Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Tag: kde (Page 20 of 28)

Two fix-packages for KDE SC 4.10.0

February 10, 2013 / / 7 Comments

There are two bugs in the new KDE SC 4.10.0, which I was compelled to fix without waiting for a 4.10.1 release.

The first concerns the new “simple locker” which can be chosen instead of the normal screensaver. In KDE 4.10.0, this new screenlocker has the annoying behaviour that it will activate even if you selected the normal “legacy” screensaver and have explicitly configured KDE not to ask for a password when killing the screensaver. There is a patch on KDE ReviewBoard which attempts to fix this. This does provide a partial fix in my patched “kde-workspace” package: a password is no longer asked if you did not configure one, which takes away the annoyance. But the “simple locker” still manages to run on top of the configured screensaver occasionally. I guess we will have to wait for a better patch.

The second fix has been applied to the “nepomuk-core” package. On the kde-packager mailing list, Vishesh Handa announced a patch today for the broken “recursive file indexing“. This regression accidentally slipped into Nepomuk’s code when the developers attempted to reduce the memory usage of the file indexer.

Both packages (kde-workspace and nepomuk-core) are available in my ktown repository:

Eric

KDE SC 4.10.0 released

February 6, 2013 / / 62 Comments

Right on time, here is KDE Software Compilation 4.10.0. We left behind the 4.9 series but since this is a “zero release” I will keep my 4.9.5 packages around for a while. With this 4.10 series, one of the most interesting new features for end-users is the enhanced scripting possibilities for Plasma Workspaces (using QML, the Qt Markup Language and QtQuick) and the KWin window manager using external scripts. A new print manager has been added as well.

I have had packages ready for a few days already, and that allowed for limited testing by the people I trust. No strange bugs surfaced, if there are any left I hope you will uncover them 🙂

Remember: my ktown packages for KDE are meant to be used on Slackware-current, but I built this set of packages on Slackware 14.0. It allows these KDE 4.10.0 packages to work on Slackware 14 as well as -current.

How to upgrade to KDE 4.10.0? Whether you are upgrading from the stock KDE 4.8.5 of Slackware 14.0/current, or if you are upgrading from my previous 4.9.5 packages, you will find all the installation/upgrade instructions that you need in the accompanying README file.

You are strongly advised to read and follow these instructions!

Highlights for the new set of Slackware packages:

  • You will find nine updated dependencies compared to Slackware’s own KDE 4.8.5:  PyQt, akonadi, attica,phonon-gstreamer, qt, shared-desktop-ontologies, sip, soprano, virtuoso-ose. Several of those were updated after my previous 4.9.5 packages. I added a new one as well: qjson.
  • Some of the “extragear” of the KDE in Slackware 14/current has been updated: with new versions of calligra (accompanying the KDE 4.10.0 release), kdevelop, kdevplatform, oxygen-gtk2, skanlite (already updated for my previous package sets).
  • The “extragear” section also introduces new packages (compared to the stable Slackware): oxygen-gtk3 – which should give any software which uses the GTK+3 widget set a nice integrated look and feel when you run it in KDE; and kio-mtp which is required in order to access and manage files on devices running Android 4.0 and later. Starting with the KDE 4.10.0 release, I also added libkscreen and kscreen – this is a new screen management software which plugs into the System Settings of KDE’s Plasma Workspace. It tries to make multilple-screen management as easy as possible
  • Compared to KDE 4.8.5, but also compared to KDE 4.9.x, there were some package removals:
    • kdegames has been split up into several smaller individual packages, starting with 4.10.x
    • kdemultimedia had been split up into several smaller individual packages already, starting with 4.9.x.
    • ksecrets has been removed completely since the 4.9.x series.
    • printer-applet has been replaced by print-manager since the 4.10.0 series.

Download locations (using a mirror is preferred:

Have fun! Eric

Alien tip: Volume change percentages in KDE

January 11, 2013 / / 9 Comments

I have felt frustrated at times, when I press the Volume Up/Down buttons on my keyboard and the sound volume in KDE becomes just too loud, or just too soft. When you are running the KDE desktop, the increments in volume change are controlled by KMix, the KDE mixer. By default, the sound volume changes with increments of 4% which means that with a few keypresses you go from almost inaudible sound to full blast. And there is no way to change that 4% increment value into something more fitting… pretty annoying.

Although… something changed with KDE 4.8!

You can change the volume increment value since KDE 4.8, but this option is not exposed in any KDE GUI. Fortunately we Slackers are not afraid to use the vi editor and therefore you can change the increment to any other value (2.5% is a nice comfortable incremental change):

  • Stop the KMix program if it is running (right-click on its icon in the systray and select “Exit“)
  • Open the KMix confguration file in a text editor: “vi $HOME/.kde/share/config/kmixrc“
  • Add the following line to the [Global] section of that file to get a 2.5% increment value instead of the default 4%:
    • VolumePercentageStep=2.5
  • Start KMix again (for instance, Alt-F2 and enter “kmix”)
  • Try your Volume Up/Down buttons – they are more fine-grained now!

Cheers, Eric

KDE 4.9.5 was released. Next should be 4.10.

January 2, 2013 / / 12 Comments

When I announced the “final release in the 4.9 series” last month I had no idea that there would be another incremental bugfix release… but the KDE 4.9 Release Schedule page was updated shortly after and here we are with KDE Software Compilation 4.9.5! What happened was that too many bugs had crept in the software right before release of 4.9.4 which were only discovered after the sources had been officially released. You can check out the release notes if you want to read more about this release of KDE 4.9..

And similar to this adding a rather unexpected extension to the 4.9 series, the developers are also talking about adding an extra Release Candidate before giving the green light to KDE SC 4.10. Several proposals for improvements in Dolphin and Akonadi/nepomuk are considered important enough that these patches should be added before releasing 4.10. This seems to be irritating several other distro packager teams who – unlike Slackware – have fixed release dates and therefore, fixed freeze periods. Well, we don’t suffer from a week’s delay and I would say, add those patches and make 4.10 a solid first release!

In spite of that (my opinion is irrelevant in the above story) the recent slips in the KDE release schedule and discovery of too many critical last-moment bugs make me a bit wary about possible resource issues in the KDE developer community. I hope this is not the start of a trend.

Another thing should be mentioned. I don’t know how many people use Kolab groupware in their organization (or at home) but if you do, you will have noticed that support for Kolab has disappeared from Slackware KDE packages after 4.8.x (meaning that Slackware’s own KDE still supports Kolab groupware). I discussed the lack of Kolab support in KDE 4.9 with one of the people using my packages. Indeed KDE 4.9 and later needs a couple of additional packages in order to be able to support the Kolab groupware server like it did in earlier versions. You will need libkolab, libkolabxml and this in turn needs xerces-c to compile. I added SlackBuild scripts and sources for these kolab dependencies in the “deps” directory of the KDE 4.9.5 sources, and xerces-c can be obtained from slackbuilds.org. So: if you need Kolab support, then you have to build packages for these dependencies (first xerces-c, then libkolabxml, then libkolab) and then rebuild the kdepim-runtime package of KDE 4.9.5.

I have no idea if this will ever end up in Slackware proper but it is not hard to add yourself.

Anyway. On with the show.

As you may expect, the Slackware packages for KDE SC 4.9.5 are ready for download and installation. Remember: my ktown packages for KDE are meant to be used on Slackware-current, since that is what they are built on. But the development of -current still has not deviated too much from the latest stable release (14.0), so that these KDE 4.9.5 packages work without any issue on Slackware 14. That is why you will find the packages in a “14.0” directory.

How to upgrade to KDE 4.9.5? Whether you are upgrading from the stock KDE 4.8.5 of Slackware 14.0/current, or if you are upgrading from my previous 4.9.4 packages, you will find all the installation/upgrade instructions that you need in the accompanying README file.

You are strongly advised to read and follow these instructions!

Highlights for the new set of Slackware packages:

  • You will find five updated dependencies compared to Slackware’s own KDE 4.8.5: akonadi, qt, shared-desktop-ontologies, soprano, virtuoso-ose.
  • Some of the “extragear” of the KDE in Slackware 14/current has been updated: with new versions of kdevelop, kdevplatform and oxygen-gtk2.
  • The “extragear” section also introduces two new packages: oxygen-gtk3 (compared to the stable Slackware) which should give any software which uses the GTK+3 widget set a nice integrated look and feel when you run it in KDE; and kio-mtp which is required in order to access and manage files on devices running Android 4.0 and later. I heard that the version which I added to the KDE 4.9.4 set did not work so well, therefore I upgraded to the latest git snapshot. Feedback is welcome.
  • Compared to KDE 4.8.5, 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.

Download locations (using a mirror is preferred:

Have fun! Eric

Last maintenance release in KDE 4.9 series

December 5, 2012 / / 22 Comments

The KDE developers are already well underway to a 4.10 release, having published the second Beta yesterday. But as I stated before, I will stick with the 4.9 series until at least there is a stable release of 4.10. Today marks the final update in the 4.9 series. With the publication of KDE Software Compilation 4.9.4 we are at the end of the maintenance cycle. Check out the release notes if you want to know all about what happened in the past month.

I think that 4.9.4 is a perfect companion for people running Slackware 14 or current.

My Ktown packages for KDE are specifically targeting Slackware-current, since that is what they are built on. At the moment, the development of -current has not deviated much, so that the KDE 4.9.4 packages will work well on Slackware 14 as well. That is why you will find the packages in a “14.0” directory.

Whether you are upgrading from the stock KDE of Slackware, or if you are upgrading from my previous 4.9.3 packages, you will find proper installation/upgrade instructions in the accompanying README and you are strongly advised to read and follow them.

Highlights for the new set of Slackware packages:

  • You will find five updated dependencies compared to Slackware’s own KDE 4.8.5: akonadi, qt, shared-desktop-ontologies, soprano, virtuoso-ose.
  • Since qt-4.8.4 was released a few days ago, I decided to add this version to the package set. I would have had to rebuild qt anyway in order to apply fixes for crash bugs, but 4.8.4 should be better even..
  • I had upgraded some of the “extragear” of KDE in my 4.9.3 package set and they are kept for 4.9.4: you will find new versions of kdevelop and kdevplatform, as well as oxygen-gtk2.
  • I had added a new package oxygen-gtk3 to my 4.9.3 set which is also carried to this 4.9.4 set. The package should give any software which uses the GTK+3 widget set a nice integrated look and feel when you run it in KDE.
  • And to conclude, I have added an entirely new package to this KDE 4.9.4 set, “kio-mtp” which is required in order to access and manage files on devices running Android 4.0 and later. I have not tested this, and am hearing mixed reports about its usefulness. Let me know if you use this!
  • Compared to KDE 4.8.5, 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.

Download locations (using a mirror is preferred, both my own taper and Willy’s server are fully synchronized):

 

Have fun! Eric

 

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