Tag: kde46 (Page 1 of 2)

KDE Software Compilation 4.6.3.

Here it is again, the monthly update to the KDE 4.6 series. Sources have been available publicly since friday, but due to Mother’s Day it took a while to upload my packages.. KDE team anounced the new release as usual.

Built on Slackware 13.37, it will work fine on -current (because at this moment, there is little difference). Exactly when KDE 4.6 will enter Slackware’s -current tree I don’t know, but I will happily keep building packages in the meantime.

If you want to try out KDE SC 4.6.3 instead of Slackware’s 4.5.5 (or my previous 4.6.2) please follow the installation/upgrade instructions in the accompanying README file!

Besides the KDE packages (in the kde/ directory) some of Slackware’s own official packages need to be upgraded, or even removed. There are also a few packages that are required by KDE 4.6.x but are not yet in Slackware. All of those packages are found in the “deps” directory. Don’t miss out on them, or you will have a less than pleasant experience.

One thing that I have added since my 4.6.2 packages is bluedevil, the new bluetooth connection manager for KDE. It integrates well with KDE (you will find a “send to bluetooth device” in Dolphin’s context menu for instance). The old “kbluetooth” application is no longer developed and the GTK application in Slackware “blueman” is not as featureful.

By the way, if you want to make your GTK applications blend better into the KDE desktop, then there is a new GTK theme engine for you – which was created by KDE’s own Oxygen artwork team. It is called “oxygen-gtk” and I have a package for it in my main SlackBuilds repository: http://slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/oxygen-gtk/ .

I installed oxygen-gtk on my laptop running KDE 4.6 and the effect it has on the looks of applications like Firefox, Gimp, Pidgin etc.. is stunning. Of course, the integration is most effective if you are using the Oxygen theme in KDE as well! After installation, be sure to copy or merge the content of the file “/usr/share/themes/oxygen-gtk/gtk-2.0/gtkrc” to your homedirectory into the file “~/.gtkrc-2.0”

The KDE 4.6.3 packages for Slackware 13.37 should be available for download from my “ktown” repository by now (the Indonesian mirrors may need a bit of time to sync up):

• http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/4.6.3/ (the master repository), rsync URI: ?rsync://alien.slackbook.org/alien-kde/4.6.3/
• http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/4.6.3/ (my fast mirror), rsync URI: rsync://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/4.6.3/
• http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/4.6.3/ (willysr’s Indonesian mirror), rsync URI: rsync://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/4.6.3/

Please note that I have removed the old 4.4.5 directory – it contained an older version of KDE4 which could be made to run on Slackware 13.0 with a bit of effort. At this moment in time, I think it is wiser to upgrade to Slackware 13.37. I removed the old stuff to free up space on my own machines.

Have fun! Eric

KDE Software Compilation 4.6.2.

A second bugfix & translation update release for the KDE 4.6 series became available on April 6. Read all about it on the announcement page.

And since we are nearing the release of Slackware 13.37 it will be safe to say that I have uploaded “my KDE 4.6.2 packages for Slackware 13.37“. If there is no official release yet by the time you read this post, then of course you will be able to run the packages on “Slackware 13.37 Release Candidate 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716” as well – because that is what I built them on.

Be sure to follow the installation/upgrade instructions in the accompanying README file! There are a few of Slackware’s own official packages that have to be upgraded, or even removed. You can search this blog for my earlier KDE 4.6 related posts if you want to know more about its evolution. Or even better, subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed so you don’t miss out on my updates any more.

Anyway, get the packages from one of the following locations (the mirrors may need a bit of time to get re-synchronized with the master):

• http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/4.6.2/ (the master repository), rsync URI: ?rsync://alien.slackbook.org/alien-kde/4.6.2/
• http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/4.6.2/ (my fast mirror), rsync URI: rsync://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/4.6.2/
• http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/4.6.2/ (willysr’s Indonesian mirror), rsync URI: rsync://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/4.6.2/

Things did not blow up on my laptop after installation, which was according to plan. The stability of KDE 4.6.x is increasing with every point release.

However…

I ran into one regression. There is a “bug” in KDM which prevents shutdown. You will actually end up in a tty and have to manually run “shutdown -h now”. The default shutdown command which is issued by KDM has apparently been changed to “/sbin/shutdown -p now” but the “-p” parameter is not supported on Linux. See https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=270228 for a description of this KDE 4.6.2 specific bug.

According to the bug report you can solve this by editing the file “/etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc” and changing a single line:

HaltCmd=

to:

HaltCmd="/sbin/shutdown -h now"

… but when I tested this it did not make a difference. It just looks as if KDM is not reading that custom commandline. It was well after midnight when I tried it so I gave up and went to bed. I welcome all feedback.

Have fun! Eric