Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Tag: kde45 (Page 1 of 2)

I posted new KDE 4.5.3 packages

November 4, 2010 / / 22 Comments

KDE 4.5.3

Yesterday, KDE team released version 4.5.3 of the KDE Software Compilation.

I have created Slackware packages for the new release. I am fairly certain that Slackware -current will be updated to this version as well, but at the moment I do not have a time frame for that. Before it gets added, I expect that slackware-current has other updates first.

In the meantime, you can download and install my packages and play around. There are stability and speed improvements so it is strongly advised to update if you were already running my KDE 4.5.2 packages. Just like with the previous set of 4.5.2 packages I created, you do not have to update or install any additional packages. A fully up to date Slackware-current (32-bit or 64-bit) is all you need.

Read the installation/upgrade instructions for my KDE 4.5.3 packages first. Then, get my packages,

here: http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/4.5.3/

mirror: http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/4.5.3/

Enjoy, Eric

Compositing hard lock in KDE 4.5

October 16, 2010 / / 6 Comments

People have written about their computer locking up with KDE 4.5.x in Slackware.

These locks seem to be caused by the open source video drivers that are part of X.Org. These drivers incorrectly advertise some OpenGL capabilities when the KDE compositing manager queries them. As a result, the KDE window manager tries to enable non-working functionality in “3d desktop effects” which results in a hard lock of X.Org.

There was some talk about this when I first released KDE 4.5.1 packages, see the comments section of http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/kde-4-5-1-i-took-the-plunge/ and some developer talk can be found here: http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2010/09/driver-dilemma-in-kde-workspaces-4-5/

Today I installed Slackware-current on an “old” ThinkPad T41 with an onboard Radeon RV250 (Mobility FireGL 9000) graphics chip. I experienced the hard lock there for the first time.

This is what I did to get KDE running (after forcedly shutting down the machine by pressing the OFF button for 8 seconds…): edit the KDE Window Manager configuration file:

~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc

In that file, look up the section called “[Compositing]” and then add these lines (perhaps in your case you have to modify, not add lines):

DisableChecks=true
Enabled=false

That first line disables the functionality checks so that if you enable “3d effects” manually you have a good chance of it actually going to work because KDE is not going to query your graphics drivers and just assumes it’ll work. As a result you will see an error about not being able to use the “blur effect” which is exactly where the query would result in incorrect data – the error message is not fatal though.

The second line disables the “3d effects” entirely, allowing KDE to start properly.

Eric

Here you go – KDE 4.5.2 for Slackware

October 9, 2010 / / 12 Comments

KDE 4.5.2

You probably were aware that the KDE team had released version 4.5.2 of their software compilation a little while ago. I had other things to do at that time, so you did not see a package set for Slackware until now.

Yesterday I talked to Pat Volkerding to see what his short-term planning looked like,  and based on the conversation I decided to go ahead and build a set of packages for slackwarre-current (32-bit and 64-bit of course). Rest assured that Pat is working on something equally entertaining as building KDE packages 😉

Here they are, uploaded to my ‘ktown’ repository.

See the README file for installation or upgrade instructions. They are no different from any prior release. There is not even a single additional dependency to install this time, thanks to the fact that Slackware -current already contains KDE SC 4.5.1.

Have fun!

Eric

KDE 4.5.1 – I took the plunge

September 3, 2010 / / 16 Comments

Yes! KDE 4.5.1 Packages are now available for slackware-current (32-bit and 64-bit).

Read installation/upgrade instructions in the provided README file.

In my previous post I wrote that I was not sure who would be building new packages for KDE, but then I decided that this would be a nice test of my new build box with virtual machines. Indeed my total build time for KDE has been reduced to almost a third of the time that was needed before!

My new KDE 4.5.1 packages are only meant for  Slackware-current. They are not guaranteed to work on Slackware 13.1, so if you want KDE 4.5.1 you are encouraged to upgrade to Slackware-current!

There is one additional dependency to be installed on slackware-current: libdbusmenu-qt (which does not yet exist in Slackware).  You’ll find it in the “deps” directory.

Let me repeat this note from when 4.5.0 was released:

NOTE:

The kdepim and kdepim-runtime packages are not part of KDE 4.5.1 !!
The PIM developers decided that their applications are not yet stable enough to get included, and instead you are encouraged to keep the kdepim and kdepim-runtime packages of slackware-current (version 4.4.5).
There is one caveat: the consequence is that you will only be able to use the english localization of kdepim, because the language files are contained in the kde-l10n-* packages of the old version. You can not install that in parallel with the 4.5.1 version of your language files.

Enjoy, Eric

KDE 4.5.0

August 10, 2010 / / 40 Comments

KDE 4.5.0 is available!

… and I can offer you packages for KDE Software Compilation 4.5.0 for Slackware-current. The 4.5.0 packages are accompanied by a README which explains the straight-forward  installation/upgrade steps. As always, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available.

This marks another milestone for the KDE project with numerous improvements to the KDE 4.4 which we have in Slackware at the moment. Congratulations to everyone who helped in making this release possible, even if its release date slipped a bit instead of delivering on time as usual.  The delay allowed for the fix of a few severe application bugs, so in the end we all benefit.

You will need to run Slackware-current dated Saturday July 31, 2010 or newer. My packages for KDE 4.5.0 are not guaranteed to work on Slackware 13.1, so if you want KDE 4.5.0 you are encouraged to upgrade to Slackware-current!

The additional dependencies which you have to take care of on slackware-current (i.e. non-KDE and/or non-Slackware packages) are limited to just one package, thanks to Pat Volkerding who applied several updates to Slackware-current recently – so that the requirements for running KDE 4.5.0 would be met from the start. That single remaining dependency is libdbusmenu-qt (which does not yet exist in Slackware).  You’ll find it in the “deps” directory.

If you are adventurous and want to try this on Slackware 13.1 anyway, I think you could get lucky by installing/upgrading the packages which you will find in the “deps” directory of my KDE 4.4.5 package repository for Slackware 13.1. Basically, all those updated “deps” packages are are the real difference between Slackware-13.1 and slackware-current at this moment.

NOTE 1:

The kdepim and kdepim-runtime packages are not part of KDE 4.5.0 !!
The PIM developers decided that their applications are not yet stable enough to get included, and instead you are encouraged to keep the kdepim and kdepim-runtime packages of Slackware 13.1 (version 4.4.3) or slackware-current (version 4.4.5).
There is one caveat: the consequence is that you will only be able to use the english localization of kdepim, because the language files are contained in the kde-l10n-* packages of the old version. You can not install that in parallel with the 4.5.0 version of your language files.  Perhaps I will try and split off the kdepim language files into separate packages, if I have the time (unfortunately at this moment I do not have that luxury).

NOTE 2:

If you have been running my previous alpha or beta builds of KDE 4.5.0, and if you experience strange application or plasma behaviour in 4.5.0, try with a fresh user profile. Data migration from KDE 4.4.x to 4.5.0 should not be an issue, but there may be some incompatible changes during the early betas, as mentioned by Maciej on Aaron Seigo’s blog.

And in case you think, “what a strange location for the packages, why have they not been placed in the ‘ktown’ repository“… that is a good question! By the time  this post appears on my blog, I will not be connected to the Internet. Therefore I have scheduled this post to be published in the future after I finished compiling. And since I could not make the packages publicly available ahead of the official release, I decided to hide them in plain sight… Once I get my Internet back I will move the 4.5.0 packages to the correct location, which is indeed my ktown repository.

Update (22-aug-2010): the 4.5.0 directory has finally been moved into my ktown repository and I have updated the links in this article which point to it.

Enjoy, Eric

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