Shortly after the big change, some users spotted some problem when using the newly generated ISO based on  the latest update. Pat quickly released a fix, including introducing 2 new packages: lilo-24.1 and util-linux-2.26 which should have better functionality and also fixed some problems with date time in Slackware as mentioned in several threads in LQ (part 1, part 2, and part 3).

If you are KDE fans, you might be delighted that Eric has pushed his latest KDE 5 updates to his KTown repository. It's tagged 5_15.02 and it consists of KDE Frameworks 5.7.0, KDE Applications 14.12.2, and Plasma 5.2.0. He also pushed some updates in extragears. Please read the README for instructions on how to install and upgrade to this version. It requires some spesific steps for this version, so please take some time to read it before blindly upgrading your systems. Remember that this packages are meant for Slackware-Current users only.

Not only KDE 5, Eric also managed to push LibreOffice 4.4.0 update as well. This is a major version and it includes lots of new goodies. For complete reference, please refer to the Release Notes.

I have been quite busy lately, especially during this week, so sorry for the delay of the article and i'll just make a recap of it.

According to Dan Vrátil and Alex Fiestas, KDE will have an advanced multi-monitor handling that should works without too much intervention. They are now working to collect all possibilities that could happened with multi-monitor environments.

The promising tool will land in KDE soon and if it's implemented, it will have the similar experience like in Windows environments (and probably even less complicated). In short, it will make working with multi-monitor so much easier. I hope that this work can be integrated in the next Slackware release, probably with KDE 5.0 4.10

Here's a video showing the current work

I have just finished upgrading my desktop to use KDE 4.8.0, which was just released by KDE team few hours ago while i was sleeping. Thanks to Eric Hameleers, i could get the early release of KDE packages and downloaded this packages as i slept last night. When i woke up this morning, all i have to do is to make sure everything is already up to date by running the rsync script once again.

Next on, performed the command written on the README and performed the upgrade. Don't forget to have a complete look on the README as there has been a renamed packages. After i rebooted my machine, KDE started to be loaded and there was a new splash screen called Air and Ariya Splash Screen which is very minimalistic, but it does look more professionals.

If you have been using KDE 4.7, you won't get too much drastic changes, as it's based on previous releases. According to the announcement, there are a lot of areas which has been improved on this release:

• KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.8 Gain Adaptive Power Management  
• KDE Applications 4.8 Offer Faster, More Scalable File Management 
• KDE Platform 4.8 Enhances Interoperability, Introduces Touch-Friendly Components

I do feel that KDE 4.8.0 is faster than previous release, probably due to updated Qt which is now bumped to 4.8.0 to sync with KDE release version. You can also have better performance when you enabled desktop effects as there has been a lot of improvements on this area as well.

I used Kate a lot and on this release, Kate also got several new features and one of the new feature i like a lot is the new Line Modification Indicators. It really helps for developers to work in collaboration.

Another nice improvement from KDE is the Power Management System Settings which has been redesigned for simplification. It really helps for users carrying portable devices, such as laptop or netbooks.

KSecretService is taking it's debut on this release to provide new framework for sharing saved passwords and other credentials between a wider range of applications.

So far, i have no problems with this release, but even if there is a problem, it will soon be sorted out in the next monthly release which should be out in February and months following.

For now, i'll enjoy Slackware and KDE 4.8.0

As planned, KDE SC 4.7.0 is now officially released!!!

It's another major upgrade for KDE and this release will have a monthly updates as usual, so if you don't really think .0 release is stable enough for you, you can wait for their first update next month to bring you bug fixes and translations updates which should be sufficient for you to consider and wait for others to review and test this release first.

KDE SC 4.7.0 brings quite a lot of improvements compared to KDE 4.6.x. Here are some of them:

• Plasma Workspaces Become More Portable and able to run on OpenGL ES supporting hardware
• Better KDE/GTK integration and well polished icons through Oxygen icons and Oxygen GTK
• Experimental support for NetworkManager 0.9
• KDE-Telepathy is being integrated into desktop
• Dolphin receive lots of improvements, including deeper integration with source code management systems
  
• Marble has voice navigation support, a map creation wizard, and new plug-ins
• Gwenview is now able to compare images
• KDevelop gained support for predefined indentation styles, Python interpreter using Kross, improved Python auto-completion and support for lex/yacc file extensions.
• Improved Kate with more plugins
• DigiKam 2.0 brings face detection and recognition, image versioning support, and geotagging
• VLC is now considered a stable and preferred back-ends and so does GStreamer (Linux only)
• GRUB2 support on KDM, enables users to pick which OS to boot on the next boot sequence
• Improved KIO Proxy, including SOCKS proxy support and multiple proxy URL addresses

It might take some time before Eric or Pat releases KDE 4.7.0 packages for Slackware-Current users as KDE is now partly switching to modular release (the full migration will likely be done in KDE SC 4.8), thus it requires more time to adapt the SlackBuild scripts to build KDE SC 4.7.0.

Be patient. Give Eric some time to work on KDE SC 4.7.0

You might think it's kinda strange to say "Don't Forget to Reboot" to Linux users as those saying should be said to Windows users, but this happened to me when i upgraded to KDE 4.6.2 using AlienBOB's package in my new Slackware 13.37 installation in my office. I rsynced my local repository and then upgraded using SSH remotely from my house last Saturday.

I haven't tried to run KDE since then until this morning. I got several KDE crashes and i didn't see any useful information at the error messages. I have make sure that every .new config files has been merged, but still persis. Finally i re-checked the README that comes with KDE 4.6.2 by Eric himself and in the last part of the README, it says Then reboot your system.

I was like . I forgot to reboot the system since i upgraded KDE. I remembered that i have rebooted, but it was due to new kernel compiled, not because of KDE update.

Now, everything seems to be working just fine. Akonadi didn't crash on me and even though the indexing was turned on, my system didn't have any performance issues at all.

This post is supposed to be a personal reminder for me, but it would be a good thing if it can help you as well

Due to massive updates in Slackware-Current and thus several new libraries were upgraded, KDE packages outside the official packages (AlienBOB's KDE packages) were partially broken, so Eric has just rebuilt his KDE packages and uploaded to his normal KTown repository.

There were five packages which gets upgraded: kdeartwork, kdebase-runtime, kdebindings, kdegraphics, kdeplasma-addons

Updates on KTown repository has been synced on UKDW Repo Server:
http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/4.6.0
rsync://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/4.6.0