KDE Software Compilation 4.4 RC2

The KDE team are getting closer to the 4.4 release of the KDE Software Compilation (“KDE SC” is the new name of what used to be called just “KDE“).

The second release candidate has been released today (the release was delayed for several days). For Slackware Linux I have prepared 32-bit and 64-bit packages with the accompanying SlackBuild scripts. You will find those at http.//alien.slackbook.org/ktown/4.3.95/ (Version “4.3.95” is the same as “4.4.rc2”).

As before, these packages are built for Slackware-current. You can safely install the KDE 4.4.rc2 packages if you are running a slackware-current from around 20 january 2010 or newer. Do not try to install these packages on Slackware 13.0.

Slackware64:

• Don’t forget to also install the updated or new dependencies! These “deps” packages can be found in the “x86_64/deps” directory.
• The KDE 4.4.rc2 packages themselves can be found in “x86_64/kde“
• And of course, the localization packages (non-english language translations of KDE) are available in “x86_64/kdei“. For the first time, I was able to build all of the non-english language packs without errors.

Slackware:

• Don’t forget to also install the updated or new dependencies! These “deps” packages can be found in the “x86/deps” directory.
• The KDE 4.4.rc2 packages themselves can be found in “x86/kde“
• If you need a language pack, you can grab one from the 64-bit package tree.

Here are the steps on how you download the packages and install them. You can have an older version of KDE installed, but that is not required. You will end up with KDE 4.4.rc2 installed on your system. Instructions are for the 64-bit packages, I think you can figure out how to change them if you want the 32-bit versions:

1. Download everything in the directory http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/4.3.95/x86_64/ :
   # lftp -c "open http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/4.3.95/ ; mirror x86_64"
2. Change into the directory “x86_64? which has just been created in your current directory:
   # cd x86_64
3. Remove the no longer required kdelibs-experimental package if you still have that installed. It is part of KDE 4.3.x (i.e. Slackware 13.0 did not have this package). If you do not have kdelibs-experimental on your system, you will get a harmless error message that you can ignore:
   # removepkg kdelibs-experimental
4. Install/upgrade the KDE 4.4 dependencies:
   # upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new deps/*.t?z
5. Install/upgrade KDE4.4.rc2 packages:
6. # upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new kde/*.t?z
7. Install/upgrade a language package if you prefer to have the KDE interface in your local language (I used “nl” in the example command, you should substitute your own language code there):
   # upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new kdei/kde-l10n-nl-*.t?z

Of course, you should not run those commands while running KDE…!

A big project like KDE needs fast hardware in order to compile in a reasonable time, and I have only one machine (which also happens to be my desktop computer) where I can do this. I strive to have 32-bit packages available as well as 64-bit packages for the final 4.4 release of KDE SC like I did for this release candidate.

If you want to compile the packages from source like I did, that is entirely possible using the provided sources and build scripts.

Have fun, Eric