There was an update to Chromium browser code this week as announced a few days ago by Google. I built new Slackware packages for Chromium 74.0.3729.169 and uploaded them earlier this week to slackware.com and slackware.nl (or you can use any mirror site of course).
There were two intermediate updates to Chromium 74 which I did not compile & package. Both versions address a couple of security issues (CVE’s), but at the time I was unable to work a computer. It’s therefore a good idea to upgrade to this new package.
Also this week, the Document Foundation released version 6.2.4 of their office suite LibreOffice. I have built and uploaded sets of packages for Slackware 14.2 and also for -current, 32bits and 64bits.
I had some issues with the visibility of LibreOffice icons in its toolbar recently (last couple of versions of LibreOffice that I built actually).
I am using LibreOffice on Slackare-current with Plasma5 and in the profile script “/etc/profile.d/libreoffice.sh” I have uncommented this line because the GTK+3 widget set usually gives the best possible interface for LO in a Plasma5 desktop:
export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gtk3
However, icons would not show unless you moved the mouse across them, or sometimes even that would not work. In other words, it made working with LO impossible unless I switched the widget support to “generic’ by uncommenting “export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen” in aformentioned profile script instead. But that results in a butt-ugly interface.
By chance I found out that this is caused by a setting in LibreOffice itself. Go to “Tools > Options > Libreoffice > View > Icon Style” and I noticed that the style was set to “Automatic (Breeze)”. I selected “Elementary” instead and voila, I had a working toolbar with visible icons again. For some reason, the integration of GTK+3 applications in Plasma5′ QT5 based interface using the ‘breeze-gtk” package is not fully compatible with the LibreOffice icon handling.
Just so you know.
And finally, there were fresh security updates on the Adobe website for their Flash player plugin. The new version 32.0.0.192 which was released last week (but I missed it) was announced in a security bulletin. I built the packages for the Chromium-compatible and Mozilla-compatible browsers so that you can visit Flash-based web sites safely again (or of course you abandon the use of Flash entirely).
Who is still using these Flash plugin packages?
Where to find my packages? In any case, on these three sites. And slackware.nl as well as slackware.uk also offer rsync access:
- slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/
- slackware.nl/people/alien/slackbuilds/
- slackware.uk/people/alien/slackbuilds/
Have fun! Eric
Thanks Eric! Especially for the toolbar tip. Looks way better now. 🙂
Thanks fot the chromium upgrade Eric!
I already slat-got it yesterday and added the Chromevox plugin which works well.
So this is a talking Chromium 😉
Thanks for all your hard work in putting together Chromium and LibreOffice. It’s good, too, that we hear what you go through to bring us these packages and make them behave.
I’m on 64-14.2 with KDE4, LibreOffice without KDE integration (tried KDE int. once, didn’t really like it.) I change few settings from default.
After this update, default icons (Breeze) all worked, but the greyed out inactive ones (cut, copy, undo and redo before typing anything) were visible but very pale on my setup.
Thanks for the tip on Elementary. The default was readable, bit I found a couple of others easier to read. It makes it that much easier and more pleasant to use LO.
TKS
I just couldn’t take to LibreOffice until I found the VCLPLUGIN=gen setting in /etc/profile.d/libreoffice.sh. (For which, many thanks.) To my eyes it’s far from butt-ugly; it’s the only interface that makes LibreOffice look professional, and look like an office suite I can recommend to people accustomed to other office suites.
Thank you Eric!
As for your Flash packages, I have them updated but as far as I can tell I don’t use them anymore. I hate Flash but I have them installed just in case they are needed.
Hi Bob, IDK if you missed or never got around to building it but IcedTea 3.12.0 OpenJDK 8u212 was released.
https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/distro-pkg-dev/2019-May/041681.html
Hi Jeffy.
At that time I just had incurred a hernia and was confined to bed. I have missed that announcement. I will look at building some Java packages soon.
Oh ow. I’m told those are nearly as bad as kidney stones.
Thanks for the Libre Office package!
Sorry to hear about your back hernia. At the same time (since I, as probably many other, have wondered about your health) I’m happy to hear that it wasn’t worse (big C or something like that).
My wife got a back hernia 10 years ago, so at least I have a vague idea of what you’ve been going through. A good physiotherapist is worth a fortune. Training is boring and time-consuming but worthwhile in the long run. In some cases surgery might be an option, but if your doctor suggests it, it may be a good thing to get a second opinion.
Best wishes.
Eric, -current’s Mon, 27 May 2019 19:14:18 GMT changelog brings this:
l/harfbuzz-2.5.0-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded.
You released your libreoffice-6.2.4 when harfbuzz-2.4.0 was the one in -current.
Is harfbuzz a showstopper for libreoffice still? I remember to have issues with those guys in the past. Is it the case yet? If so, I may include harfbuzz into my preserved libraries such as icu4c and boost.
Thank you!
If there’s an incompatible library update which will cause 3rd-party package breakage, Pat will always announce that in the ChangeLog.txt using these words:
“Shared library .so-version bump.”
That was not stated for the recent harfbuzz update. It is a safe upgrade this time. LO will keep running.
Thanks for the quick reply, Eric! I’ll let slackpkg upgrade-all does its thing then.
Anyway, do you think harfbuzz is a candidate for previous package preservation? I know you have your icu4c and boost packages holding previous libraries to avoid breakage, and harfbuzz don’t.