The release schedule is accurate as always. Today, the release of KDE SC 4.9 was announced on kde.org!
I could get the sources in time and therefore I am able to present you the Slackware KDE 4.9 packages – for Slackware-current of course (more precise, for Slackware 14 Beta1).
I assume that some of you have already downloaded and installed my earlier betas and release candidate of this new KDE series, and compared with the release candidate I previoiusly had, not much new shows up (well, bug fixes of course).
You can safely upgrade from Slackware’s KDE 4.8.4, the differences with that release are not overtly visible either, the real changes are in the “engine room”. KDE 4.9.x is an intermediate release series to prepare for the KDE Frameworks 5. The announcement page shows further changes in the development process: more attention has been going to the beta testing phase. You already noticed at the time of the first 4.9 beta, when KDE opened a “call for beta testing” page and encouraged packagers not to wait until the release candidates or the final release.
What can be told about the new set of Slackware packages?
- There are three updated dependencies compared to Slackware’s own KDE 4.8.4: akonadi, shared-desktop-ontologies and soprano.
- Compared to KDE 4.8.4, there were two package removals:
- kdemultimedia has been split up into several smaller individual packages.
- ksecrets has been removed completely in the 4.9.x series.
- A noteworthy feature in KDE 4.9 has been added to Okular, the document viewer in KDE. Many people will cheer: Okular is now able to save the annotations you make to PDF files.
The KDE 4.9.0 packages for Slackware 14 beta1 and newer are available for download from my “ktown” repository and several mirrors (taper will probably be in sync when I post this, the other mirrors will have to catch up):
- 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 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://www.slackware.org.uk/people/alien-kde/ (Darren Ausin’s UK mirror), rsync URI: rsync://slackware.org.uk/people/alien-kde/
- http://scw.net.br/alien-ktown/ (a mirror maintained by Herbert Alexander Faleiros), rsync URI: rsync://rsync.scw.net.br/alien-ktown/
The accompanying README file contains detailed installation/upgrade instructions.
Also, I will repeat this bit of text which I wrote at the time of release of KDE 4.9 release candidate 1:
As you may have noticed when inspecting the above URLs, I have re-arranged my “ktown” repository. People were confused about what version would work with Slackware -current and what would work for 13.37. Also, some people have asked for sources of older releases for which I no longer host the packages.
I moved all the sources out of the package trees, you will now find a “source” directory right at the top level of the repository. Below that will be the sources of all package sets which I currently have in my repository (KDE 4.6.5, 4.7.4, 4.8.4 and 4.9.0, including all the dependencies you may want for compiling it on Slackware 13.37). The packages will be available below a toplevel directory equal to the Slackware version they were compiled for (at the moment those are “13.37” and “current“). Below that you will find the actual KDE versions and further down, the 32-bit and 64-bit packages.
Have fun! Eric
thank you eric.
I hope the speed improvement will be “noticeable” in my atom n270 based netbook
“Okular is now able to save the annotations you make to PDF files.” There are two ways of reading this sentence: 1) if you make changes to the pdf, it can save those changes to that .pdf; 2) if you make changes to the pdf, it can save those changes to a file. Okular only does #2, so don’t expect to see your annotations in another PDF viewer!
Funny i was about to test that. (sending the file to a co-worker)
I have to say that the update from 4.8.4 was smooth an fast… didn’t even had to blow my ./kde folder to reconfigure. Everything worked out of the box.
performance wise… i feel it the same on this netbook… I was fancying performance boost as with previous updates but, as jagger said, you can’t always get what you want.
Thank you Eric!
Btw, do you know what happened to Kexi in calligra? It’s not included…
Kexi needs icu4c to compile, and Slackware does not ship that.
If you install icu4c and then rebuild calligra, you will get kexi:
# ./KDE.SlackBuild extragear:calligra
Eric
@B and co.
This version of Okular (assuming recent poppler version) will in fact save the annotations to the pdf file making it available to other programs. See: http://tsdgeos.blogspot.ca/2012/08/490-is-out.html?showComment=1343855907957#c5319201779590259570
Thanks Eric!
Thanks Eric!
Just got back from my camping trip. Lots of updates for both kde and -current. So far, so good! Thanks!
Thanks Eric.
Just updated and noticed that finding konsole profiles in krunner is back (they were missing together with other krunner plugins in the 4.9.0rc)
Thanks Eric!
I’m still not able to use OpenVPN from NetworkManager. Error message is “The VPN service ‘org.freedesktop.Networkmanager.openvpn’ was not installed”.
Same message if I try as user root.
Can anyone confirm this problem?
Hi David,
So, did you install NetworkManager-openvpn ? That is a requirement.
Get a SlackBuild here: http://slackware.com/~rworkman/xfce-4.8/extra/source/NetworkManager-openvpn/
Eric
Hi Eric,
you’re simply the best! 😉
Thanks a lot
To B. and Troy:
It appears that I have to make some updates to my KDE 4.9.0 packages. In order to be able to save annotations into the PDF file, we need to have poppler-0.20 and Slackware is still at 0.18.4.
I will have a word with Pat Volkerding to see if that can still be fixed in slackware-current or if I have to add it as a new “dep” to my KDE 4.9.0 package set and then rebuild Okular.
Eric
OK – I built a poppler-0.20.2 package, rebuilt Okular and indeed I can now save a PDF including its annotations (using File > Save As…). The annotations are visible in Acrobat PDF Reader but not in Xpdf. I have no idea if Xpdf would support annotations at all.
There was a discussion a while back in the developer team, about poppler-0.20 which would cause crashes in pdf2ps (one of the programs contained in the poppler package) but I have not seen such a crash in my limited tests just now.
Eric
@eric: does the new poppler has managed to get into your KTown repository? if so, i will resync right away
hi,
is it just me, or a lot of previous plasma decoration themes (coming from kde-look.org) are not working with 4.9? specifically, windows cannot be moved by clicking on title bar, gtk apps windows are corrupted, etc. Things get fine when using the standard oxygen plasma theme.
Is there a big architectural change in plasma theming requiring changes in old themes?
Willy,
we are still discussing amongst the team what to do with poppler. The version 0.20.0 has issues with PDF printing and CUPS, but Robby found that there is a patch now. Patrick is very careful with poppler upgrades at all times. But, it would be nice if poppler would get updated in slackware-current because otherwise I will have to provide recompiled versions of calligra and tumbler as well (they depend on poppler).
I’ll let you know by email once you can re-sync the new stuff.
Eric
The good news is that we’re going to have the new poppler in slackware-current with the next update. So, I will wait with my own ktown updates, so I do not have to rebuild anything else than okular.
I will also add an updated virtuoso-ose package, see http://trueg.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/virtuoso-6-1-6-and-kde-4-9/ . This is not going to be added to slackware-current – what we have currently is good enough. The last update of virtuoso-ose was not without issues, so understandably Pat is very careful when we are so near to a new Slackware release.
Eric
Poppler is now included in -Current
Eric, you and the Slack crew rock!! I saw icu4c and a rebuilt Calligra (with Kexi) today 🙂
Yes, the poppler update was released while I was asleep. Another surprise I did not mention yesterday: icu4c has been added and calligra has been rebuilt ( which would have happened anyway because of poppler) so that kexi could be enabled by default.
I have uploaded the rebuilt okular and upgraded virtuoso-ose packages, they are part of my KDE 4.9.0 package set now.
Eric
I tried to open a pdf this morning and okular failed. Then it dawned on my feeble brain that it needed to be rebuilt with the addition of the new poppler. I came here first to see if you had already done so, and you had!
Thanks Eric 🙂
Thanks for this unmitigated coolness, Eric. You and the Slack crew are really great 🙂
Hi Eric. Small issue: the latest virtuoso-ose package is missing a build number.
Thanks – fixed now.
Here’s a silly question.. I rsynced as per the instructions in the readme file, but when I tried the first command: (upgradepkg –reinstall –install-new x86/deps/*.t?z) I received the following error: (Cannot install x86/deps/*.t?z: file not found). When I looked around in the files I just downloaded I found some slackbuilds (in the deps folder I found updates.SlackBuild and alldeps.SlackBuild) I also found other slackbuilds in the KDE & KDEI folders and am running the slackbuilds one by one, probably not a good idea in retrospect, but can someone just clarify if what I am doing is correct or not? If it is wrong, how badly did I mess up my system?
I couldn’t start my kde because i didn’t have libattica. So i installed attica and now it works.
The olny thing is that my okular failed when i tried to open a pdf file. Kmix doesnt start but i have sound :S
Thanks Alien!
Hi Eric. Just out of curiosity: KDE just ships 4.8.5. Will Slackware 14 sticks with the 4.8.4 or upgrade to 4.8.5?
There is a very high probability that Slackware 14 will ship with KDE 4.8.5 🙂
Eric
Nice !!! 🙂
Just a head’s up to anyone else trying these packages: in order to enable the shiny dolphin sidebar features seen here: http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.9/plasma.php
You need to disable and re-enable file indexing. It creates the appropriate group and setting in ~/.kde/share/config/nepomukserverc which dolphin is apparently looking for before deciding to show the new bling.
Troy, thanks for that bit of knowledge!
Cheers, Eric
Thanks for the phonon-vlc Eric!