My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Testing can continue: KDE 4.9 Beta2

The KDE team has officially announced the second beta of KDE Software Compilation 4.9. A more technical overview of the changes with regard to the previous beta can be found on this community page. After an API and feature freeze, it is just bug hunting (and fixing) until we see the arrival of KDE 4.9 in early august.

As usual, the packages for this second beta have been compiled on Slackware-current. The upgrade from Slackware’s KDE 4.8.2 to the 4.9-beta2 release (the version number is 4.8.90) should be trivial. There are two updated dependencies (soprano and shared-desktop-ontologies, the latter was added for beta2). Like with the previous beta, I did not bother with anything from “extragear” – although I was tempted to try Calligra. Please report the bugs you find! It will make the next KDE release even better

Get my packages in any of the following locations (the master repository at slackbook.org is severely restricted in bandwidth so using a mirror is always advised):

The accompanying README file contains detailed installation/upgrade instructions.

As you may have noticed when inspecting the above URLs, I have re-arranged my “ktown” repository. People were confused about what version would work with Slackware -current and what would work for 13.37. Also, some people have asked for sources of older releases for which I no longer host the packages.

I moved all the sources out of the package trees, you will now find a “sources” directory right at the top level of the repository. Below that will be the sources of all package sets which I currently have in my repository (KDE 4.6.5, 4.8.4 and 4.8.90) and soon I will also add sources for KDE 4.7.4 (including all the dependencies you may want for compiling it on Slackware 13.37). The packages will be available below a toplevel directory equal to the Slackware version they were compiled for (at the moment those are “13.37” and “current”). Below that you will find the actual KDE versions and further down, the 32-bit and 64-bit packages.

Have fun! Eric

45 Comments

  1. BroX

    Thanks Eric! Works flawlessly here, as usual!

  2. escaflown

    Thanks Eric!

  3. chrisretusn

    Thanks! Installed. Using it now, so far no problems. Of course only been running for about 30 minutes. 🙂

  4. a.key

    Hi Eric.
    Is there a reason why there’s no source directory in the there ?
    I always recompile kdelibs and kdenetwork ( to eg. have support for gadu-gadu protocol in kopete) right after installing your packages and just noticed that there are no source packages where they used to be.

  5. alienbob

    Hi a.key

    Did you actually read my article? I guess not.

    Eric

  6. gmg

    Thanks , Eric.

  7. David

    Eric, thanks for all your work!
    After upgrading to KDE4.9 my icons in Dolphin “Places” panel does not change size when I resize panel width.
    Anyone has the same problem?

  8. amigib

    @David
    Same here but i don’t know if it is feature or bug

  9. a.key

    Silly me ;|

    I should have read it properly. 😉

  10. bosth

    If your battery monitor plasmoid icon is not scaling down properly, you can simply replace your current batterymonitor.qml with the one available here: No need for a recompile.

  11. Mike Langdon (mlangdn)

    Just did the upgrade yesterday. Some of the kde effects are now missing. Like windows falling apart when closed. I had to reinstall the nvidia driver also for some reason. Maybe I just need to rename ~/.kde and start over.

    Other than this glitch, which is not a showstopper, kde runs and responds very nicely. Thanks Eric!

  12. Willy Sudiarto Raharjo

    Mike:
    Did you upgrade libX11 and other packages that were in -Current? If you did, then yes, you need to reinstall NVidia driver to have those desktop effects back 🙂

  13. C. Wizard

    Overall it runs fine.
    However, I just noticed the plug-ins in Gwenview are missing.
    I looked at the package text file and found libkipi and this comment, “Plug-ins for this interface are in the kipi-plugins package.”
    Unfortunately, I don’t see any such package in Slackware. Do we have to download the source and compile this package?
    Thanks.

  14. Mike Langdon (mlangdn)

    Hi Willy – yes I am up to date with -current, including any new packages. Working 12 hour shifts doesn’t leave me much time for trouble shooting. 🙂 I’m off three days this weekend though, so I will get to the bottom of this then.

  15. Willy Sudiarto Raharjo

    C. Wizard:
    kipi-plugins are now bundled with digiKam packages

  16. C. Wizard

    Figures they would be bundled with a package I don’t want or need.
    I found a package of the plug-ins over at Slacky.eu, but they don’t work.
    Tried to build them using the SlackBuild and got this error:
    ________________________
    /tmp/SBo/kipi-plugins-1.9.0/common/libkipiplugins/dialogs/imagedialog.cpp: In constructor ‘KIPIPlugins::ImageDialog::ImageDialog(QWidget*, KIPI::Interface*, bool, bool)’:
    /tmp/SBo/kipi-plugins-1.9.0/common/libkipiplugins/dialogs/imagedialog.cpp:391:85: error: invalid use of incomplete type ‘class KIPI::ImageCollection’
    In file included from /tmp/SBo/kipi-plugins-1.9.0/build/common/libkipiplugins/../../../common/libkipiplugins/dialogs/imagedialog.h:38:0,
    from /tmp/SBo/kipi-plugins-1.9.0/build/common/libkipiplugins/imagedialog.moc:10,
    from /tmp/SBo/kipi-plugins-1.9.0/common/libkipiplugins/dialogs/imagedialog.cpp:23:
    /usr/include/libkipi/interface.h:62:7: error: forward declaration of ‘class KIPI::ImageCollection’
    make[2]: *** [common/libkipiplugins/CMakeFiles/kipiplugins.dir/dialogs/imagedialog.o] Error 1
    make[1]: *** [common/libkipiplugins/CMakeFiles/kipiplugins.dir/all] Error 2
    make: *** [all] Error 2
    __________________________
    Oh, well….

  17. C. Wizard

    > Comment from Willy Sudiarto Raharjo
    > Posted: June 20, 2012 at 02:07
    > C. Wizard:
    > kipi-plugins are now bundled with digiKam packages

    If you could point me to such a bundle I would greatly appreciated it, but I don’t see that to be the case.
    Thanks.

  18. Mike Langdon (mlangdn)

    Ok – I got all my effects back. I had to go in to System Settings > Desktop Effects and click on the advanced tab. From there, I had to select OpenGL instead of XRender.

    All OpenGL stuff worked just fine except for KDE. I was selecting some different effects to try out when KDE informed me that I needed OpenGL for this to work. When I saw that XRender was in the compositing box, I clicked on the box and down dropped OpenGL. Selected that, hit Apply, and now everything is back to normal.

    I’ve never knowingly used XRender before, so I have no clue how it was selected over OpenGL. I reckon I need to learn a bit about XRender.

  19. Willy Sudiarto Raharjo

    C. Wizard:
    If you want to get the source for kipi-plugins only, just go here: https://projects.kde.org/projects/extragear/graphics/kipi-plugins/repository/revisions/master/show

    but it’s now included with digiKam package

  20. weput

    I wonder the performance gain on this release on a netbook…

    have anybody tried it?
    I really can’t until july 25.

  21. C. Wizard

    @Willy Sudiarto Raharjo
    That seems to be the case as of version 2.6.0, but I have yet to find a Slackware package newer than 1.9. It is not that important and I’m drifting farther and farther away from any interest in KDE with each passing day. If one becomes available, I’ll take a look at it, but I don’t need or want something like digiKam (and I have an interest in photography). A simple viewer and The GIMP are all I really need.

  22. gabriel

    keyboard and mouse dont work.
    maybe I forget something else.
    any idea?
    Thank you

  23. alienbob

    @gabriel –
    Are you running slackware-current at all? Sounds more like a failed Slackware upgrade (missing packages).

    Eric

    Eric

  24. gabriel

    hello,
    I’m running slackware-current updated before installing kde 4.9 packages.Keyboard & mouse work’s in console mode (before startx).
    Thank you for your help

  25. gabriel

    hello
    solved now, I found the answer on linux question forum .I forget “install-new”.
    Thank you Eric
    I can try new KDE

  26. ljones

    Tried this on my system (64 bit/slackware current) — it almost all works except for external drive mounting which dosen’t seem to be 100%.

    I have an external sata hdd kde (dolphin) sees it but if I click on it dolphin asks for a password, apon giving this nothing happens. To mount the drive I have to close dolphin and reopen it.

    kwalletmanager also dosen’t seem to be 100%, I get “QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave.”

    ljones

  27. C. Wizard

    I’ve noticed that changing the desktop icon size in the system settings has absolutely no effect on the desktop icon size. 🙂 Didn’t in 4.8.4, either come to think of it.

  28. Jeff H

    Hello Bob! Thanks for the packages!

    Any plans to add the VLC Phonon backend? I hear good things about it and with the Xine and Mplayer backends going unmaintained it might be a good inclusion.

  29. C. Wizard

    @ Jeff H.
    Mr. Hameleers has already been kind enough to provide just that, and it can be found here. Look under “phonon-vlc.”

    http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/

  30. alienbob

    Hi Jeff H,

    I would love to add phonon-vlc to Slackware’s KDE but since VLC itself is not part of Slackware, it would not make sense to add a phonon backend for it.
    As C. Wizard pointed out, you can download the phonon-vlc backend from my own repository, although I have no idea if that still works with recent versions of KDE and VLC.

    Eric

  31. C. Wizard

    > Comment from alienbob
    > Posted: June 24, 2012 at 14:55
    > ….I have no idea if that still works with recent
    > versions of KDE and VLC.

    It does.
    🙂

  32. C. Wizard

    Not everyone has access to a fast broadband connection, so here is a question I’ve been meaning to ask for a long time:
    Is it really necessary to have to download over 200 megs of graphics with each and every incremental KDE update?
    Thanks. 🙂

  33. alienbob

    @C.Wizard

    Yes it is necessary, but you can easily find out what happens if you do not download those graphics. I don’t suppose KDE will break as a result.

    And you are not required to apply every incremental upgrade of course.

    Eric

  34. b

    The latest updates to current, namely libattica, break KDE’s systemsettings.

  35. Eduardo

    Hi Eric, I’ m seconding the comment from b — I can’t use KDE anymore since current’ s latest updates.

  36. MartinOwaR

    I also can’t start KDE. Firstly, it couldn’t find libattica.so.0.3.
    —-
    startkde: Starting up…
    /usr/bin/kdeinit4: error while loading shared libraries: libattica.so.0.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
    startkde: Could not start kdeinit4. Check your installation.
    xinit: connection to X server lost
    —-

    I sym-linked it to libattica.so:

    Jun 25 19:19 /usr/lib/libattica.so -> libattica.so.0.4
    Jun 25 20:07 /usr/lib/libattica.so.0.3 -> libattica.so
    Jun 25 19:19 /usr/lib/libattica.so.0.4 -> libattica.so.0.4.0
    Jun 21 19:12 /usr/lib/libattica.so.0.4.0

    And now I have:
    —-
    startkde: Starting up…
    /usr/bin/kdeinit4: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libkdeui.so.5: undefined symbol: _ZN6Attica15ProviderManagerC1Ev
    startkde: Could not start kdeinit4. Check your installation.
    xinit: connection to X server lost
    —-

    NOTE: startxfce works fine

  37. b

    Just to clarify: KDE still starts for me using 4.9 b2 and the latest -current. So far, I’ve only noticed that systemsettings and gwenview don’t start since they were build with the previous version of libattica.

  38. MartinOwaR

    Back to KDE (4.8.90) again.

    I downgraded to attica 0.3 from 4.8.2. Maybe this will break something else but it is good for me for now.

  39. alienbob

    You will need my old attica-0.3.0 package after today’s update to Slackware-current. Many of the binaries in my KDE 4.8.90 packages link against libattica.so.3 ; but unfortunately Slackware-current’s version of that library was updated to version 4.

    Until I release KDE 4.9-RC1 packages, this is how you fix the breakage:

    (1) make sure you have both the attica-0.3.0 and Slackware’s newer 0.4.0 handy.
    (2) run “upgradepkg attica-0.3.0-*.txz” to *downgrade* from 0.4.0 to 0.3.0.
    (3) run “installpkg attica-0.4.0-*.txz” to install the official 0.4.0 alongside 0.3.0.

    When I release a new set of KDE 4.9 (beta/rc/whatever) packages, you can finally “removepkg /var/log/package/attica-0.3.0-*” to get rid of the old attica.

    I’ll have the old attica packages uploaded to my ktown repository in a few minutes: look for the “breakfix” directory next to the deps and kde directories.

    Eric

  40. MartinOwaR

    Thanks Eric.

    I followed your sequence and it works fine.

  41. a.key

    Hi.
    The battery plasmoid not only is broken in a way that it doesn’t scale properly (which can be easily fixed as per info above) but after returning from sleep doesn’t update it’s state (as also reported here: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1112251#p1112251)

  42. alienbob

    a.key

    That issue is not new. I have it in KDE 4.8.4 too and remember it from even earlier releases that the battery monitor does not update its status after resume from sleep.

    Eric

  43. a.key

    It was OK for me on my toshiba satellite R830 up until 4.90 hence my noticing here. Anyways – just wanted to report.
    😉
    Great job Eric !

  44. alienbob

    @a.key

    We’ll see what the KDE 4.9-rc1 gives, which I am compiling at the moment.

    Eric

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