Slackware Plasma5 updates for November

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I have uploaded my November ’17 set of Plasma 5 packages for Slackware 14.2 and -current. KDE 5_17.11 contains: KDE Frameworks 5.40.0, Plasma 5.11.3 and Applications 17.08.3. All based on Qt 5.9.2 for Slackware-current and Qt 5.7.1 for Slackware 14.2.
For Slackware -current there’s again a choice of ‘latest‘ and ‘testing‘ where the ‘testing’ repository contains 17 recompiled packages that provide a Wayland compositor stack. This means you have a working Plasma5 Wayland session if you use ‘testing‘ as opposed to ‘latest‘.
The ‘testing‘ repository is for… testing. Do not use those packages on a production environment unless you are familiar with Slackware, debugging graphical sessions and know your way around slackpkg/slackpkg+.
NOTE: I will no longer be releasing Plasma 5 packages for 32bit Slackware 14.2.

The Applications 17.08.3 release which is part of this November package set, will be the last that contains software based on the old kdelibs (aka KDE4). Any application which has not been ported to KDE Frameworks 5 (KF5) yet will be removed from the Applications collection. Starting with Applications 17.12.0 we should have a legacy-free Plasma5 desktop. If anything, this would be a nice moment to add Plasma5 to Slackware-current and say goodbye to KDE4. We’ll have to wait and see what Patrick thinks of this. Looking at recent updates in -current (the ‘etc‘ ‘network-scripts‘ and ‘pkgtools‘ package versions were changed from “14.2” to “15.0”) I would hazard a guess that we are past the mid-point of the current development cycle 😉
I am really looking forward to getting Plasma5 into Slackware proper. It will allow me to cut loose from the monthly time-consuming update cycles and concentrate on creating an add-on repository for Slackware’s Plasma5 – containing speech synthesis, Wayland of course, and all the esoteric stuff I added to Plasma5 over time which will be scrapped by Patrick (I am thinking of Digikam for instance).

What’s new in the November release

Nothing world-shaking this month. All KDE sofware updates are meant to improve stability and usability. I did add two packages to ‘kde/applications-extra‘ however: both kaudiocreator and kwebkitpart have KF5 ports that are about ready for production, so I thought it would be good to give them a spin on Slackware. Now there are only two packages left from Slackware’s old KDE4 that you may want to install: Amarok (for which a KF5 port is also in the works) and KPlayer (which seems dead in the water, but instead you can try QMLPlayer from the ‘qtav‘ package in my ‘ktown‘ repository).
I also updated PyQt5 in the ‘deps ‘ directory and it has picked up Python3 support (in the slackware-current package at least).

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. I have some further reading material in case you are interested in the Wayland functionality of the ‘testing’ repository: README.testing.

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/latest/ and packages in /current/latest/ ,  /14.2/latest/ and /current/testing/ 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.

Live ISO of PLASMA5

A new Plasma5 Live ISO image will be uploaded to http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackware-live/latest/ later this week, in case you want to try the new Plasma5 desktop out first in a non-destructive way.

Have fun! Eric

48 thoughts on “Slackware Plasma5 updates for November”

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  5. In dep maybe it’s a good idea, to update json-glib, to 1.4.2 version because it’s the version used by gnome-3.6.2 😉

    Reply

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  13. Thanks for rebuilding Kjots so quickly in response to Gerard’s comment! I use this program a lot for so many things, and I am glad that it’s working again, from within Kontact and standalone. Thanks a lot!
    And BTW: This was the only issue I ran into so far with your Plasma5 November updates. Great job!

    Reply

  14. Thanks for new KDE build!

    PS. your new ffmpeg package needs to include libx265 library:
    # ldd /usr/lib64/libavcodec.so.57.107.100 | grep x265
    libx265.so.130 => not found

    Thanks.

    Reply

  15. Thanks for the update. I’m upgrading my system last night, and this is my report about KDE5 Wayland.

    I’m still confuse with kwallet5 and wayland. I had to kill it and start it again with env flags QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb /usr/bin/kwalletd5 (/usr/bin/kwalletmanager5) before I can unlock my keys. So, I think kwallet5 does not support wayland, is it correct?

    Other than that, is the systemsettings. It still makes plasma restarts when I’m opening it.

    Reply

  16. Yes on wayland version ‘system settings’ crash frequently plasma, but others soft make crashed plasma when exit.
    i think plasma 5 isn’t really ready for plasma now 😉

    Reply

  17. LOEdiver I had run into the same thing, after uploading the new ffmpeg to the repository. It was past 2 AM when I did that… too sleepy to notice I guess.
    This needs to solved by statically linking libx265 but I ran into a linker error so I am still investigating.

    Reply

  20. Hi alienbob,

    After full rsync and upgrade following the README commands, slackpkg is suggesting downgrades from 17.08.03 to 17.08.02 of the following packages in ktown repo for 14.2/latest :
    – kaccounts-integration-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – kaccounts-providers-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz?
    – ktp-accounts-kcm-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-approver-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-auth-handler-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-call-ui-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-common-internals-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-contact-list-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-contact-runner-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-desktop-applets-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-filetransfer-handler-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-kded-module-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-send-file-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – ktp-text-ui-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz
    – signon-kwallet-extension-17.08.2-x86_64-1alien.txz

    Brian

    Reply

  21. Brian it seems I left the old KDE Telepathy packages in place. I will remove them from the repository.
    About kjots, that will go on the TODO. Don’t hold your breath.

    Reply

  24. I have omit, just for info, Eric, qt5-5.9.3, compile perfectly with your SlackBuild, just i have uninstalled the old version before, in case…… 😉

    this new release work great on xorg and plasma5, for the moment.

    Reply

  26. Just for info ‘hplip’ compiled with qt5, put the hp-sysray in the right place, this make ‘sni-qt’ is definitely obsolete,
    another little cosmetic enhancement, ‘xpdf’ just rebuild with qt5 installed, adopte le look de qt5 😉

    Reply

  28. I found out this week that xpdf had changed from the simple Xlib based version of the past, to a re-designed Qt based version. That is why I had to remove it from the XFCE Live ISO…

    Reply

  29. About sni-qt, I don’t know of any Qt4 based applications left over, which want to create a systray notifier.
    So indeed once Pat includes Plasma5 into Slackware, he won’t have to include sni-qt.

    Reply

  34. Just suggestion 😉

    directory /run/user/1000 is created with user group ‘root’, maybe is better it is create with user group ‘users’

    Reply

  38. Hi Eric! I have somethingh which might be seen as a bug.

    In System Settings > Applications > Default Applications > Web Browser > Open http and https URLS: when you select “in the following application”, Firefox is not listed as a browser, despite being installed. I think it should be listed there. Thanks again!

    Reply

  39. Eduardo, indeed. This needs to be solved in the Slackware ‘mozilla-firefox’ package.
    The fix on your local computer is easy:

    $ diff  /usr/share/applications/mozilla-firefox.desktop{.orig,}
5c5
< Categories=Network;
---
> Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
    Reply

  41. Hi Eric. After the Wed Dec 6 14:13:48 UTC 2017 update in -current I cannot use Plasma anymore. Among the updates is icu4c and I suspect that is the culprit.

    Thanks,
    Eduardo

    Reply

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