before 5.5.0. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.4.3.php .
- Applications 15.08.3 was released last friday. It is a bugfix release. Note that I did not recompile the Telepathy applications this time!
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” and “telepathy”.
Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.10. 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.
Note:
If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_15.10 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)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 “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
Installed, work fine, no tested telepathy, don’t use it ;
Thanks, Eric.
Many thanks, Eric.
The only problem is that take a long time to start plasma from ssdm.
Good job, as usual.
Many thanks Eric!
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Hi Eric! Plasma generally went OK here, but now I don’t have a clock. I mean, the clock/calendar plasmoid is there, but it cannot show the date and time.
Investigating further, it seems that there’s a policykit or consolekit error (notice that I reinstalled ConsoleKit2 after installing Plasma as stated on your README). When I try to update date and time, and try to apply these settings, kcmshell crashes.
@Eduardo
remove digital clock widgets, and add again.
One more thing: I think you did not label your packages with the usual “alien” label, which I have blacklisted in slackpkg. Can you please relabel the packages please?
Funny. I saw you labeled your packages as usual, but Slackpkg is ignoring its blacklist.
Eduardo, I noticed that all packages in the kde/applications directory are missing their ‘alien’ tag. I am fixing that now, and then those fixed packages will be pushed out into the repository.
@vision
Thanks! That did it!
@alien: Sorry. You tagged your packages as usual. But slackpkg is acting weird.
@Alien
Ah! That was it. I will refresh my copy as soon as possible then. Thanks!!
(btw I honestly think Plasma 5 should be in the next Slack release. Kde 4.14 is _too_ old now…
Thanks for the update, Eric. It is the best KDE5 experience so far. I must give two thumbs for the devs for keeping plasma desktop using less RAM. Since login until now, my KDE5 only using ~1G of RAM (including this firefox browser).
https://flic.kr/p/AxkbfG
Yes I think too that with the current set of packages, Plasma 5 desktop starts approaching a level where people can use it for their daily work. The next Slackware will nevertheless ship with KDE 4.14.3 unless I am very much mistaken.
Hi,
I have had an issue with libxcb being downgraded during the last two updates (using slackpkg) as current has a newer version than you.
Other than that all is well thanks for the updates.
savo, I do noit have a libxcb package for Slackware-current, where do you get that from?
After install new Plasma, there is no hp system tray icon, and in active process no xembedsniproxy.
I need to add xembedsniproxy in startup programs.
No hp system tray icon problem here, it work.
have you installed the package sni-qt ?
I’m getting a very big arrow icon on grouped tasks, changing the plasma theme to the Breeze Dark variant fixes it, sort of.
http://i.imgur.com/rK1jlrb.png (Breeze)
http://i.imgur.com/p1guPVR.png (Breeze Dark)
Anybody else getting this too?
Not seen that, here. Perhaps you should file a bug on https://bugs.kde.org/
It seems to be coming from http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/libxcb/
I assume i need to look into myslackpkgplus.conf file
slackpkg search libxcb
DONE
The list below shows all packages with name matching “libxcb”.
[ Status ] [ Repository ] [ Package ]
installed libxcb-1.11.1-x86_64-1
upgrade alienbob libxcb-1.11.1-x86_64-1 –> libxcb-1.9.1-x86_64-1alien
savo, http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/libxcb/ does not contain a libxcb package for -current. Please fix the issue on your end.
@Gérard Monpontet
I have sni-qt installed. Now it work fine.
@savo
Configure slackpkgplus.conf, you probably have url for 14.1.
This morning Another bis update for current: http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware64-current/ChangeLog.txt
plama5 Eric packages are broken for the moment. 😉
Thanks all sorted now
Gérard, can you tell me what needs recompiling in any case? I was offline all morning due to firefighting training course and am not currently running Plasma5. I can start compiliation of the critical packages remotely though… the rest will have to wait until when I get home tonight.
Looks like the icu4c update broke a bunch of things
Hi Eric, perhaps a full rebuild may be in order. In runlevel4, sddm cannot start (it complains about icu4c). In runlevel 3, startkde aborts very early complaining about dbus. Thanks for everything!
Sorry, Eric,
I just got back from work, I’ll watch it 😉
qt5 is broken need recompil with the new icu4c
libdbusmenu-qt5 and qt-gstreamer need recompil, same
problem (icu4c)
akonadi probably also
I am recompiling LibreOffice on an external server now, so that is out of the way. Recompiling all of Plasma 5 is out of the question, too time-consuming. So I will have to have a shortlist of packages that need recompiling, starting with the ones already mentioned:
akonadi
qt5
libdbusmenu-qt5
qt-gstreamer
sddm-qt5
… but perhaps all it needs is a qt5 recompile.
Probably also:
kdelibs
kde-workspace
I don’t like to rebuild qt5 … takes all day for 32bit and 64bit. You will have to be patient, since I am not behind a computer tomorrow. Will see what can be started today, once I have upgraded my virtual machines.
Also confirm that new package icu4c_56.1 break Plasma 5 and KDE applications. For now easiest solution is to downgrade to icu4c_54.1 and add some symlink for few applications (KSysGuard, Kmix).
Finally i have updated qt5 (qt5-5.5.1)
(qt5-5.5.1 don’t compil if the old qt5-5.5.0 version is installed need uninstall it)
recompiled all kde package, just ‘kuser’ don’t compil.
all other work correctly ;
I built qt-5.5.1, which eliminated one set of issues. NOW Akonadi has risen to the top of the mess! Let’s see what happens when I build that against the new libraries….
Gerald Morris, I built qt-5.5.0 from ktown repo source and akonadi and all seems to be fixed, but I haven’t done any kind of extensive testing; it might be because of using 5.5.1?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jny15x3ygaonzf4/qt5-5.5.0-x86_64-1hc.txz?dl=1
here’s the qt5-5.5.0 package I built today; x86_64 only, i*86 will have to wait until alienbob can rebuild
Say, big THANX 2 U Henry Case! Actually, would it be much trouble 2 U 2 post on your Dropbox that akonadi build? Plasma starts up, but I’m still getting puked on by akonadi….
Is akonadi complaining about an icu4c shared lib?
I only built qt5-5.5.0 package and installed, and so far I haven’t had any issues, all the akonadi processes are running fine, along with anything else related to KDE that I come across
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For, Eric, trying recompil qt-gstreamer, don’t compil here on qt5-5.5.1
compil with this fedora patch:
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/qt-gstreamer.git/tree/
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/qt-gstreamer.git/tree/qt-gstreamer-1.2.0-find-gstconfig.patch
Same problem for phonon, need this fedora patch
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/phonon.git/tree/
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/phonon.git/tree/0003-Fix-build-with-Qt-5.4.2.patch
Eric it seem i found the problem it’s probably ‘solid’ package.
kde work with my ‘solid’ package, crash with your ‘solid’ package
Sorry my latest post is no for this tread ;