My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

KDE Plasma5 Sep’18 release for Slackware

Today I uploaded my monthly update “KDE-5_18.09” to the ‘ktown‘ repository, containing latest sources from the KDE download server and built on the latest Slackware-current. I waited just long enough to have the devs refresh everything. I also grabbed the latest sources of some of the other relevant packages I have in ‘ktown’ that are not part of Applications.

What’s new

The September release of KDE Plasma5 for Slackware contains the KDE Frameworks 5.50.0 (just released today), Plasma 5.13.5 and Applications 18.08.1. All this on top of Qt 5.11.1. Many bugs fixed and stability increased with these updates, but there’s no real new functionality on board compared to last month.

My updates in the ‘extras’ section for Applications are new versions for ‘krusader’, ‘kstars’, ‘ktorrent’, ‘okteta’ and the KDE Development packages ‘kdevelop’, ‘kdev-python’ and ‘kdev-php’.

Go get it

Download the KDE-5_18.09 from the usual location at https://slackware.nl/alien-kde/current/latest/ . Check out the README file in the root of the repository for detailed installation or upgrade instructions.

Last month I did not succeed in accompanying the release with a Live ISO. That had a reason – I was working on an update to liveslak that required more testing than anticipated. This month I will generate a new Plasma Live ISO. Currently I am compiling a new VLC package to go with it. There’s already a 64bit Chromium 69 awaiting in the corner – I did not yet release that separately because I am unable to build a 32bit package for the latest Chromium. Trying to fix that had to wait for KDE and VLC. The new Plasma5 Live will have a story to it that I will post in a separate article.

35 Comments

  1. Eduardo

    Thank you Eric!

  2. chrisretusn

    Posting this from “KDE-5_18.09”. Upgraded early this morning my time. All is well.

  3. Eduardo

    I concur. Smooth upgrade, zero trouble.
    Thanks again Eric!

  4. Matthew Miller

    Thanks for the upgrade; it went smoothly. However, I do have one small request. I run Clementine, and it requires cryptopp-7.0. Your packages include the older 6.x.x series, which breaks Clementine. Is it possible to update this package so that the next update doesn’t break Clementine? Thanks for your consideration!

  5. chrisretusn

    Hi Eric, A few minutes ago I ran slackpkg upgrade-all (w/slackpkg+) and noticed it wanted to upgrade kpat to the Slackware64 version. On checking my local mirror I noted that kpat was no longer available in “KDE-5_18.09″. No mention in the README. It was there with KDE-5_18.08.

  6. gengisdave

    Hi Eric, it seems the compile script took the syndication sources from Applications instead from Frameworks, the package is 18.08.1 and the library file is 5.9.1 instead of 5.55.0 (both package and library). Anyway, thank you again for your work.

  7. alienbob

    Matthew I will see that cryptopp gets an update.

  8. alienbob

    gengisdave yeah I packaged the sources in a ‘transition” moment where the new Frameworks release already contains Syndication and the latest Applications still contains Syndication.
    It’s the same software, just the library versions are different. It should not matter at this moment, and the Applications version will be removed when 18.08.2 is released.
    If the wrong choice of source tarball _does_ pose a problem, let me know and I will recompile from the Frameworks sources.

  9. alienbob

    chrisretusn I orgot to mention that properly in the README. I fixed that now.
    The ‘kpat’ sources can no longer be compiled on Slackware.

  10. Regnad Kcin

    Noto CJK fonts problem persists but readily remedied by deleting the entire Noto font series. Just deleting the CJK fonts is enough to fix the “tofu” problem that Noto fonts create in Simplified Chinese. otherwise upgrade went smoothly no plus or minus so far.

  11. gengisdave

    Hi Eric, looking at the syndication branch there are no relevant differences between the Frameworks and the Applications branches, the first one has many commits to align with the other libraries style. I think the next month syndication-18.08.2 won’t be shipped.

  12. todortakov

    Hi Eric, I’d like to ask about 2 issues that I have with latest KDE. These most likely are not connected with your
    commended work, because your efforts are in the direction of compiling and packaging of what KDE team produce, but nethertheless you may have an idea how things should be done.
    1. Konqueror and Falkon when directed to euronews and skynews live feeds produce an error that the browser does not recognize any of the currently supported formats (namely the browser does not recognize MSE & H.264 and H.264). I remember using any of these browsers before without any problems on euronews and skynews.
    2. Akonadi resources for Google services dialog promp comes out on a regular basis throughout of each KDE session at least every 10-15 minutes. It seems that kdewallet either cannot remember the credentials or this Akonadi Resouses thing cannot read them back from the wallet. I wander if this is only at my end.

  13. Regnad Kcin

    Baloo turned itself on somehow. balooctl disable still kills it dead, but that cpu hog might be discouraging for new users.

  14. alienbob

    Ballo will require a lot of CPU only in the beginning, when it starts indexing your disk. When that’s done, Baloo will not use a lot of resources, especially if you disable content indexing (just leave filename indexing enabled).
    I have content indexing enabled on my laptop with LUKS encrypted disk and Baloo is not negatively affecting me.

  15. Valheru

    KDE 5 for stable 14.2 dead ? :/

  16. alienbob

    Valheru I assume you did not follow my progress with KDE Plasma5 for Slackware, during the past year.

    I stopped with the packages for Slackware 14.2 after KDE Applications 17.12. The reason is that after that time, old KDE4-based applications are no longer supported by KDE Plasma5. I think it is not right to remove KDE4 compatibility from Slackware 14.2.

    The ktown repository has always been about exploring the bleeding edge anyway. That is why since January 2018 there are only new releases for Slackware -current.

  17. alienbob

    Matthew I have uploaded a new cryptopp and a rebuilt cryfs package.

  18. Matthew Miller

    Eric, I saw the update this morning. Thank you very much!

  19. Andrew Patrzalek

    There seems to be a disconnect in the README for the KDE5 rsync command. The rsync host (slackware.nl) seems to provide tar.gz files but the upgrade command that are presented later are looking to t?z files.
    ref: https://slackware.nl/alien-kde/current/latest/ [README]

  20. alienbob

    Andrew there may be something wrong on your end. A rsync from slackware.nl, or else a misunderstanding after reading the instructions.

    Downloading from rsync://slackware.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/latest/ latest/ will only get you the packages (in .txz format) but downloading from rsync://slackware.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/source/latest/ will get you the sources for those packages (where you will find the .tar.gz and .tar.xz archives).

    If you downloaded a .tar.gz file then that is not a Slackware package. Or, if you downloaded from the correct URI, your computer at the local end transformed a .txz acrhive into a .tar.gz archive. How do you download?

  21. Andrew Patrzalek

    lftp is preferred for mirrored sites.
    Ended up using ‘slackpkg install ktown’ (slackpkg+ installed)
    Plasma seems to be working.

    502 history | grep rsync
    423 rsync -Hav rsync://slackware.nl/alien-kde/current/latest/ latest/ (uri c/p’d from the README)
    Definitely src files.

    Don’t use rsync that much; maybe it’s time to explore the rsync method with some –dry-run’s
    Thanks for the quick reply.

  22. alienbob

    Your line:

    rsync -Hav rsync://slackware.nl/alien-kde/current/latest/ latest/
    My README:

    rsync -Hav rsync://slackware.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/latest/ latest/

    Notice the difference?

  23. Andrew Patrzalek

    grepped the history of the wrong account.
    That account was an attempt to find a uri that might work.

    Here is the grep of the account that was used to do the rsync:
    403 grep -w -e rsync README_ktown_current_5
    404 rsync -Hav rsync://slackware.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/source/latest/ latest/ > rsync.log 2> rsync.err
    503 history | grep rsync

    You’ve actually provided what was needed, verification that the command in the README works. What is necessary at this end is to discover how this command gave unexpected results.
    I regret the confusion in the second comment.

    Excerpt from the rsync.log file (at the start to the point where tar.gz files are demonstrated with ellipsis to the end of the file)

    ##### ##
    ####### ## #### ## ## ## ## ## ##
    ##O#O## ## ## ### ## ## ## ## ##
    #VVVVV# ## ## ## ### ## ## ## ##
    ## VVV ## ##### #### ## ## ###### ## ##
    # ##
    # ALIENS ## ‘BEAR’ – Alien’s Slackware goodies –
    # ###
    QQ# ##Q
    QQQQQQ# #QQQQQQ
    QQQQQQQ# #QQQQQQQ You might find me as alienBOB
    QQQQQ#######QQQQQ in channel ##slackware on Freenode IRC.

    receiving incremental file list
    created directory latest
    ./
    deps/
    deps/alldeps.SlackBuild
    deps/updates.SlackBuild
    deps/wayland_updates
    deps/ConsoleKit2/
    deps/ConsoleKit2/ConsoleKit2-1.2.1.tar.xz
    deps/ConsoleKit2/ConsoleKit2.SlackBuild
    deps/ConsoleKit2/doinst.sh
    deps/ConsoleKit2/rc.consolekit
    deps/ConsoleKit2/slack-desc
    deps/ConsoleKit2/patches/
    deps/OpenAL/
    deps/OpenAL/OpenAL.SlackBuild
    deps/OpenAL/openal-soft-1.18.2.tar.bz2
    deps/OpenAL/slack-desc
    deps/PyQt/
    deps/PyQt/PyQt.SlackBuild
    deps/PyQt/PyQt.phonon.diff
    deps/PyQt/PyQt4_gpl_x11-4.12.1.tar.gz
    deps/PyQt/slack-desc
    deps/PyQt5/
    deps/PyQt5/PyQt5.SlackBuild
    deps/PyQt5/PyQt5_gpl-5.10.1.tar.gz
    deps/PyQt5/slack-desc
    deps/PyQt5/patches/
    deps/PyQt5/patches/pyqt-qt5.11.patch
    deps/PyQt5/patches/pyqt-support-new-qt.patch
    deps/PyQt5/patches/pyqt5-cura-crash.patch
    deps/QScintilla/
    deps/QScintilla/QScintilla.SlackBuild
    deps/QScintilla/QScintilla_gpl-2.10.4.tar.gz
    deps/QScintilla/slack-desc
    deps/accountsservice/
    deps/accountsservice/accountsservice-0.6.45.tar.xz
    deps/accountsservice/accountsservice.SlackBuild
    deps/accountsservice/slack-desc

    kde/src/plasma/sddm-kcm-5.13.5.tar.xz
    kde/src/plasma/sddm-kcm-5.13.5.tar.xz.sig
    kde/src/plasma/systemsettings-5.13.5.tar.xz
    kde/src/plasma/systemsettings-5.13.5.tar.xz.sig
    kde/src/plasma/user-manager-5.13.5.tar.xz
    kde/src/plasma/user-manager-5.13.5.tar.xz.sig
    kde/src/plasma/xdg-desktop-portal-kde-5.13.5.tar.xz
    kde/src/plasma/xdg-desktop-portal-kde-5.13.5.tar.xz.sig

    sent 37,247 bytes received 2,416,451,838 bytes 439,082.24 bytes/sec
    total size is 2,415,790,010 speedup is 1.00

  24. Andrew Patrzalek

    No need to reply, I see the error.

  25. Gérard Monpontet

    Just for info, ‘accountservice’ since 0.6.52 version, need meson, and anfortunately, need ‘elogind’ or ‘systemd’ .

  26. alienbob

    Gérard, the systemd-(e)logind is not a hard dependency, you can disable it with:
    meson build \
    -D admin_group=wheel \
    -D introspection=false \
    -D elogid=false \
    -D systemd=false \
    -D systemdsystemunitdir=false

    However, later on in the build, I get this error which is related to the fact that our polkit is too old:
    FAILED: data/org.freedesktop.accounts.policy
    /usr/bin/meson –internal msgfmthelper ../data/org.freedesktop.accounts.policy.in data/org.freedesktop.accounts.policy xml /tmp/accountsservice-0.6.54/po
    msgfmt: cannot locate ITS rules for ../data/org.freedesktop.accounts.policy.in

    And this could be solved in a way similar to https://github.com/Lyoncore/fwupd/commit/797e5672e64acd4f90cd52afca3bb192b28b4636 , it requires that we add a copy of the new polkit “ITS” files and tell meson to use our local copies instead of requiring a newer polkit.
    I have not found a way to actually do this, as I have little time on sunday. But we should be able to fix this for the Slackware package.

  27. Gérard Monpontet

    Ok, thanks Eric 😉

  28. Pierluigi

    Hi Eric,
    I’ve finally installed you KDE5 world, but I’m having a problem. If I run the environment by startx it works without problem. If I run it by “init 4” then I get the greeter, login to it and I get back a black screen and a greeter again. I’ve tried to strace some of the component but without luck.
    What can I check ?
    And another question you maybe know: I can’t get “ctrl-alt-f[1-6]” key working ( ths the debug is more hard. Is there any new setting for it ?
    Thanks in advance .
    Pierluigi

  29. pierluigi

    Hi Eric,
    I’ve finally installed you KDE5 world, but I’m having a problem. If I run the environment by startx it works without problem. If I run it by “init 4” then I get the greeter, login to it and I get back a black screen and a greeter again. I’ve tried to strace some of the component but without luck.
    What can I check ?
    And another question you maybe know: I can’t get “ctrl-alt-f[1-6]” key working ( ths the debug is more hard. Is there any new setting for it ?
    Thanks in advance .
    Pierluigi

  30. alienbob

    It almost sounds like an issue with your graphics driver. What kind of GPU card does that computer have? What driver are you using for it?

  31. pierluigi

    It’s a macbook (early 2011) 13″ with an Intel card ( should be an Intel HD Graphics 3000).
    But if it was a problem with the graphic card it shouldn’t work when running with startx, which works flawlessly. To me it seems more some problem with some configuration file ( my machine was running 14.1 then 14.2 then current and kde 4 ).
    Also the missing for the ctrl-alt-f[1-6], according to google, is something in configuration files ( xorg.conf or similar ).

  32. alienbob

    Well, if you have been upgrading for so long you may have left-overs you should have ditched a long time ago.
    For instance, you should not be having a xorg.conf file. X manages just fine without it. And I would check older ChangeLog.txt files for “Removed.” strings and check if you actually removed all the packages that are no longer part of Slackware.
    The issue can still be graphics driver related.

  33. pierluigi

    I’ve managed to get the ctrl-alt-f[1-6] stuff working. It was a daemon missing ( pommed ) that is needed on the macbook to get the fn keys working. Now it’s a bit easer to trace down the problem. I’ve seen that Xorg goes down normally ( no crashes no other problems ). It seems that the sddm is not able to call startkde normally. At least now it’s easier to troubleshoot.

  34. pierluigi

    I’v track down a little bit more the problem.
    If I create a new user the whole environment works and I can finally get a kde5 plasma ( or wayland ) session.
    If I use, instead, an existing one I get some strange error messages in ~/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log and ( or ) ~/.local/share/sddm/wayland-session.log
    Those messages says ( for example ):
    Couldn’t exec noglob: No such file or directory

    Traking down a little bit more, I can see that the only place where this “noglob” words appear is bash_profile .
    Removing, in this file, all the “instruction” starting with the “set” work ( set noglob, set prompt ) lead the kde environment to start.

    Now I have other problems, but I will fix them as they appears.
    Starting with an old kde4 environment it’s probably a bad choice.
    Thanks for your time.

  35. alienbob

    Please note that the syntax “set noglob” is specific to (t)csh shells. If you were using this in your .bash_profile it will cause trouble.
    In bash you should use either “set -o noglob” or else “set -f”.
    I do not see the added value of disabling file globbing though… but that is off-topic to this issue.

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