KDE 4.8.0 For Slackware
KDE has been proven to be stable enough ever since they released the controversial 4.0 version few years ago. Since then, KDE has matured and i can say it's stable enough to be used in production machines (i used it on my desktop, laptop, and workstation). The previous current version was 4.7.4 and it was released on December 2011. This version was meant to be the last version of KDE 4.7.x series according to KDE
KDE communities never stop improving KDE and as the results, we could see KDE 4.8.0 by now and it's spreading to mirror sites around the world and most distribution vendors has started up to update KDE to the latest version to be included to the distribution packages.
Slackware at this point is still on hibernate status and there hasn't been any big changes on the public repository (-Current tree). Many people has feared that Pat will stop maintaining Slackware, but that's not true. We all know that Pat is very proud of Slackware and i'm sure he will try to maintain it as long as he can, but for now, he need to focus on other things besides Slackware and that results in the lack of updates in -Current. Hopefully that will change in the near future.
Meanwhile, Eric has continued to keep maintaining KDE packages for Slackware. He has done it for several releases back from KDE 4.0 up to 4.7.4 and now, he continues his tradition to provide KDE packages and this time, it's KDE 4.8.0, the latest version from KDE.
This new version of KDE has more packages then the previous version, thanks to the modularization made by the KDE release team. In total, Eric counted there are 90 tarball sources for this release, exploded from 71 sources from KDE 4.7. This gives more burden to the packagers, but it gives more flexibility to the users as they can pick which packages should be installed on their systems.
As always, KDE has been known to work without HAL and that will also likely to happen in Slackware, so try to stop depending to HAL for the time being until it's removed completely from Slackware which will be likely to be in the next release of Slackware since KDE and XFCE will be HAL-free for their next major release (KDE 4.8.0 and XFCE 4.8.0).
Eric mentioned that newer KDE needs mesa-7.10 or newer, and his KDE packages are built for -Current users, not for Slackware 13.37. The reason is simple. There has been a toolchain upgrade in -Current which affects the KDE packages shipped by Eric being incompatible with Slackware-13.37.
Due to a lot of changes in the package naming, it's suggested that you do exactly what's written on the README to perform this upgrade:
If you upgrade from his previous packages (KDE 4.6 or 4.7), then please the end of the note about a change in the package's name:
* oxygen-gtk was renamed to oxygen-gtk2
* mobipocket was renamed to kdegraphics-mobipocket
In the end, credit should all go to Eric for his hard work of maintaining KDE packages for Slackware. I am only helping to distribute his work to Indonesian areas and for those who reads this blog.
If you need to keep KDE 4.7.4 on your system, please use the main repository (http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/) or put an "exclude" command on your rsync script to prevent them to be deleted since in other mirror sites, KDE 4.7.4 has been deleted.
This set of KDE 4.8.0 packages is now available at UKDW Repository as well. Enjoy KDE 4.8.0 for Slackware.
KDE communities never stop improving KDE and as the results, we could see KDE 4.8.0 by now and it's spreading to mirror sites around the world and most distribution vendors has started up to update KDE to the latest version to be included to the distribution packages.
Slackware at this point is still on hibernate status and there hasn't been any big changes on the public repository (-Current tree). Many people has feared that Pat will stop maintaining Slackware, but that's not true. We all know that Pat is very proud of Slackware and i'm sure he will try to maintain it as long as he can, but for now, he need to focus on other things besides Slackware and that results in the lack of updates in -Current. Hopefully that will change in the near future.
Meanwhile, Eric has continued to keep maintaining KDE packages for Slackware. He has done it for several releases back from KDE 4.0 up to 4.7.4 and now, he continues his tradition to provide KDE packages and this time, it's KDE 4.8.0, the latest version from KDE.
This new version of KDE has more packages then the previous version, thanks to the modularization made by the KDE release team. In total, Eric counted there are 90 tarball sources for this release, exploded from 71 sources from KDE 4.7. This gives more burden to the packagers, but it gives more flexibility to the users as they can pick which packages should be installed on their systems.
As always, KDE has been known to work without HAL and that will also likely to happen in Slackware, so try to stop depending to HAL for the time being until it's removed completely from Slackware which will be likely to be in the next release of Slackware since KDE and XFCE will be HAL-free for their next major release (KDE 4.8.0 and XFCE 4.8.0).
Eric mentioned that newer KDE needs mesa-7.10 or newer, and his KDE packages are built for -Current users, not for Slackware 13.37. The reason is simple. There has been a toolchain upgrade in -Current which affects the KDE packages shipped by Eric being incompatible with Slackware-13.37.
Due to a lot of changes in the package naming, it's suggested that you do exactly what's written on the README to perform this upgrade:
On Slackware 32-bit:
# upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new x86/deps/*.t?z
# upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new x86/kde/*.t?z
# removepkg polkit-kde-1
# removepkg kdeaccessibility
# removepkg kdebase
# removepkg kdebase-runtime
# removepkg kdebase-workspace
# removepkg kdebindings
# removepkg kdeedu
# removepkg kdegraphics
# removepkg kdeutils
# removepkg konq-plugins
On Slackware 64-bit:
# upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new x86_64/deps/*.t?z
# upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new x86_64/kde/*.t?z
# removepkg polkit-kde-1
# removepkg kdeaccessibility
# removepkg kdebase
# removepkg kdebase-runtime
# removepkg kdebase-workspace
# removepkg kdebindings
# removepkg kdeedu
# removepkg kdegraphicsYou can remove the unneeded packages later on once it's proven to be running well.
# removepkg kdeutils
# removepkg konq-plugins
If you upgrade from his previous packages (KDE 4.6 or 4.7), then please the end of the note about a change in the package's name:
* oxygen-gtk was renamed to oxygen-gtk2
* mobipocket was renamed to kdegraphics-mobipocket
In the end, credit should all go to Eric for his hard work of maintaining KDE packages for Slackware. I am only helping to distribute his work to Indonesian areas and for those who reads this blog.
If you need to keep KDE 4.7.4 on your system, please use the main repository (http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/) or put an "exclude" command on your rsync script to prevent them to be deleted since in other mirror sites, KDE 4.7.4 has been deleted.
This set of KDE 4.8.0 packages is now available at UKDW Repository as well. Enjoy KDE 4.8.0 for Slackware.