Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Tag: kde (Page 10 of 28)

KDE-5_15.09 – september release for Slackware-current

September 3, 2015 / / 86 Comments

powerpenguin Today my son had his first day at school – he was not happy for some reason… can you imagine! I let him watch the second episode of Fear the Walking Dead to show what a really bad day at school  looks like 😉 Still, a very appropriate moment to write the next blog post about Plasma 5, because I wrote the previous one on his first day of summer holidays.

I want to announce the (first) September release of the Plasma 5 desktop KDE for slackware-current: KDE 5_15.09. The main components for this release are Frameworks 5.13.0, Plasma 5.4.0 and Applications 15.08.0. This has been a huge change compared to the previous batch, thanks to the feature updates in Plasma and Applications. Read the whole article please.

Attention: BETA alert!

This is an intrusive update, even if you currently have my KDE 5_15.07 packages installed and you are liking that release. Consider this to be beta-quality because there may be some usability issues – and read the “BUILD NOTES” section in the README very carefully before you decide to upgrade. If you were already complaining about the earlier Plasma 5 releases, then I do not consider you my target audience for this one. I do not need complaints and whining, I need people who are willing to take a deep dive and help me get this beast healthy again so that together we can ensure a future for Plasma 5 on Slackware. Much as you would like to just download my packages and live a happy life, this can not be a one-man show. This upgrade almost killed my willingness to provide an advanced bleeding edge KDE.

Because I have to say, all in all I am pretty unhappy with the effort which was required to get this latest batch of updates to compile and work together. And even then, with a finished set of packages, there are a few annoying issues for which I have no explanation nor do I have a solution because I do not know whether they are caused by Plasma 5 or by the recent slackware-current updates.

I need testers to iron out some annoying regressions!

Annoyance #1: Logging out is delayed

  • Try to open the Plasma Kicker startmenu and move your mouse over the “Leave” tab. It will then take a minute to display the tab’s content, and in the meantime, the Plasma workspace is frozen. Any open application windows are still responsive and you can work with them.
  • Try to use the logout/shutdown widget in the system tray if you added that. Clicking the widget will also cause a one to tw minute delay before the logoff dialog appears.
  • Try logging out from the commandline using this qdbus commmand in an X term:
    $ qdbus org.kde.ksmserver /KSMServer logout 0 0 0
    You will notice that this command just sits there for the same one to two minutes, and then it kicks into action and you’ll be logged off. Something is amiss with the communication over dbus. Ideas anyone?

Annoyance #2: Powersaving (could be slackware-current issue)

  • Whenever the power saver kicks in and I am not paying attention, the screen of my Lenovo T400 laptop (Intel graphics) turns black and will not revive. I have to Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to my Linux console, press the backlight button until I can read again what’s on screen, and then back to X using Alt-F7.

Annoyance #3: WTF?

  • In my 32-bit virtual machine I cannot even login, because there is a flood of re-spawning screensaver processes that prevent access. This can be caused by something in the virtual machine, but I did not do extensive troubleshooting.

When I encountered this third “annoyance” I almost gave up on Plasma 5 entirely. What.The.Fuck? I kept trying to kill the screensaver processes but they just re-spawned with a new process-id. I vented my frustration in the Slackware core group, and it was Heinz Wiesinger (ppr:kut) who convinced me that it is important now more than ever to release the build scripts and packages and get people to test and fix these pesky bugs. So, despite the bad feelings I have about this update, I’ve released it anyway and the packages are available in my repository. Or will be soon.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.09?

Enough complaining, let’s check out the new stuff.

  • Qt5 has been updated to 5.5.0.
  • Slackware’s ConsoleKit (unmaintained) gets replaced by ConsoleKit2 (well-maintained fork) which could open up a path to a systemd-free Slackware that is compatible to a large extent with systemd requirements.
  • I added LoginKit also for that purpose. LoginKit in its present form does not do much (if anything at all) but I want to have it in for those who want to play test this.
  • Several of the other deps were added, updated, rebuilt or removed as well:
    • LibRaw (update for the Slackware package),
    • PyQt5 (updated),
    • qca-qt5 (patched),
    • grantlee (update for the Slackware package)
    • lmdb (new)
    • grantlee-qt5 (renamed to grantlee thereby replacing the Slackware version)
  • Removed from the “deps” because we can use the original Slackware packages now are: PyQt, sip and libepoxy.
  • Frameworks 5.13.0 is an enhancement release, lots of fixes are documented on https://www.kde.org/announcements/kde-frameworks-5.13.0.php
  • Plasma 5.4.0 is a feature release, you can read all the details in https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.4.0.php . Important is that the krunner has a command history again, and lots of new icons were added for non-Plasma5 applications, which helps to give the Plasma 5 desktop a uniform look and feel; Not so important for Slackware is the Wayland Tech Preview and some system tool improvements using PAM (kwallet-pam) or pulseaudio (audio volume applet).
  • Applications 15.08.0 is bringing more KF5 ports: 107 applications in total. Most noticeable are the KF5 ports of Dolphin (the file manager), KDEPIM (the Kontact Suite as it is called now) and Ark (archive tool). I am a bit worried about the Kontact port to the KDE Frameworks 5. Lots of struggles were discussed in the mailing lists and the resulting KF5 based Kontact Suite is still considered BETA quality.
  • The move to KF5 exposed several older KDE4 based applications that have a dependency on the KDE4 based PIM libraries.
    Therefore I had to add a compatibility layer of packages containing that KDE4 code: akonadi4 and kdepimlibs4 (similar to what I had to do earlier with libkmahjongg4, libkdegames4, konsolepart4 and katepart4).

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. Note that the packages are available in several subdirectories below “kde”, instead of directly in “kde”. This makes it easier for me to do partial updates of packages. The subdirectories are “kde4”, “kde4-extragear”, “frameworks” “plasma”, “plasma-extra” and “applications”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.07. You will have to remove old KDE 4 packages manually. If you do not have KDE 4 installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware’s own KDE 4 packages manually.

Note:

If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_15.07 and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should work but feel free to send me improved instructions if needed (assuming in this example that you tagged my KDE 5 repository with the name “ktown_testing” in the configuration file “/etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf“):
# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install ktown_testing (to get the newly added packages from my repo)
# slackpkg install-new (to get the new official Slackware packages that were part of my deps previously)
# slackpkg upgrade ktown_testing (upgrade all existing packages to their latest versions)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)
# slackpkg remove ConsoleKit (because we will now use ConsoleKit2 as a drop-in replacement)
# slackpkg remove grantlee-qt5 (upgraded grantlee takes over)
# slackpkg remove kgamma (no longer part of KDE Applications)
# slackpkg remove pairs(no longer part of KDE Applications)

And doublecheck that you have not inadvertently blacklisted my packages in “/etc/slackpkg/blacklist“! Check for the existence of a line in that blacklist file that looks like “[0-9]+alien” and remove it if you find it!

Recommended reading material

There have been several posts now about KDE 5 for Slackware-current. All of them contain useful information, tips and gotchas that I do not want to repeat here, but if you want to read them, here they are: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/tag/kde5/

A note on Frameworks

The KDE Frameworks are extensions on top of Qt 5.x and their usability is not limited to the KDE Software Collection. There are other projects which rely (in part) on the KDE Frameworks, and if you are looking for a proper Frameworks repository which is compatible with Slackware package managers such as slackpkg+, then you can use these URL’s to assure yourself of the latest Frameworks packages for Slackware-current (indeed, this is a sub-tree of my KDE 5 “testing” repository):

Where to get the new packages for Plasma 5

Download locations are listed below (you will find the sources in ./source/5/ and packages in /current/5/ subdirectories). If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.

Using a mirror is preferred because you get more bandwidth from a mirror and it’s friendlier to the owners of the master server!

Have fun! Eric

KDE 5_15.07 – July release for Slackware-current

July 10, 2015 / / 35 Comments

Plasma5_lockedpowerpenguin Today my son had his last day at school – holiday time! We had little hope he would pass his semi-final year at the “middelbare school” but he managed to pull of a small miracle and passed anyway. Yay! His dad will sleep better now… and I used the relaxed mood to sit behind this computer and write a blog post about the July release of KDE 5 for Slackware-current. While my son went out to party, we slackers just install the latest and greatest software and pound it hard to see if any bugs seep out of the cracks.

The past month saw various KDE component releases which I let slip, because I intend to offer upgrades only when newer versions of all of Frameworks, Plasma and Applications are available. Well, there was Frameworks 5.11.0 several weeks ago but I skipped that one entirely, and today Frameworks 5.12.0 was released. The KDE Applications 15.04.3 release was already more than a week ago, and Plasma 5.3.2 one day before that, on 30 June.  Time for some package building, and because the Frameworks sourcecode was made available to packagers a number of days ago, I had them ready on wednesday… but needed to wait for the public release of the new Frameworks.

Now then, my July release of the next-gen KDE for slackware-current: KDE 5_15.07. Its main components, as said earlier, are Frameworks 5.12.0, Plasma 5.3.2 and Applications 15.04.3. The updates to Applications also contain the usual KDE 4 Long Term Support (LTS) updates for kdelibs, kdepimlibs, kdepim, kdepim-runtime and kde-workplace. Hopefully Pat will fold those LTS releases back into the official KDE 4 for Slackware-current.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.07?

Well… probably all sorts of improvements under the hood of the various packages, but nothing exciting jumps out that I feel compelled to tell you about. Overall, more stability and less bugs, let’s hope. Read the Release Notes and you’ll know it all. Hey, weekend ahead! Time is on your side.

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. Note that the packages are available in several subdirectories below “kde”, instead of directly in “kde”. This makes it easier for me to do partial updates of packages. The subdirectories are “kde4”, “kde4-extragear”, “frameworks” “plasma”, “plasma-extra” and “applications”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult this time, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.04 or later. You will have to remove old KDE 4 packages manually. If you do not have KDE 4 installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware’s own KDE 4 packages manually.

Note:

If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_15.01 or newer and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should work but feel free to send me improved instructions if needed (assuming in this example that you tagged my KDE 5 repository with the name “ktown_testing” in the configuration file “/etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf“):
# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install ktown_testing (to get the newly added packages from my repo)
# slackpkg install-new (to get the new official Slackware packages that were part of my deps previously)
# slackpkg upgrade ktown_testing (upgrade all existing packages to their latest versions)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)
# removepkg sddm-theme-breeze (gone after KDE 5_15.01)
# removepkg libmm-qt5 (gone after KDE 5_15.03)
# removepkg qt-gstreamer0 (gone after KDE 5_15.04)
# slackpkg reinstall qt-gstreamer (ensure that none of the overlapping files of qt-gstreamer0 are left)
# slackpkg reinstall kactivities-framework (ensure that you are using the frameworks version of kactivitymanagerd)

And doublecheck that you have not inadvertently blacklisted my packages in “/etc/slackpkg/blacklist“! Check for the existence of a line in that blacklist file that looks like “[0-9]+alien” and remove it if you find it!

Recommended reading material

There have been several posts now about KDE 5 for Slackware-current. All of them contain useful information, tips and gotchas that I do not want to repeat here, but if you want to read them, here they are: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/tag/kde5/

A note on Frameworks

The KDE Frameworks are extensions on top of Qt 5.x and their usability is not limited to the KDE Software Collection. There are other projects which rely (in part) on the KDE Frameworks, and if you are looking for a proper Frameworks repository which is compatible with Slackware package managers such as slackpkg+, then you can use these URL’s to assure yourself of the latest Frameworks packages for Slackware-current (indeed, this is a sub-tree of my KDE 5 “testing” repository):

Where to get the new packages for Plasma 5

Download locations are listed below (you will find the sources in ./source/5/ and packages in /current/5/ subdirectories). If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.

Using a mirror is preferred because you get more bandwidth from a mirror and it’s friendlier to the owners of the master server!

Have fun! Eric

KDE 5_15.06 with a few useful fixes

June 3, 2015 / / 20 Comments

Yesterday there was a new release for the KDE Applications. I know that I updated my KDE 5 package set barely a week ago, but there were a few updates that I wanted to push anyway, so adding the updated Applications packages seemed like the proper thing to do.

So here is my first (there will probably a second) June release: KDE 5_15.06. Components are Frameworks 5.10.0, Plasma 5.3.1 and Applications 15.04.2. The updates to Applications contain KDE 4 Long Term Support (LTS) releases of kdelibs, kdepimlibs, kdepim, kdepim-runtime and kde-workplace.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.06?

The highlights of 5_15.06 (June release) are:

  • KDE Applications have been updated to 15.04.2 (a maintenance release containing the aforementioned KDE4 LTS updates)
  • KDE 4 Extragear has one package now: kdeconnect4, a barebones version of the kdeconnect-kde package that comes with slackware-current. It contains just those files that are required to access your Android device’s filesystem through Dolphin (which itself is still KDE 4 based). The rest of the old KDE 4 extragear is now part of slackware-current itself: grab these extragear packages (calligra, k3b, kdev-python, kdevelop, kdevelop-php, kdevelop-php-docs, kdevplatform, kio-mtp, kwebkitpart, oxygen-gtk2, oxygen-gtk3, partitionmanager, skanlite) from any slackware-current mirror.
  • KDE 4 based package kactivities no longer ships with the daemon kactivitymanagerd. The daemon is incompatible with the Frameworks version of kactivities, and in some cases this file overwrote the Frameworks version of kactivitymanagerd, causing severe desktop crashes.

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. Note that the packages are available in several subdirectories below “kde”, instead of directly in “kde”. This makes it easier for me to do partial updates of packages. The subdirectories are “kde4”, “kde4-extragear”, “frameworks” “plasma”, “plasma-extra” and “applications”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult this time, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.04 or later. You will have to remove old KDE packages manually. If you do not have KDE installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware’s own KDE 4 packages manually.

Note:

If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_15.01 or newer and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should work but feel free to send me improved instructions if needed (assuming in this example that you tagged my KDE 5 repository with the name “ktown_testing” in the configuration file “/etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf”):
# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install ktown_testing (to get the newly added packages from my repo)
# slackpkg install-new (to get the new official Slackware packages that were part of my deps previously)
# slackpkg upgrade ktown_testing (upgrade all existing packages to their latest versions)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)
# removepkg sddm-theme-breeze (gone after KDE 5_15.01)
# removepkg libmm-qt5 (gone after KDE 5_15.03)
# removepkg qt-gstreamer0 (gone after KDE 5_15.04)
# slackpkg reinstall qt-gstreamer (ensure that none of the overlapping files of qt-gstreamer0 are left)
# slackpkg reinstall kactivities-framework (ensure that you are using the frameworks version of kactivitymanagerd)

And doublecheck that you have not inadvertently blacklisted my packages in “/etc/slackpkg/blacklist“! Check for the existence of a line in that blacklist file that looks like “[0-9]+alien” and remove it if you find it!

Recommended reading material

There have been several posts now about KDE 5 for Slackware-current. All of them contain useful information, tips and gotchas that I do not want to repeat here, but if you want to read them, here they are: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/tag/kde5/

A note on Frameworks

The KDE Frameworks are extensions on top of Qt 5.x and their usability is not limited to the KDE Software Collection. There are other projects which rely (in part) on the KDE Frameworks, and if you are looking for a proper Frameworks repository which is compatible with Slackware package managers such as slackpkg+, then you can use these URL’s to assure yourself of the latest Frameworks packages for Slackware-current (indeed, this is a sub-tree of my  KDE 5 “testing” repository):

Where to get the new packages for Plasma 5

Download locations are listed below (you will find the sources in ./source/5/ and packages in /current/5/ subdirectories). If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.

Using a mirror is preferred because you get more bandwidth from a mirror and it’s friendlier to the owners of the master server!

Have fun! Eric

KDE 5_15.05 packages are available for slackware-current

May 26, 2015 / / 29 Comments

qt-kde-620x350I am trying to keep up with a monthly release of KDE 5 (Plasma5) packages for Slackware-current. So far, so good, and every month I have been able to make a significant difference. Today the KDE developers released an update to Plasma 5 while earlier this month you could have noticed updates for Frameworks and Applications. Time for some new packages for Slackware land!

Therefore, you can now download my May release of KDE 5_15.05. Components are Frameworks 5.10.0, Plasma 5.3.1 and Applications 15.04.1 which includes the latest updates of the KDE 4 Long Term Support (LTS) packages kdelibs, kdepimlibs, kdepim, kdepim-runtime and kde-workplace.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.05?

The highlights of 5_15.05 (May release) are:

  • KDE Frameworks have been updated to 5.10.0 (maintenance release, no new frameworks)
  • KDE Plasma has been updated to 5.3.1 (also a maintenance release)
  • KDE Applications have been updated to 15.04.1 (yet another maintenance release)
  • KDE Extragear is still empty (this started with my KDE 5_15.04 release): you must grab the extragear packages (calligra, k3b, kdev-python, kdevelop, kdevelop-php, kdevelop-php-docs, kdevplatform, kio-mtp, kwebkitpart, oxygen-gtk2, oxygen-gtk3, partitionmanager, skanlite) from regular slackware-current itself.
  • No new or udated “deps” packages this time, but one has been removed. I got rid of the “qt-gstreamer0” package because I believe there is nothing that uses it. Also, the package content was conflicting with the “qt-gstreamer” package. So after you have removed qt-gstreamer0 be sure to reinstall qt-gstreamer.
  • I have added several policy files to the “powerdevil” package which bring back the Shutdown/Reboot and Suspend/Hibernate options in Plasma 5. Thanks to luis (suspend/hibernate) and manciuleas (restart/shutdown) who came up with the solution in a discussion following an older post.

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. Note that the packages are available in several subdirectories below “kde”, instead of directly in “kde”. This makes it easier for me to do partial updates of packages. The subdirectories are “kde4”, “kde4-extragear” (currently empty), “frameworks” “plasma”, “plasma-extra” and “applications”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult this time, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.04. You will have to remove old KDE packages manually. If you do not have KDE installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware’s own KDE 4 packages manually.

Note:

If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_15.01 or newer and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should work but feel free to send me improved instructions if needed (assuming in this example that you tagged my KDE 5 repository “ktown_testing”):
# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install ktown_testing (to get the newly added packages from my repo)
# slackpkg install-new (to get the new official Slackware packages that were part of my deps previously)
# slackpkg upgrade ktown_testing (upgrade all existing packages to their latest versions)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)
# removepkg sddm-theme-breeze (gone after KDE 5_15.01)
# removepkg libmm-qt5 (gone after KDE 5_15.03)
# removepkg qt-gstreamer0 (gone after KDE 5_15.04)
# slackpkg reinstall qt-gstreamer (ensure that none of the overlapping files of qt-gstreamer0 are left)

And doublecheck that you have not inadvertently blacklisted my packages in “/etc/slackpkg/blacklist“! Check for the existence of a line in that blacklist file that looks like “[0-9]+alien” and remove it if you find it!

My observations after upgrading

Again, some peculiarities I ran across when starting the freshly upgraded desktop that I want to share with you (there are some more observations in my previous KDE post):

  • At first the desktop would not even start and all kinds of Frameworks related programs were crashing. Re-installing all packages solved that. Something got corrupted the first time? No way to find out.
  •  I switched from wmsystemtray to trayer-srg as the solution for supporting old-style Xembed tray icons like Dropbox with the commandline “trayer –edge bottom –widthtype request –align right –distance 30 &” which places it lower right, directly above the Plasma taskbar. However – and I don’t recall what I did – on all subsequent logins, trayer would start before the rest of the desktop. As a result of that, trayer would cover the full task bar area. The task bar, including the KDE menu, were made inaccessible and invisible. At first I thought “yet another crash of plasmashell” and restarting plasmashell would indeed fix the issue. It was only later that I found out that they were all running, but trayer was in the way of the task bar. So I created a “trayer.desktop” file in ~/.config/autostart where Plasma5 looks for applications it has to start automatically when you login – and it will start these applications after the full desktop environment has loaded. That fixed it. By the way, the file has to end with “.desktop” or else it will be ignored. Inside it should look something like this:
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=trayer --edge bottom --widthtype request --align right --distance 30
Terminal=false
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
Name=Trayer

Where to get the new packages for Plasma 5

Download locations are listed below (you will find the sources in ./source/5/ and packages in /current/5/ subdirectories). If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.

Using a mirror is preferred because you get more bandwidth from a mirror and it’s friendlier to the owners of the master server!

Have fun! Eric

KDE 5_15.04 for Slackware-current: back to work

April 30, 2015 / / 40 Comments

qt-kde-620x350An update to my KDE 5 packages was overdue. Ever since the “big upgrade” in Slackware-current a week ago on 21 April 2015, there have been some stability issues in the Plasma 5 desktop. The instability was caused by the version bumps of various libraries that the KDE software is depending on – you can not dynamically link to a software library that’s no longer there because it has been replaced with a library bearing a new version number. I felt I had to recompile everything just to be sure there was no hidden “breakage” left, and so I took the opportunity to wait for the newest Plasna release and present you wilth all-new packages.

My April release of KDE 5_15.04 consists of Frameworks 5.9.0, Plasma 5.3.0 and Applications 15.04.0 plus the latest updates of the KDE 4 Long Term Support (LTS) packages kdelibs, kdepimlibs, kdepim, kdepim-runtime and kde-workplace. Also there’s been a bit of a shake-up in the “deps” directory containing the direct dependencies for this release.

About Plasma 5

Slackware-current will stick with KDE 4.14.3 plus the latest LTS updates. KDE 5, or Plasma 5 as many people like to call it, is not yet fit for the average user. It is fairly stable, has some nice new concepts but if you are not the curious or tinkering kind, you will be better off with Slackware’s KDE 4.14.3.

If you are curious and like to tinker, and don’t care if some functionality is temporarily missing from Plasma 5 that you were used to in KDE 4, then my Plasma 5 packages will be a nice and interesting update for your Slackware-current computer (32-bit or 64-bit). The KDE 5 matures with every release of its components. In particular, the new Plasma 5.3.0 is a “new features” release working its way towards full Wayland support (no, we do not use that yet, and X.Org is also fully supported). And the April ’15 release of the KDE Applications brings the number of applications that have been ported to KF5 (KDE Frameworks 5) to a grand total of 72.

New to the Applications starting with 15.04 is KDE Telepathy (an Instant Messaging & Voice Over IP client on top of the telepathy communications framework) and Kdenlive, the non-linear video editor. BOth are filling a void in the KDE desktop that has existed for many years. I have to tell you that I have not yet built packages for them, but I will look at them for a future iteration. It would only have delayed the release of my packages at this moment.

Remember, there is no choosing between KDE 4 and Plasma 5 – KDE 4 will be mostly replaced (I say “mostly” because there are still a lot of KDE 4 applications in this release).

What’s new in KDE 5_15.04?

The highlights of this 5_15.04 March release are:

  • KDE Frameworks have been updated to 5.9.0 (includes a new Framework: ModemManagerQt which is the former libmm-qt5 which has been promoted from Plasma to Frameworks and renamed)
  • KDE Plasma has been updated to 5.3.0 (new features release)
  • KDE Applications have been updated to 15.04.0 (increasing the number of KF5 ports to 72)
  • KDE Extragear has been emptied: all the extragear packages are now available in slackware-current itself. Report any breakage that you encounter!!
  • The “deps” directory for this release contains updates to stock Slackware packages: PyQt, eigen2, phonon, phonon-gstreamer, sip, xapian-core, and there’s three new “deps” packages as well since my previous release: PyQt5, cfitsio and grantlee-qt5. You’ll notice that several other “deps” packages have been upgraded or at least rebuilt.
  • Gone from the “deps” because they are now part of Slackware-current:  LibRaw, akonadi, attica, cmake, eigen3, exiv2, grantlee, harfbuzz, libfakekey, libodfgen, librevenge, libssh, libwpd, orc, poppler, qt, shared-desktop-ontologies, soprano, strigi.

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

The recent mass-update in Slackware-current will make this upgrade to KDE 5_15.04 particularly difficult. Remember: “don’t drink and drive“!

As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. Note that the packages are available in several subdirectories below “kde”, instead of directly in “kde”. This makes it easier for me to do partial updates of packages. The subdirectories are “kde4”, “kde4-extragear”, “frameworks” “plasma”, “plasma-extra” and “applications”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is non-trivial. You will have to remove old KDE packages manually. If you do not have KDE installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware’s own KDE 4 packages manually. I can not guarantee that there will be no deal-breakers for you (missing functionality or persistent crashes).

Note:

If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_15.01 or newer and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should work but feel free to send me improved instructions if needed (assuming in this example that you tagged my KDE 5 repository “ktown_testing”):
# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install ktown_testing (to get the newly added packages from my repo)
# slackpkg install-new (to get the new official Slackware packages that were part of my deps previously)
# slackpkg upgrade ktown_testing (upgrade all existing packages to their latest versions)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)
# removepkg sddm-theme-breeze (gone after KDE 5_15.01)
# removepkg libmm-qt5 (gone after KDE 5_15.03)

My observations after upgrading

There were a couple of things I had to go through to get the Plasma 5 desktop into an OK state:

  • At first start, the screen remained black even though I could see the “wmsystemtray” was visible and the mouse pointer was definitely a KDE pointer. I killed the X server (Ctrl-Alt-BackSpace) and started again. This time the desktop came up as anticipated.
  • I had added Konsole  to the Favourites menu earlier. Both Konsole and Systemsettings icons in the Favourites were non-functional and missing their icons. I had to remove and re-add them.
  • KDEConnect was added to my system tray earlier. After the upgrade to KDE 5_15.04 I could see an empty square where I assume KDEConnect wanted to dock – but it did not respond to clicking. I had to right-click on the system tray and disable KDEConnect from being shown, click Apply, and then make the KDEConnect widget show again.
  • The default desktop background and the start/lock screen are quite a bit flashier. I like the changes in the theming.
  • Still no suspend/hibernate buttons. And the shutdown/reboot options will only appear if you edit the “/usr/bin/startkde” script – removing the call to “kwrapper” as explained here.

Where to get the new packages for Plasma 5

Download locations are listed below (you will find the sources in ./source/5/ and packages in /current/5/ subdirectories). If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.

Using a mirror is preferred because you get more bandwidth from a mirror and it’s friendlier to the owners of the master server!

Have fun! Eric

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