When I sat down to write a new post I noticed that I had not written a single post since the previous Plasma 5 announcement. Well, I guess the past month was a busy one. Also I bought a new e-reader (the Kobo Aura H2O 2nd edition) to replace my ageing Sony PRS-T1. That made me spend a lot of time just reading books and enjoying a proper back-lit E-ink screen. What I read? The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams, A Shadow all of Light by Fred Chappell, Persepolis Rising and several of the short stories (Drive, The Butcher of Anderson Station, The Churn and Strange Dogs) by James SA Corey and finally Red Sister by Mark Lawrence. All very much worth your time.
And then work began in all earnest, and I tried to do the packaging activities for Slackware in the wee hours of the night:
- wine got an update to 2.21 (the final one before the 3.0 release which I intend to package when the staging patches are also available)
- chromium was updated to 63.0.3239.132 accompanied by the usual security fixes (these Google guys are pretty good at exposing vulnerabilities… think Meltdown and Spectre most recently)
- Flash plugins for Mozilla and Chromium based browsers were updated to 28.0.0.137 – also accompanied by a security advisory
- Lumina Desktop was updated to 1.4.0.p1 and I added two supporting packages as well: poppler-qt5 and acpilight.
- Pale Moon got an update to 27.7.1
And most recently, I finished the January ’18 set of Plasma 5 packages for Slackware -current. My KDE-5_18.01 contains: KDE Frameworks 5.42.0, Plasma 5.11.5 and Applications 17.12.1. All based on Qt 5.9.3 and exclusive for Slackware–current because as explained in the previous post, I stopped providing Plasma 5 updates for Slackware 14.2.
There’s again a choice of ‘latest‘ and ‘testing‘ where the ‘testing’ repository contains 17 recompiled packages that provide a Wayland compositor stack. This means you can have a working Plasma5 Wayland session if you use ‘testing‘ as opposed to ‘latest‘.
The ‘testing‘ repository is for… testing. Do not use those packages on a production environment unless you are familiar with Slackware, debugging graphical sessions and know your way around slackpkg/slackpkg+.
I will be short about the updates in this latest Plasma 5 package set: all the major components got stability fixes and it’s all not so exciting. In the ‘applications-extra’ division I updated most of the big boys: digikam, krita, partitionmanager, kstars, and the Kdevelop Suite. The kdevplatform package has been removed as it has been obsoleted.
The accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. I have some further reading material in case you are interested in the Wayland functionality of the ‘testing’ repository: README.testing.
Package download locations are:
- http://slackware.nl/alien-kde/ (my own mirror), rsync URI is rsync://slackware.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/.
- http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/ (willysr’s Indonesian mirror), rsync URI: rsync://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/
- http://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/distributions/slackware/people/alien-kde/ French fast mirror thanks to Tonus.
- http://slackware.uk/people/alien-kde/ (fast UK based mirror, run by Darren Austin), rsync URI: rsync://slackware.uk/people/alien-kde/
If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.
A new Plasma5 Live ISO image (based on liveslak-1.1.9.5) has been uploaded to http://slackware.nl/slackware-live/latest/ , in case you want to try the new Plasma5 desktop out first in a non-destructive way. And for the curious: I sneakily added a VLC 3.0 preview package to the Plasma5 Live ISO (vlc-3.0.0.rc6 to be precise). Much improved compared to the vlc-2.2.x releases!
Have fun! Eric
Thanks, Eric! And congrats for the packages galore.
So, looks like I will have a fun weekend. 😀
BTW, your VLC 3.0 package made me to raise an eyebrow. It and SMPlayer are my favorite players.
BTW, I can have a suggestion?
How about to include a Qt5 variant of SMPlayer?
I know, I know, it is available in SBo, BUT would be nice for those who opt for Qt5 by default. 😉
Hi Eric, thanks!!
Everything is working OK so far.
I usually try to use lftp with the mirror -c -e command to download. Now, I get weird certificate errors when downloading. I had to add “set ssl:verify_certificates” to OFF in the lftp rc config file. How we could fix this?
Thanks again!
Use the Rsync, Eduardo.
Eric’s servers are bloody fast over rsync. 😉
Thank you Eric! The new updates are running great!
Darth,
VLC 3.x will indeed be Qt5 based. I expect a release “this year” but who knows… they have a list of high-priority bugs that must be solved before 3.0. That process already takes a couple of years.
I will consider a (Qt5 based) SMPlayer, have not had a need for it until now, precisely because VLC covers all my needs.
Eduardo, perhaps you switched mirrors? If you are using one of my alienbase.nl or slackware.nl mirror URLs then perhaps this article will help you: https://alien.slackbook.org/blog/adding-cacert-root-certificates-to-your-slackware/
Hi Eric! I had no problems using bear.alienbase.nl. The warning only showed when I switched to slackware.nl as suggested by your post. Thanks for the article. I will add these certificates.
Eduardo, the reason is probably that slackware.nl URLs are automatically changed to https:// and the old bear.alienbase.nl URLS are not.
Feel free to keep using the old bear.alienbase.nl URLs, they will not go away,
Hey Eric,
Just did a clean install of -current and your Plasma 5 packages – I got an error:
/user/libexec/Xorg: error while loading shared libraries: libXfont2.so.2: cannot open shared object file: no such file or directory
What am I not doing? : )
Thanks,
Owen
Try, install or reinstall the ‘libXfont2’ package.
Ya, I did that, then I got the kdeinit5 error : )
You have probabbly, an uncompleted slackware-current or plasma5 install.
Have you installed the new current package ‘libunwind’
it is added in current since Wed Jan 17
http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware64-current/ChangeLog.txt
Thanks for update, just one note, id3lib is now in Slackware-current so it can probably be removed from deps.
Just info for current users, latest ‘mesa’ package, is compiled with ‘libunwind’ on current, if you omitted to install this new current package xorg fail at start-up.
Alexx indeed, I will remove the id3lib package.
Eric, on the 32-bit variant of your Plasma 5, the Okular is unable to open PDF files.
And, the Konsole’s issue with the bold font is present, as in the previous build.
Also, I noticed that both arch have issues on Kate as bold font.
I am pretty sure, for example that the major keywords on highlighting are bold, i.e. “class, static”
So, “the bold issue” is not only on Konsole, but it is spread everywhere. 🙁
Those guys are busy to add questionable useful player buttons into taskbar, but they ignore gracious a thing which worked like a charm in KDE4, the proper font rendering…
Do you get an error when attempting to open PDF in Okular?
Yes, when I try to open a PDF in Okular, it says cannot open the file.
BUT, under x86_64 build, it does fine this thing, only in i586 one fails.
I think, the poppler-qt4, support , isn’t probabbly needed by anything, with plasma5 installed, But I could be wrong 😉
I think the Slackware poppler package should be compiled with support for all the Qt versions shipped with the distro. So if qt4 stays part of Slackware 15 then poppler needs to have support for it.
Darth do you see any other message or error when you start okular from an X terminal instead of the menu?
Hi Eric,
Back in December, you removed json-c and libva-intel-driver from multilib-current since they had been removed from -current but they have now reappeared on your repo.
The font bold problem in konsole is solved here by removed .local/share/konsole
start konsole and recreate the default profile, that’s work with liberation bold 😉
For kate font problem:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=225461
ArTourter – hm, will fix that.
Gérard, yeah, that was one of the URLs I mentioned in the previous Plasma5 article in answer to Darth’s report.
Sorry 😉
Finally I managed to handle the fonts properly. Damn, that was rodeo!
Then, being focused to the Konsole, where I have the habit to use Terminus bold, I do not noticed early the global font issues…
Soo, looks like the real issue is that “Regular” additions in font configurations, BUT by default the Plasma does not save them, and consequently the things go nuts.
How I done it? Visited the Fonts page in Settings, done “Default” and “Apply”, then restarted in INIT3, and removed the “,Regular” from kdeglobals files (are two, one in ~/.kde/config and other in ~/config), then started the Plasma5 via INIT 4.
Also, I had to adjust ~/config/kateschemarc in the same way.
Voila! Now the “bold font” thing works everywhere, at least unless I will adjust again something, WHEN I will need again probably to edit MANUALLY the config files.
Which I think is a terrible and laughable situation, considering the tons of STABLE releases of both Qt5 and Plasma5 which they already made in those years.
What a mess! 🙁
Finally, talking about Okular, that was a false alarm; thanks Eric! manually launching it from Konsole made me to see it yelling for the proper Poppler support.
Looks like somehow I “managed” to replace the Qt5 enabled Poppler with the Slackware stock one. Reinstalling the proper one fixed the things.
Commendation in order on this particular upgrade iteration Eric! While I still suffer severe configuration issues with running Plasma directly on my old Proliant server, your LXQt build from last autumn NOW links flawlessly with the QT 5.93 libraries and runs with all your latest Plasma builds. Your Lumina compilation also works as a turnkey alternative to LXQt. You’ve done VERY WELL with hauling all this code into 2018. I reckon compiling w the new GCC helped too, though the lxqt stuff hasn’t been so done. Given time, I might try to build the 0.12 stuff there, but only if given time. Might try a straight git compilation in /usr/local if I feel the itch too strong to resist.
Excellent work!
qt5-5.9.4 is ready 😉
A bit off topic for this post, Eric.
Work has awarded me with a new Win10 laptop that, surprise, surprise, has secure boot enabled. As the BIOS requires a password that I’m not allowed to have, I cannot switch it to normal boot mode to boot my Liveslak stick.
Have you or anyone developed a means of enabling secure boot on your USB sticks?
TIA
– Nate
I have looked into Secure Boot and the glue that is required to make Slackware boot on it, and concluded that it was not for me.
If I would go with the shim provided by Fedora or by the Linux Foundation, it is going to be too confusing for the user to go into an archaic-looking menu and add my signing key;
Or else I would have to joing the Microsoft developer program, pay 100 dollars, and go through a pool of bureaucracy to compile a shim and have it signed by Microsoft – in that case the resulting ISO would ‘just work’ from an enduser perspective.
Too much effort for too little gain.
Understood, Eric.
This is certainly a pain. At least I can install portable apps to a flash drive and do things that way when I have to.
Thanks!
– Nate
Nate, perhaps you may look into having some of the *buntus in a bootable flash drive until, perhaps after buying the IT guys some beers, you may get the Secure Boot snafu sorted out. I feel your pain. Using Windows is AWFUL.
Nice thought, Eduardo, but such a trick is most assuredly NOT going to happen, and I’m even in a part of the IT dept.
It’s so locked down now that I can’t even install a new portable app to the SD card that I use for Firefox and Putty.
I’ve given up on it. It’s theirs, not mine.
– Nate
Eric, maybe the updating by you of Qt5 to the fresh released 5.9.4, will add some additional stability to this Plasma 5 build? 😀
Darth, I’ve been running Plasma since July from a hard disk installation of Eric’s LiveSlak and I’ve not had a bit of instability and I’ve been tracking the updates all that time. Did you start with your home directory free of any previous KDE configuration files and such? In years past it seemed that going from one major version to another without doing so led to a lot of problems.
I made two times (for i586 and x86_64) clean installations of the slackware-current on fresh formatted partitions, then directly upgrade to Plasma 5.
And please, the Plasma 5 is not exactly the poster child of the stability. meantime I managed to crash the taskbar, the KWIN, the Settings, and so on…
BUT, for now I am more interested in the “bold font” thing. Even now I found a solution, is not soo fun to manually edit configuration files, while that thing is supposed to not happen.
Also, if Kate will not eat memory like a pig, and behave like the counterpart from KDE4, now that would be really interesting. 😉
Hi.
I’ve plasma5-17.08.3 installed, and I’m upgrading to 5_18.01
The instructions tell to remove kde-l10n-*
Why? Where are the internationalized packages?
Thx,
Matteo
kde-l10n-*, isn’t needed, now, all applications are ported on kf5, the l10n are included in the packages 😉
Hi ZeroUno.
Please read the previous blog post, this was explained before.
See https://alien.slackbook.org/blog/december-packages-for-slackwares-plasma-5-focus-shift/
Just cosmetic but, ‘k3bhelper’ is in /usr/libexec, maybe it’s better to push it in /usr/lib64, like the other kde. 😉
You are probably already aware of the security update for plasma?
https://www.kde.org/info/security/advisory-20180208-2.txt
Here is the overview. The rest is at the link above.
Quote:
Title: Plasma Desktop: Arbitrary command execution in the removable device notifier
Risk Rating: High
CVE: CVE-2018-6791
Versions: Plasma < 5.12.0
Date: 8 February 2018
Overview
========
When a vfat thumbdrive which contains “ or $() in its volume label is plugged
and mounted trough the device notifier, it's interpreted as a shell command,
leaving a possibility of arbitrary commands execution. an example of offending
volume label is "$(touch b)" which will create a file called b in the
home folder……..
unquote.
I hope to have Plasma 5.12 (plus new Frameworks/Applications) ready tomorrow for slackware-current.
The fixed plasma-workspace package for Plasma 5.11.3 that I have for Slackware 14.2 will come too, but no ETA. Hopefully this weekend.
Eric.
I am running an up-to-date hard drive installation of your Liveslak. I am seeing a segfault when trying to run the KDE System Settings. For instance, I see this from dmesg:
[ 67.763712] systemsettings5[1730]: segfault at 0 ip 00007fde7b1354ba sp 00007ffceef01d10 error 4 in libQt5Core.so.5.9.4[7fde7ae86000+4d7000]
Nate, looks like the same issue that was discussed in the october ’17 article for Plasma5: https://alien.slackbook.org/blog/october-updates-for-the-slackware-plasma5-desktop/ – perhaps you are missing a package?
Installing the kirigami2 package seems to have corrected the issue. Thanks for the pointer as I hadn’t needed to run system settings until after this last update when my mouse pointer was suddenly on hyper speed! I set it from Adaptive to Flat and now all is well.
Interestingly, I always run ‘slackpkg install-new’, but does that check the extra repositories with slackpkg+ enabled?
Thanks!
You need to realize that the command “slackpkg install-new” *only* checks the official Slackware ChangeLog.txt for added packages. You’ll miss anything from the 3rd-party repositories.
The README for my ktown releases suggests the following, perhaps you missed it:
If you are using the slackpkg+ plugin and you assigned my ktown repository the keyword “plasma” in slackpkgplus.conf, then any new packages that you do not already have installed, will show up with the command “slackpkg install plasma”.
Ahh, thanks for the tip and your patience, Eric.
Eric, I’ve been using your Lumina desktop package rather exclusively lately. It is quite impressive, with all the developer has gotten packaged. I have the linux-media player working and thought to try lumina-pdf. But it throws an error when attempting to open a file. The error is “lumina-pdf: symbol lookup error: lumina-pdf: undefined symbol: _ZNK7Poppler8Document5titleEv”. Research suggests that nm -D /usr/bin/lumina-pdf shows lots of missing links. I have installed your qt5 and the poppler-qt5-0.45.0-x86_64-2_SBo. Do I need to install your poppler-qt5 instead? Does acpilight also need to be installed? Your advice is appreciated. Cheers
Brian, *please* do not use a year-old article to share your insights.