Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Tag: current (Page 5 of 7)

First victim of slackware-current update 20150421 healed: LibreOffice

April 24, 2015 / / 11 Comments

Three days ago, there was a massive update to Slackware’s development tree. More than 50% of all packages in Slackware have either been rebuilt, upgraded or added new.

The result of these massive (core) library updates was to be expected: all kinds of 3rd party packages stopped working because the libraries they were dynamically linking to, have disappeared. My KDE 5 packages definitely need a big make-over, but since those packages are considered “testing” anyway, even for Slackware’s development standards, I thought it was more important to concentrate first on a package which to many is a productive tool for every day use: LibreOffice.

Three weeks ago, a version of LibreOffice was released which I had not yet packaged: LibreOffice 4.4.2. For some time now, my LibreOffice packages which I am compiling on Slackware 14.1 would not run in combination with my Ktown packages of KDE 4.14.3 for Slackware-current – thanks to the updated harfbuzz package that I shipped together with my KDE packages. Users of LibreOffice could simply downgrade to the harfbuzz package of Slackware-current and LibreOffice would work again. A simple enouigh fix without serious consequences to their KDE desktop.

And now finally, all those KDE packages, including the latest harfbuzz, have been added by Patrick to Slackware-current itself… causing permanent breakage for LibreOffice. A libreoffice package compiled on Slackware-current was the only option to fix this.

I wanted to grab that LibreOffice 4.4.2 source I just mentioned, but noticed that the mirror carried 4.4.3 “prerelease” sources too. Since we are all happily beta-testing Slackware here, I thought that I should grab these 4.4.3 sources instead. And so I did, and built packages out of them. People on LQ have already confirmed that they work like a charm.

My LibreOffice 4.4.3 packages for Slackware-current are ready for download from the usual mirror locations (mirrors should be fully sync-ed in 24 hours, taper is already uptodate):

New packages for Slackware 14.1 will arrive too, eventually. But my first priority now, is to fix KDE 5 and whatever else is no longer working… not looking forward to compiling Qt 5.4.1 for two architectures. But, I may not wait until I have compiled all packages (both 64-bit and 32-bit). If the 64-bit packages for KDE 5 are done and I am satisfied that they run without issues, I will upload those right away. I don’t think there are that many people running Slackware-current with my Plasma desktop on 32-bit.

Have fun! Eric

 

Slackware-current – new multilib gcc compiler suite

June 3, 2014 / / 5 Comments

The latest update to Slackware-current brought us a new kernel (3.14.5) and a new gcc compiler (4.8.3).

This warranted a build of new multilib gcc packages. Get them from your nearest mirror. I also refreshed the “compat32” layer of packages – this is the set of converted 32-bit Slackware packages which you’ll need at a minimum, so that you will be able to run most of the 32-bit software that is out there.

Remember, a multilib configuration is needed if you want to use binary-only 32-bit software on 64-bit Slackware – think of Valve’s Steam Client, the WINE emulator, the Pipelight browser plugin, Citrix client etc.

If you are looking for instructions on how to add or update multilib on your 64-bit Slackware, check out our Slackware Documentation Project which has this information and much more.

Cheers, Eric

 

New multilib versions of glibc and gcc for slackware-current

May 9, 2014 / / 26 Comments

There were a couple of nice updates in the Slackware-current ChangeLog today – new kernel (3.14.3), new binutils (2.24.51.0.3), new glibc (2.19) and a rebuilt gcc. Not to speak of two new packages: libnftnl and nftables, which bring a new packet filtering framework on Linux.

It’s my birthday today and I took a day off to be with my family, so there was time enough to build new versions of multilib glibc and gcc :-). They are at their usual download locations:

Remember, a multilib configuration is needed if you want to use binary-only 32-bit software on 64-bit Slackware – think of Valve’s Steam Client, the WINE emulator, the Pipelight browser plugin, Citrix client etc.

If you are looking for instructions on how to add or update multilib on your 64-bit Slackware, check out our Slackware Documentation Project which has this information and much more.

Cheers, Eric

 

Slackware 14.1 Beta1 has arrived

September 19, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Slackware_BlueOrb

Yesterday, Patrick Volkerding made the following announcement in the ChangeLog.txt of Slackware-current:

Wed Sep 18 02:56:19 UTC 2013
Hey folks, I’m calling this a beta! Really, it’s been better than beta
quality for a while. There will probably still be a few more updates
here and there (and certainly updates to the docs). Enjoy, and please test.

As usual, it was picked up quickly on LinuxQuestions (ok, I created the thread myself…) and even Phoronix posted a surprised-sounding message about it. Distrowatch wrote  a blurb as well. I looked at the all-time-low place of Slackware in the Distrowatch distro raking, and said to myself “that site is no longer attracting serious users” 😉

Note:

This update of Slackware-current contains rebuilt glibc packages (providing a patch for CVE-2013-4332), and therefore I also updated my multilib repository with new builds of glibc for Slackware versions -current, 14.0 and 13.37 . I also refreshed the “slackware64-compat32” subdirectories for those Slackware versions; in there you find a pre-packaged set of 32-bit compatibility packages which will make almost any 32-bit software work on multilib Slackware64.

Read here if you do not know what multilib is: http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:multilib

Enjoy! Eric

KDE 4.10.1, but packaged only for slackware-current

March 5, 2013 / / 25 Comments

Here it is, KDE Software Compilation 4.10.1. A few weeks ago, KDE 4.10.0 was added to Slackware-current, along with all its updated dependencies. Essentially that was the same set of packages which I had made available on my ‘ktown‘ repository earlier, Pat Volkerding simply recompiled them using the provided KDE.SlackBuild framework.

Being the first improvement release in the 4.10 series, I expect that you will have a smooth transition and less bugs than with KDE 4.10.0. If you are interested in the bugs which have been fixed, you can query the KDE bugtracker for the KDE 4.10.1 fix set.

The addition of KDE 4.10.0 to the ‘-current’ branch made me reconsider my packaging strategy. I have been compiling KDE packages on Slackware 14.0 since its release, to achieve maximal coverage (the packages could be used on -current as well as on 14.0). I feared that this time, it would cause too much confusion if I built the new KDE 4.10.1 on Slackware 14.0, because the rather large set of “deps” packages would have to be installed on Slackware 14.0 but not on Slackware-current (since ‘-current’ is already uptodate).

So, I have decided to move on and start compiling KDE packages for Slackware-current exclusively. This has always been my “ktown” strategy prior to the release of Slackware 14.0. Those of you who are running Slackware 14.0 can either stick with my KDE 4.10.0 packages or compile the new KDE 4.10.1 yourself – that is a straight-forward task, it’s just time-consuming. If there is a gap in my evening hours sometime soon, I will try to compile KDE 4.10.1 on Slackware 14.0 myself and upload them.

How to upgrade to KDE 4.10.1?

It’s really easy this time because there are no updated dependencies, and no new or abandoned KDE packages (if you are running slackware-current of course). As usual you will find all the installation/upgrade instructions that you need in the accompanying README file. That README also contains basic information for KDE recompilation using the provided SlackBuild script.

You are strongly advised to read and follow these installation/upgrade instructions!

Download locations (using a mirror is preferred:

Have fun! Eric

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