Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Tag: kde (Page 9 of 28)

KDE 5_16.02 for Slackware-current

February 24, 2016 / / 35 Comments

plasma5_startup I have uploaded a new ‘ktown’ package set. KDE 5_16.02 contains the latest KDE releases: Frameworks 5.19.0, Plasma 5.5.4 and Applications 15.12.2. I had been sitting on this for a few days, and was waiting for Pat to release his own new batch of updates for slackware-current. With a fresh kernel and glibc in -current and new Plasma5 packages, it is almost time to create new ISO images for the Slackware Live Edition. More about liveslak in the next post.

What’s new in KDE 5_16.02?

  • Frameworks 5.19.0 is an enhancement release. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/kde-frameworks-5.19.0.php .
  • Plasma 5.5.4 is an incremental bug & stability update for the 5.5 series. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.5.4.php .
    • Note that these Plasma 5.5.4 packages were already released in ‘ktown‘ on February 4th as an incremental update.
  • The Applications 15.12.2 is a bugfix release. For a full list of changes to applications, read this page.
    • The ‘kjots’ package was added. This used to be part of KDEPIM and has now been released as a separate tarball.
    • KDE Telepathy is still missing the graphical voice&video chat application ‘ktp-call-ui’. At least, it is missing a stable release. I used a git snapshot to compile a package now that it finally has a new maintainer who finished the port to KF5 (KDE Frameworks 5). Inclusion of a stable release of ‘ktp-call-ui’ is expected in Applications 16.04.

I am preparing ISO images for the new 0.6.0 (Beta6) release of my Slackware Live Edition. These ISOs are based on the latest Slackware64-current. The PLASMA5 variant contains my KDE-5_16.02 packages. You can play-test the new desktop in a Live OS without the hassle of installing it to your hard drive (although that will be possible).

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

You can skip the remainder of the article if you already have my Plasma 5 installed and are familiar with the upgrade process. Otherwise, stay with me and read the rest.

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”, “kdepim”, “plasma”, “plasma-extra”, “applications”, “applications-extra” and “telepathy”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult, especially if you already are running KDE 5_16.01. 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_16.01 and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should “mostly” work but you still need to check the package lists displayed by slackpkg to verify that you are upgrading all the right packages. Feel free to send me improved instructions if needed. In below example I am assuming 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)
# removepkg xembed-sni-proxy ktux amor kde-base-artwork kde-wallpapers kdeartwork (they don’t exist in the repo anymore)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)

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 such as LXQT 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_15.12 for Slackware-current

December 19, 2015 / / 121 Comments

plasma5_startup It is time for a refresh of my ‘ktown’ package set. KDE 5_15.12 has been uploaded, containing the latest and greatest: Frameworks 5.17.0, Plasma 5.5.1 and Applications 15.12.0.

To be honest, the compilation had already finished on tuesday but due to the hectic work circumstances moving toward the christmas break, I did not have time to install and test the new packages on my laptop. Today, that has changed, and here is the new batch. One small disappointment… the colorful icons used for the shutdown & logout widget are again replaced by the old colorless flat icons. A regression in my opinion. Die flat colorless icons die!

Anyway, don’t mind the ramblings of an old greybeard who yet has to pour his first drink of the holiday. On with the story.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.12?

Actually, I skipped a Plasma release! Starting with Plasma 5.5, the developers have adopted a more agile release schedule, meaning that after a point release (.0) there will be one or two fast bugfix updates (.1 and .2) followed by further updates with a slightly longer delay. I had built Plasma 5.5.0 and was about to apply the wrapping paper when several last-minute bugs were uncovered in the new Applications point release (15.12.0) which lead to delays in finalizing the repository because of all the patching and subsequent rebuilds. And by the time the Applications issues were resolved, I found the Plasma 5.5.1 sources ready so I archived my 5.5.0 packages and built 5.5.1 instead.

  • Frameworks 5.17.0 is an enhancement release. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/kde-frameworks-5.17.0.php
  • Plasma 5.5.1 is the first bugfix release of the 5.5 series. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.5.1.php . Plasma 5.5 ditched KDE’s own TrueType font “oxygen-icons” in favor of Google’s Noto font family. Another load of font bullshit dumped on Slackware, yay, just what we needed. I had to follow suite and added “noto-font-ttf” and “noto-cjk-font-ttf” packages to the “deps” department. Other noteworthy enhancements and improvements of Plasma 5.5:
    • Support for legacy Xembed protocol is back – the blueman and HP systray icons are again visible without having to jump through hoops. The package “xembed-sni-proxy” which I added a few releases earlier, is gone from my repository because its code is now part of Plasma itself. Don’t forget to run “removepkg xembed-sni-proxy“!
    • Network Manager applet supports WPA2 Enterprise now.
    • A Breeze theme engine for GTK2+ applications was added.
    • You should be able to run a Wayland session now without too much pain and grinding of teeth. I did not test this myself, but some of you may want to tell me your experiences. Wayland is still a grey area to me, if not a black box.
  • Like the new Plasma, Applications 15.12.0 was also announced earlier this week. It is a step further in maturing the KDE Frameworks 5 (KF5) ports of the KDE application collection.
    • Highlight is the retirement of good old KSnapshot and the introduction of a brand new screenshot tool, Spectacle which should also be capable of capturing application menus and pop-ups.
    • Apart from KSnapshot, other packages have been removed as well in Applications 15.12: Amor, KTux (both unmaintained), and SuperKaramba (Plasma offers similar functionality).
    • And several artwork collections are no longer shipped: kde-base-artwork, kde-wallpapers and kdeartwork. Apparently “their content had not changed for a long time”.

I am wondering if I should re-add these removed packages as part of the “kde4” subset, like I already did with some of the other old stuff. Give me your opinion about the value of Amor, KTux, kde-base-artwork, kde-wallpapers and kdeartwork! I will re-add them when the demand is high.

And then there are the dependencies. I upgraded OpenAL, PyQt5, lmdb, added an updated sip package (i.e. newer than Slackware’s own), added the two aforementioned noto font packages and also added yet another new dependency for KWin: libxkbcommon.

I am also working on a new release of the Plasma 5 version of my Slackware Live Edition. It depends on whether I can get UEFI boot to work properly. That milestone will also become the “Beta 3″ release of my liveslak scripts. A link to the Plasma 5 Live ISO will be added to KDE’s Plasma 5 Live testing page, so that more people can get a taste of Slackware-current topped with Plasma 5.

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

You can skip the remainder of the article if you already have my Plasma 5 installed and are familiar with the upgrade process. Otherwise, stay with me and read the rest.

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”, “kdepim”, “plasma”, “plasma-extra”, “applications” and “telepathy”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.11. 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_15.10 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)
# removepkg xembed-sni-proxy ktux amor kde-base-artwork kde-wallpapers kdeartwork (they don’t exist in the repo anymore)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)

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 such as LXQT 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_15.11 for Slackware-current – visual improvements

November 16, 2015 / / 45 Comments

plasma5_startup In one of my previous articles,  where I wrote about the upcoming Slackware Live edition, I added some premature screenshots of the Plasma 5 packages I am announcing today. Just when I was preparing for upload, Pat released his big November 14th batch of updates to Slackware-current (including new kernel, compilers and X.Org), dubbing it “almost a beta”. That delayed the release process for my November Plasma 5 packages because I needed to check the impact of these updates to my already compiled packages.

Here it is finally, since I could not find any showstopper bugs: KDE 5_15.11 . It contains the following updates: Frameworks 5.16.0, Plasma 5.4.3 and Applications 15.08.3.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.11?

  • Frameworks 5.16.0 is an enhancement release. Interesting are the two new Frameworks: breeze-icons and oxygen-icons5. They were moved here from other collections, and the visual enhancement they cause on the Plasma desktop is immediately visible. Lots more colored icons that are replacing the bland and boring Plasma icons of previous releases. Still, the bland systemtray icons remain but I hope that something will be done about that. You can read the details on https://www.kde.org/announcements/kde-frameworks-5.16.0.php
  • Plasma 5.4.3 is a bugfix release and should be the last before 5.5.0. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.4.3.php .
  • Applications 15.08.3 was released last friday. It is a bugfix release. Note that I did not recompile the Telepathy applications this time!

 

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

You can skip the remainder of the article if you already have my Plasma 5 installed and are familiar with the upgrade process. Otherwise, stay with me and read the rest.

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”, “kdepim”, “plasma”, “plasma-extra”, “applications” and “telepathy”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.10. 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_15.10 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)

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 such as LXQT 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_15.10 for Slackware-current brings Telepathy

October 13, 2015 / / 61 Comments

plasma5_startup It’s october, the leaves are falling, we had our first frost this week… and here is yet another KDE 5 release for Slackware to keep you warm and cozy. I am happy with my KDE 5_15.10 update. Again I waited until every KDE source was refreshed: this set contains Frameworks 5.15.0, Plasma 5.4.2 and Applications 15.08.2.

And you know what? The “progress bar issue” which has plagued me ever since the first Plasma 5.4 release could finally be resolved, thanks to  Gérard Monpontet who posted the solution in the comments section of previous Plasma 5 blog post. I love it when the Slackware community helps fixing issues well before they start bothering Pat. Apparently, desktop sessions not only need to be started using a ConsoleKit process but also using a DBus invocation.

plasma5_startup

But that’s not all; there is a bit more to tell about the October release.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.10?

  • Frameworks 5.15.0 is an enhancement release with no new Frameworks added. You can read the details on https://www.kde.org/announcements/kde-frameworks-5.15.0.php
  • Plasma 5.4.2 is a bugfix release and perhaps the last before 5.5.0, because 5.4.3 will only be released if there’s a need for it. See https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.4.2.php . New this month is that I enabled the compilation of the “plasma-mediacenter” application, which you may or may not like, but at least you can check it out now.
  • Applications 15.08.2 was just released today. It is a bugfix release – but for Slackware it means the sudden appearance of a lot more packages. Because:
  • I have finally enabled KDE Telepathy in my KDE.SlackBuild framework. That’s 14 new packages for you! Only the voice & video GUI is still missing, the KDE Telepathy developers are looking for someone knowledgeable to port the old KDE 4 version to Frameworks 5.
    And to support building them, I had to add yet another 18 packages in the “deps” section. You will find those dependencies all self-contained in a single “telepathy” subdirectory right below “deps”. That way, if you don’t care much for Telepathy you can easily skip these packages. Similarly, the new KDE Telepathy packages are all located in a subdirectory “telepathy” below “kde”. The full list of new Telepathy dependencies is : libotr, libnice, farstream, libaccounts-glib, libaccounts-qt5, signon, signon-plugin-oauth2, signon-ui, libsignon-glib, telepathy-glib, telepathy-farstream, telepathy-haze, telepathy-gabble, telepathy-qt5, telepathy-logger, telepathy-logger-qt5, telepathy-mission-control and telepathy-accounts-signon.
  • I added a new package to “plasma-extra” because I did not want to wait for Plasma 5.5 where this program will likely be included by default. It is called “xembed-sni-proxy” and on startup (automatically when you launch a Plasma 5 desktop session) it will dock into the Plasma system tray area and start listening for XEmbed requests. Tray icons for applications adhering to the “legacy” XEmbed protocol will be displayed seamlessly inside the Plasma tray area, courtesy of xembed-sni-proxy). There is no longer a need for external tray applications like trayer-srg or stalonetray.

Here is a screenshot which shows the (XEmbed) HP system tray icon – snugly placed inside the xembed-sni-proxy tray area. You’ll also notice the reddish avatar at the left – that is KDE Telepathy, its color informing me that it is does not have any account configured yet.

plasma5_xembed

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

The remainder of the article is mostly a re-hash, but I include it every time so that you do not have to search through this blog, and have everything together on a single page.

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”, “kdepim”, “plasma”, “plasma-extra”, “applications” and “telepathy”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.09_02. 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_15.09_02 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)

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

Second Plasma 5 update for September

September 15, 2015 / / 42 Comments

The previous update was targeted for August but due to the difficulties I had in compiling all packages, that release slipped to early September. That is why I can announce a second September release for my KDE 5 packages for Slackware. The KDE 5_15.09_02 update contains all new software: Frameworks 5.14.0, Plasma 5.4.1 and Applications 15.08.1.

I had a couple of complaints bout how my previous package set performed. The most annoying issue was the minute-long delay in displaying the “Leave” menu, and the minute-log delay in showing the Logout dialog when the Logoff widget was clicked. I found the cause. It was the LoginKit package which I had added because I hoped that it could help in keeping systemd out of Slackware. I have now removed LoginKit again, and the problem has disappeared. Anyway, ConsoleKit2 does what I hoped LoginKit would do: provide a useable systemd-logind compatible API. It looks like LoginKit will not be needed.

My other major annoyance has not been solved yet, and I am still in dubio whether this is being caused by the recent updates to slackware-current or by the recent Wayland-related code changes in KWin. The issue? Whenever the power saver kicks in and I am not paying attention, the screen of my Lenovo T400 laptop (Intel graphics) turns black. It looks like the backlight does not get turned back on when I move the mouse or press a key. I have to Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to my Linux console, press the backlight-brightness button until I can see my screen’s content again, and then I can switch back to X using Alt-F7. Another thing: if the screenlocker started during this powersave period, the lock screen that stares me in the eye I switch back to the graphical console, is frozen. I can type my password but no visual feedback is provided, even when I press ENTER. But if I then press Alt-TAB, the screen suddenly refreshes and I see my Plasma 5 desktop in full glory. This looks like a desktop- or window refresh issue, which is why I think it may be related to KWin. I have not filed a bug report yet because I do not yet know against which component to file the bug.

Lastly, the progress bar which shows as part of the Plasma 5 startup splash screen, is not moving. Yet the desktop loads properly in the background and eventually the non-moving progress bar is replaced by the Plasma 5 desktop. Does anyone know if this progress bar is broken somehow? Does anyone know which software component draws that progress bar so that I can file a bug for this as well?

Let’s hope this will be addressed and get fixed eventually. Other than that, Plasma 5 is a fine desktop at the moment.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.09_02?

  • ConsoleKit2 (a drop-in replacement for Slackware’s unmaintained ConsoleKit) has been rebuilt with several patches provided by Robby Workman. And plasma-workspace was patched to allow the screenlocker to use the systemd-logind API provided by ConsoleKit2. No systemd needed! SDDM will again start a ConsoleKit session by adding “ck-launch-session” to the session startup (was accidentally removed previously)
  • As said earlier, I have removed the LoginKit package, it is not needed and did not play nice.
  • One addition to the “deps” is a rebuilt version of Slackware’s libproxy package. I have removed KDE 4 support from that package. The original Slackware libproxy package (with KDE 4 support) is causing crashes in Frameworks 5 (KF5) software which calls functionality in libproxy. One example is the OwnCloud client, and KDE Telepathy will also use libproxy (I am working on adding that soon)
  • I have removed the KDE 4 entry from “xwmconfig” because there is no more KDE 4 desktop session to start. Likewise, I have removed the “startkde4” script.
  • Frameworks 5.14.0 is an enhancement release, you can read the details on https://www.kde.org/announcements/kde-frameworks-5.14.0.php
  • Plasma 5.4.1 is a bugfix release, see https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.4.1.php . Nothing really stands out in the ChangeLog for this release.
  • Applications 15.08.1 was just released today. It is a bugfix release for the 107 programs which have already been ported to KF5 . Let me know what you think of the KF5 port of the Kontact Suite (KDEPIM) which was also updated… I do not use it myself.

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_15.09. 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_15.09 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 LoginKit (because I removed this package again, which was added to 5_15.09)

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

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