There’s been updates to all the major components of the KDE Software Collection (I know they stopped using that name but I think it is still fitting). So I tasked my build box to compile hundreds of new packages and today I have for you the October ’17 set of Plasma 5 packages for Slackware 14.2 and -current. KDE 5_17.10 contains: KDE Frameworks 5.39.0, Plasma 5.11.0 and Applications 17.08.2. All based on Qt 5.9.2 for Slackware-current and Qt 5.7.1 for Slackware 14.2.
NOTE: I will no longer be releasing Plasma 5 packages for 32bit Slackware 14.2.
What’s new in the October release
There was a new Qt5 release just after my September packages, so this time the ktown repository comes with a ‘qt5‘ 5.9.2 package for Slackware-current.
The other major update is Plasma which had its first 5.11 release with lots of visual, UX and under-the-hood improvements. You can read the release announcement if you are curious. Most notable is a new functionality called “Plasma Vault” which enables you to add documents to an encrypted vault and hide that from sight. It’s not (yet) functional in my repository because plasma-vault depends on an external encryption program to do the job – and neither of the two candidates are part of Slackware or any of my own repositories. Install either ‘encfs‘ or ‘cryfs‘ to make this work.
The Frameworks and Applications updates are targeting stability and bugfixes.
I was unable to update KDE Partition Manager on Slackware 14.2, because its dependency ‘kpmcore‘ needs a newer ‘blkid‘ program than what’s available through the util-linux package. No problem for Slackware-current, it sports the latest ‘partitionmanager’ package.
I ran into an issue when I tried adding SDDM 0.16.0. SDDM is the graphical session manager aka login manager. It turns out that the new release is not compatible with ConsoleKit2 (which we have in Slackware) because the new code was only tested against systemd. Therefore I stuck with the 0.15.0 release which I know works well. We’ll just wait for a bug-fix release 0.16.1.
Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications
As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions.
Recommended reading material
There have been several posts now about KDE 5 for Slackware-current. All of them contain useful information, tips and gotchas. If you want to read them, here they are: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/tag/kde5/
Where to get the new packages for Plasma 5
Package download locations are listed below (you will find the sources in ./source/5/ and packages in /current/5/ and /14.2/5/ subdirectories). Only “bear” has the packages for now, the mirrors should follow within 24 hours. If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.
- http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/ (my own mirror), rsync URI is rsync://bear.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://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/distributions/slackware/people/alien-kde/ French fast mirror thanks to Tonus.
- http://slackware.uk/people/alien-kde/ (fast UK based mirror, run by Darren Austin), rsync URI: rsync://slackware.uk/people/alien-kde/
Live ISO of PLASMA5
A new Plasma5 Live ISO image (based on liveslak 1.1.9.2) has been uploaded to http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackware-live/latest/ in case you want to try the new Plasma5 desktop out first in a non-destructive way.
Have fun! Eric
After upgrading to October Plasma5 I have a problem with running systemsettings5. KSystemlog writes: systemsettings5[5892]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f794df5088a sp 00007fff8fa7d320 error 4 in libQt5Core.so.5.9.1[7f794dca2000+534000]
I tried installing qt5-5.9.2 with similar error: systemsettings5[24670]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f0121535d6a sp 00007ffe1c31f900 error 4 in libQt5Core.so.5.9.2[7f0121287000+4d6000]
Thank you Eric!
Marcus_777 apparently you have not fully upgraded then, if you decided to use qt5-5.9.2 only after you encountered segfaults.
You always need to use ALL of the updated or newly added packages.
Systemsettings does not give me issues here.
the mirrors were not fully synchronized. Fresh download from your mirror helped.
Marcus_777 glad you found the root cause.
Here’s a tip to find out whether you have downloaded a healthy mirror. You change directory either to the toplevel ‘ktown’ directory (if you mirrored the full lot) or the toplevel architecture-dependent directory (such as for instance current/latest/x86_64) and then you execute:
tail +13 CHECKSUMS.md5 | md5sum –check | grep -v OK
There should not be any output concerning incorrect MD5SUMs for the packages. There’s likely to be a few repository metadata files that trigger but that is not important.
If there’s any output line for a package that’s not OK, then you have an incomplete mirror, or (happens too) I made a mistake. Check here on the blog and I will answer and fix any issue that is my fault.
Thanks, this is good advice. (In this case, it was specifically about kirigami package) … It would be enough to wait a few hours for the mirrors to synchronize. But the new packages are like christmas 😀
You could also run a first rsync against your favorite mirror URL, and then run a second rsync against bear.alienbase.nl. That will allow most packages to be downloaded from a local fast mirror and the missing packages (in case of incomplete mirror) can be fetched from the ‘bear’ server.
Thanks for the update Eric.
One note so far is that kde-gtk-config doesn’t really work anymore. Which ever setting you decide to set (in my case Breeze-dark for every thing) it eventually revert back to some strange setting (not even the default) of adwaita everywhere with a andale mono 8 font.
To try it, go to System Seetings>Appearance>Application style>GNOME Application Style (GTK), change any of the settings, Apply, go to another setting tab, and come back. Im my case the settings I just chose are gone.
Do you get the same? If not I guess I really need to reset completely my kde env and see if it helps.
ArTourter, I have the same issue. Not sure whether this is caused by the Qt 5.9.2 update or a regression in the module. I noticed that the changes I make are correctly written to ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini though, and the theme changes are picked up by GTK based applications.
Eric, Thanks for confirming. Yes indeed the changes are picked up but the applications. I Just happen to notice it as I was experimenting with the setting. Currently it is basically to us as a “set once and ignore”.
Hi, in 14.2 the following error occurs:
$ systemsettings5
file:///usr/share/kpackage/genericqml/org.kde.systemsettings.sidebar/contents/ui/main.qml:35:5: Type SubCategoryPage unavailable
SubCategoryPage {
^
file:///usr/share/kpackage/genericqml/org.kde.systemsettings.sidebar/contents/ui/SubCategoryPage.qml:26:1: Type Kirigami.ScrollablePage unavailable
Kirigami.ScrollablePage {
^
file:///usr/lib64/qt5/qml/org/kde/kirigami.2/ScrollablePage.qml:61:1: Type Page unavailable
Page {
^
file:///usr/lib64/qt5/qml/org/kde/kirigami.2/Page.qml:259:20: Unexpected token `.’
property T2.Page page: root
^
file:///usr/lib64/qt5/qml/org/kde/kirigami.2/Page.qml:259:26: Unexpected token `identifier’
property T2.Page page: root
^
Segmentation fault
———————-
I also tested in a clean VM and the same problem happens.
Plasma 5 is working great. I’m enjoying the new applications. Eric you have done an amazing job with this! Thank you!
I did have a serious issue with (I believe) “Enable File Search.” Application menus would take a minute to respond with it turned on. Also ioquake3 defrag mod complained about cheating by altering timescale. I turned “Enable File Search” off then logged off and on and now Plasma 5 is very responsive & timescale error disappeared so far. Location:
System Settings->Search->Enable File Search
On a minor note after removing KDE 4 & adding ktown to slackpkg+ gcc & glib Slackware packages are no longer uninstalled(masked). I’m not sure how to fix that. Its not a big deal. I just have to pay more attention.
Installed on one fresh current install, that thing, work correctly 😉
Radical Dreamer I had always had File Search enabled and never had the issue you describe. Do you have any weird or networked filesystems linked into your homedirectory perhaps/ if so, configure those as “Do not search in these locations”.
Your slackpkg+ issue is probably a bad configuration in /etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf – do you also use my multilib packages?
Marcelo indeed. Kirigami2 adds interface components to QtQuick and according to its release notes, it requires Qt > 5.7.0 which should be OK for the ktown packages for Slackware 14.2.
However, I wonder if there is a QtQuick incompatibility here.
This is something I cannot debug, so the best thing (apart from upgrading to Slackware-current) is to open a bug report on the KDE Bug Tracker for this issue.
Marcelo: in the meantime, you can start the individual System Settings modules without issue. It looks like it’s just the encompassing systemsettings5 program that’s affected.
For a list of System Settings modules, run:
kcmshell5 –list
Pick the one you need from the listing. For instance, this opens your network management module:
kcmshell5 kcm_networkmanagement
Marcelo, since the crash in System Settings is caused by the new UI layout which uses QtQuick to present a Sidebar View, you can make systemsettings5 work again (as a workaround of course, it does not fix the bug) by forcing the old “Icon View”.
Add the following two lines to the file ~/.config/systemsettingsrc if they do not yet exist:
[Main]
ActiveView=icon_mode
And if there is already a definition for ActiveView, make sure it gets set to “icon_mode”.
Thanks Eric, creating the systemsettingsrc worked. I tested the new GUI in Arch and I didn’t like it. I would have changed to the old GUI anyway 🙂
Eric, yes I do you use your multilib package. I’ve enjoyed it very much! Slackpkg was working correctly until I added ktown. Here is what I have (everything else should be default):
PKGS_PRIORITY=( multilib )
MIRRORPLUS[‘multilib’]=http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/multilib/current/
PKGS_PRIORITY=( ktown )
MIRRORPLUS[‘ktown’]=http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/current/5/x86_64/
I don’t have any networked file systems linked. I had “Do not search in these locations” 3 partitions. One partition was linked into my home directory. One was not. One was linked as my home directory. My home directory seems to be searched anyway. I tried removing my home directory & the other directory linked in my home directory. The same problem occurred. I had to alt+ctrl+F2 a couple of times. I saw the same location being listed in console when I went back to alt+ctrl+F1: “\home\homedirectory\Source/Festival/build/cmu_us_rms100”
I wasn’t using Festival at the time. The only weird thing I have done regarding it is that I have these files set to a different group other than users. I block the group users internet by default and switch to this group to allow internet access. I am suspecting that maybe having the files set to a different group caused problems.
Hi Eric. Thanks for these packages. Everything is (almost) working OK.
I do not care for the new systemsettings module but I can adapt.
The only problem I saw is that one of such systemsettings module, kde-gtk-config, does not remember its values. You set the config values, click OK, they get applied, but on next time these are all reset to the lowest possible value.
I filed a bug upstream:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=385791
Thanks again!
There must only be one “PKGS_PRIORITY” line. The second one you added overrides the first which causes your issue.
Remove one, and change the other into:
PKGS_PRIORITY=( multilib ktown ).
About your homedirectory – you seem to have a weird non-default setup there. Try a proper /home/ and access all other stuff from outside your ${HOME}. It’s called homedirectory for a reason. Other stuff than yours alone, does not belong there.
You had best open a KDE bug report if you want this filesearcher bug (because that is what I think it is, despite your weird ${HOME}) to be fixed.
Eduardo, that same systemsettings5 bug with kde-gtk-config was already discussed a few posts upward.
Thanks for creating that bug report, I tried messing with the kde-gtk-config source but could not find a way to make the code load the existing settings from file.
Thank you Eric that fixed slackpkg+ for me!
I submitted a bug report to KDE: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=385802
Hi Eric
A little question.
Is there a more simple way to replace single module package in live slack on USB /eg imagemagick compiled myself with custom options with 8 bit quantum/ than create whole my custom ISO from scratch using your scripts ?
bratpit, look at the “-r” option of make_slackware.sh. Imagemagick is part of the “l” series.
You need to have a local mirror of Slackware and you have to replace Slackware’s original imagemagick package in the “l” series with your version before running the script.
There’s more you need to do such as extracting the ISO image to /tmp/slackwarelive_staging:
# mkdir -p /mnt/tmp
# mount -o loop slackware64-live-current.iso /mnt/tmp
# mkdir -p /tmp/slackwarelive_staging/liveslak/system
# cp -ia /mnt/tmp/liveslak/system/* /tmp/slackwarelive_staging/liveslak/system/
# git clone git://bear.alienbase.nl/liveslak.git liveslak
# cd liveslak
# sh make_slackware_live.sh -r -r l
And the new ISO will be created in /tmp .
Thanks .
Whole current “local mirror” or only /l directory with packages and rest //a , ap, etc. empty/ ??
PS . What about quick and dirty temporary solution exchange /user/bin/convert and 2 libraries directly to “l” module on usb stick by mksquashfs?
Be creative, see what works.
Honestly this is working great. You are doing amazing work.
off-topic: Chrome/Chromium stable got bumped to 62
https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2017/10/stable-channel-update-for-desktop.html
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+log/61.0.3163.100..62.0.3202.62?pretty=fuller&n=10000
Mikei
Chromium 62 will not compile on Slackware 14.2. I am still considering options, but apparently the gcc 5.3.0 has a bug that was fixed in 5.4.0 (which we do not have in Slackware 14.2).
Eric
Unexpectedly turned out there was 3-rd solution.
When I compiled imgemagick with slackbuild directly on usb stick it instaled too /apart package/on persistent catalog which override “by runtime path” old version from “l” module.
I do not know It was Your intention or side effect but it the simplest and works.
Big Thanks for such flexible tool.
bratpit, I think I mis-interpreted your original post then. I thought you were looking at creating a customized ISO.
The persistence on a usb stick allows you to add *anything* including new, upgraded or rebuilt packages. Even “slackpkg update ; slackpkg upgrade-all” will work as usual, although doing that will slowly fill your persistence store. It will also might make it harder to refresh the Slackware Live installation on your USB if a newer ISO becomes available.
Yes. The most elegant way it should be replace default package in module but for one or two packages such customization is a bit overdone for me.
At first I thought it is mandatory .This is a reason I asked You.
Hi Eric, with the last update, I’ve lost the trayicon from dropbox (I’m using the headless version, downloadable here: https://www.dropbox.com/en/install-linux) but the service seems to work normally, because in background continue to sync. I think that this is connected with something fault with Gtk. Another problem came from a KDE empty bar that usually it’s used to put most used programs. I put on some apps connections, from KDE menù, to launch directly my favourite apps. But after this upgrade, the connections don’t work anymore. I’ve created connections simply dragging icons from kde start menu. If now create a new icon on this bar, when try to launching, the system reply with “KDEInit can’t start <> ” (for example). The old icons don’t say anything. Any suggestion, even for debug?
Dropbox icon works fine here (version 37.4.29 running). Perhaps you have missed a package during upgrade.
Your story about the “KDE empty bar”, I do not follow at all. My suggestion is to open a bug report on kde.org and try to explain it better there.
In my case editing of Page.qml line 259 helped – seems being old bug in something (solution(?) found on internet for kf5-04).
What totally disappointed me – there are only US keyboard and some silly EU one, which is offered for any other language than English and has no options for setting hotkeys or anything else. I got the packages for 14.2 64 bit from the bear mirror. May be smth is no included in build process?
The other one is semi-translated apps (problem of development as reported by persons informed about the matter), which do not depend on kdei and, seems, has no option to enforce English, if the system’s locale is not the English one.
I mentioned it some time earlier, Eric, and it is still the case – the system is much more retarded comparing to KDE4. I can not understand the reasons, because CPU has almost no load and system uses just a pinch of 8 GB available. CPU – i5-4xxx, HDD- 1GB SATA 5200 rpm, hybrid graphic Intel/Nvidia
I will try to re-download the packages and reinstall once more, but I have a feeling, I’ll revert back to KDE4 – I can’t use the laptop with just English keyboard layout. Seems, for the KF5 to be ready for the regular use there is a very long way ahead.
retardedness of the system mysteriously diminishes if the computer is left alone for some 3 minutes, but keyboard layouts even after re-installation still do not appear.
Janis, thanks for providing a solution to the systemsettings5 problem for Slackware 14.2 users.
I do not understand your statement about having only US and EU keyboards available. When I go to “SystemSettings > Input Devices > Keyboard > Layouts” and click on “+ Add” I can select from a multitude of layouts for all kinds of languages with several variants where applicable. Which one are you missing?
I do also not fully understand your remark about internationalozation of KF5 applications. The KDEI series contains localizations only for the old KDE4-based applications, and all KF5 applications contain all localizations in the packages themselves. What I understand from your remark is that you want to enforce English as the language used by Plasma5 while still your system locale is in a non-english language? What did you try so far?
About the fact that you think Plasma5 is a step back from KDE4 – well I respect your opinion but the development of KDE4 stopped even before Slackware 14.2 was released. People had the same complaints about KDE4 when that was replacing KDE3 in Slackware. Times change and it would be better to embrace change than to fight it. At least then you can help change things to your advantage as well. Next Slackware will not have KDE4.
I realize now that by “retarded” you are probably not referring to “stupid” but to “slow”?
Eric I’ve done some checks about missing packages, how you’ve suggested, and this has resolved many problems! Now dropbox icon was returned in traybar and the launchers works fine! Thanks! I’ve one last question: I’m a regular user of yakuake. Until the last Plasma release, the 2.9.9 works well, but now no more. I’ve tried to use the source from the latest version (3.0.4) to compile and install; this last one starts, but don’t display any terminal, because ask for ‘konsole’ as dependence. Of course, the package is regularly installed. Have you any suggestion about?
I think you are still missing stuff or else you did not build the yakuake package correctly.
In fact, I built it here and it works.
As a bit of education, I added this commit to show you how you can extend the KDE.SlackBuild framework and add your own package(s). The commit adds support for compiling a yakuake package: http://bear.alienbase.nl/cgit/ktown/commit/?id=72deb691a24863a8b919be8ad0fc10d0fb84d449
Dear Eric,
you are right in suggestion – “retarded” does not meant stupid, it is slowly reacting. Still the effect is like on the restarted Windows – you see the desktop, but your ability to do anything is limited for some time.
I also did not mean that KF5 is a step back, just an impression that there still a is a lot to do in order to bring it to the production env. I personally like it (also because it allows me to feel like in KDE4 with standard menus and desktop icons), but I don’t feel easy about relying on it yet. Am I wrong?
Regarding missing layouts – due to the look if drop-down menus I overlooked it yesterday. Today, looking at what one can see in the slack-live, I noticed the One I need – Latvian. So, there is no longer question about it.
On locale: currently in lang.sh I have:
export LANG=lv_LV.UTF-8
export LC_MESSAGES=en_GB
in KF5:
Regional setting: Preferred language – British English
Formats: Region Latvija (lv_LV) (where I already see a mix of languages where they shouldn’t be)
I think – that’s it. Is there any other place for system’s (KF5) language enforcement except physical removal of locale-related message files? It is not that I do not like my second language, I am just too used to interfaces in English and the translation of KF5, on its turn, is very far from being finished.
on the Page.qml line 259 solution – the line must be commented out. I do not know whether it relates just to the Slackware 14.2 and why it is not needed in slack-live (based on current).
Thank you Eric, for the great work you do!
O, forgot one thing – if one goes for KF5, some apps will need to be re-built. I already found some
Janis, I agree with you that the localization of KF5 applications is far from finished. When I switch to dutch as the desktop language, I can find many places in the Plasma desktop where english text strings are being used because no dutch translation is available. FYI, I did the opposite from what you want: my system locale is US English and I switched my Plasma5 desktop to dutch localization.
Notwithstanding, the Plasma5 desktop is as stable as KDE4 used to be – from personal experience. I have switched to Plasma5 a long time ago and this past year I have not seen it crash. I am running this on a laptop which moves a lot and gets suspended all the time (closing the lid). Works very reliably. It is also much faster to start than KDE4, and uses less resources than KDE4.
The issue with systemsettings5 on Slackware 14.2 is a Qt 5.7 issue. For slackware-current I am using Qt 5.9 which does not have this issue. So, in the end this is not something that will be (or needs to be) fixed, because when Plasma5 gets added to Slackware, it will be based on Qt 5.9 or newer.
one notice – digikam refers to wrong lib: libmarblewidget-qt5.so.27, the one in marble pkg is .28
Thankyou Eric. With your last suggestion now yakuake works perfectly!! I’ve installed the latest release from the code, of course
Eric,
slackpkg+-1.7.0-noarch-4mt.txz and slackpkg+-1.7.0-noarch-5mt.txz in http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackpkgplus/pkg/ ???
Janis, there will be a rebuilt digikam package for Slackware 14.2 soon, along with patched ktexteditor packages.
Cooper, fixed thanks.
Hi Eric,
About the kde-gtk-config issue there is a patch which supposedly fixes the issue:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=382291
https://phabricator.kde.org/D8443
Thanks!!
Hi Eduardo,
Indeed that patch fixes it. I will update the kde-gtk-config package.
Hi Eric,
I took notice at something at qt5 package: it’s not building the QT documentation.
After you type “qmake-qt5 -query” you get a list of all paths for qt stuff, including “QT_INSTALL_DOCS:/usr/doc/qt5-5.9.2”.
Inside that folder, you will have the “global”, with only qdocconf files on it. These are templates for qdoc command, not the help files. I believe that we have a missing “make docs” and “make install_docs” somewhere on the Slackbuild file.
Tks!
CapEnt – I think I don’t want to blow up the qt5 package size with documentation. Yes, “make install_docs INSTALL_ROOT=$PKG” would have to follow the “make install” line.
There is now a patch for the systemsettings issue:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=385785
Marcelo, nice. That should be included in the next Frameworks release then (to be released on 11 November).
Hello Eric, I’m having some issues with gwenview. It didn’t open, and when I try to run through the terminal, I got logs, saying that there is missing dependencies.
Luis, then install those missing dependencies. I can not look at your screen, you do not mention which dependencies… so it really is all up to you to fix this.
For info 😉
I have build the Applications 17.12 Beta, no major problem, new package ‘ksmtp’ need added in the kdepim modules, it need to build before ‘kalarmcal’:
https://community.kde.org/Applications/17.12_Release_Notes
Well, first the Applications 17.08.3 will land in my repository. Almost there. Then after that, no more KDE4-based programs left over in Applications.
I hope I can drop at least some of the packages in my kde4 and kde4-extragear directories…
I uninstalled all kde4 packages, I do not use them anymore, the last one I used from time to time, was kget 😉
I have strange observation – if I try to launch a desktop shortcut from the folder on desktop opened with Dolphin, I get am error message: Failed to add plugin to the panel. No running instance of xfce4-panel was found
If I move the shortcut to the desktop, ther the shortcut works as expected…
Probably just cosmetic but… 😉
package ‘lmdb’ have the libs in /usr/lib and /usr/lib64 is empty
Indeed Gérard, I will have to do something about it.
It’s just cosmetic as you say – until you try to make a 32bit “compat32” package for a multilib setup and find that the libraries overwrite each other…
I agree in this case 😉