KDE4.7 ====== This is the KDE Software Compilation 4.7.4 for Slackware-current. It is the last increment in the 4.7 series before we move on to 4.8. An obvious change compared to Slackware's KDE releases before 4.7.x is the modularization of KDE into more and smaller components. There used to be 23 source tarballs for KDE's core, which resulted into 23 binary packages, but the core of KDE 4.7.x is distributed as 71 source tarballs, resulting in 67 Slackware packages! Future releases (4.8 and onwards) will see even more fragmentation. The KDE SlackBuild script has been extensively rewritten (in the spirit of the modular X.org SlackBuild script) to allow for a modular build of KDE in Slackware. You as the enduser of these packages will have more control over what to install or leave out if your primary interest lies with KDE's applications, not with the desktop environment. KDE4 no longer uses HAL, starting with KDE 4.6.0. And since the version of X.Org found in Slackware 13.37 does not use HAL either (likewise for XFCE 4.8.x), adding KDE 4.7.x and XFCE 4.8.x to Slackware in future will be a big step towards removal of HAL altogether. HAL is no longer maintained by its developer, and has been superceded by udisks. My set of KDE SC 4.7.4 packages replaces the older version of KDE (4.5.5) which comes with Slackware. There are several packages in the "deps" directory that you need as well; you will find updates to original Slackware packages as well as completely new packages (grantlee, herqq, libatasmart, libbluedevil, libssh, phonon-gstreamer, phonon-xine, sg3-utils, udisks and upower are new packages for instance). Upgrading/installing these "deps" packages is required for the proper functioning of KDE 4.7.4. There are some applications I added to the KDE 4.7 collection that are new to Slackware as well. They are no 'dependencies' so technically you do not have to install them, but bluedevil (a bluetooth manager), kplayer (a mplayer front-end), quanta (the web development environment) and wicd-kde (an applet for managing WICD) are very much worth your while. You have to run Slackware-current in order to use these KDE packages. Due to an incompatible glibc upgrade in Slackware-current (to version 2.14.1) these packages will not work with Slackware 13.37. For backwards compatibility, I will keep the packages for KDE 4.6.5 available in my repository as well. They work fine on Slackware 13.37 as well as -current. KDE 4.6.5 will give you a very stable desktop. NOTE: * Possible issue with using thes packages on 13.37: the new kwin seems to require at least mesa-7.10 and this is not installed by default. Slackware 13.37 has mesa-7.10.2 in the /testing directory though. Use that. NOTE: About the language packs (KDEI) - for Slackware 32-bit as well as 64-bit: * KDE localizations (language packs) are available in "x86_64/kdei". You only need one package (for your own language). Don't let the "x86_64" in the directory name fool you, the language packs are useable on both platforms. * Like in Slackware's own KDEI 4.5.5 packages, I have merged the language files of kdepim-4.4.10 into the KDEI packages, so that you can use the PIM apps like kmail in your own language if you decide to keep Slackware's version of kdepim and kdepim-runtime. * If you decide to install kdepim/kdepim-runtime 4.7.4, you will find that these packages include their own translations/localizations. NOTE: About PIM (kdepim and kdepim-runtime) packages: * The PIM software release versions are finally synchronized with the versions of KDE SC again (since the release of 4.7.0). Not everybody is happy with this new version so you may want to stick with 4.4.10. NOTE: I have added "unstable" development versions of the kdevelop and kdevplatform packages. They are required if you want to try out Quanta Plus (the Web Development Environment) which I added as well. Bleeding edge == no guarantees about their useability! But I would like your feedback. NOTE: Slackware's own polkit-kde-1 package must be removed before you start using KDE 4.7.4 ! Its functionality was split out into two new packages: polkit-kde-agent-1 and polkit-kde-kcmodules-1, both of which you can find in my 'kde' directory. NOTE: I have moved the two packages "polkit-qt-1" and "libktorrent" from the "kde" to the "deps" directory since these packages are not really tied to KDE and should be seen as a dependency like all the other packages inside "deps". For instance, having libktorrent already available when compiling "kdenetwork" will enhance Kget with torrent download capability. NOTE: I have added a directory "test", containing a small set of packages which you can optionally install if you want to try out NetworkManager instead of WICD as your graphical network connection manager. Please read http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/integrating-networkmanager-into-kde-while-keeping-the-gnome-out/ for more information about integrating NM into KDE. If you want to start Networkmanager at boot instead of WICD, then replace the following lines in '/etc/rc.d/rc.M' # Start wicd: if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.wicd ]; then sh /etc/rc.d/rc.wicd start fi with these lines: # Start wicd or NetworkManager: if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.wicd ]; then sh /etc/rc.d/rc.wicd start elif [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.networkmanager ]; then sh /etc/rc.d/rc.networkmanager start fi This way, you can choose which of the two network managers you want to use by making their startup script executable (or not). If you decide you want to try NM but do not want to remove WICD just yet, you will notice that the WICD client keeps starting nevertheless. You can prevent this from happening if you add a line containing "NotShowIn=KDE" (do not include the "") to the following two files: * /etc/xdg/autostart/wicd-tray.desktop * /usr/share/autostart/wicd-tray.desktop I am still sticking with NM 0.8 but I will probably switch to NM 0.9 when I start building packages for KDE 4.8. Ongoing development in KDE's networkmanagement module is focusing on compatibility with NM 0.9. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Below are the steps you need to take to install or upgrade to KDE 4.7.4. Make sure you are not running KDE or even X! If you are running an X session, log out first, and if you are in runlevel 4 (graphical login) you first have to go back to runlevel 3 (console) by typing "init 3". To make it easy for you, here is an easy one-line command that downloads the whole 4.7.R3directory with all the sources, and 32bit and 64bit packages: # rsync -av rsync://alien.slackbook.org/alien/ktown/4.7.4 . Assuming you downloaded the complete directory tree "4.7.4" with everything below, you change your current directory to where you found this README (which is the directory called '4.7.4'). If you used the above "rsync" command then that would mean a simple: # cd 4.7.4 From within this directory, you run the following commands as root. Note that some of the old KDE package names are obsoleted too, they have been split up, renamed or integrated: 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 kdebase-runtime # removepkg kdebase-workspace # removepkg kdebindings # removepkg kdeedu # 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 kdebase-runtime # removepkg kdebase-workspace # removepkg kdebindings # removepkg kdeedu # removepkg konq-plugins If you already have one or more non-english language packs installed: # upgradepkg x86_64/kdei/*.t?z If you want to have a non-english language pack installed but none is currently installed, substitute your country code instead of the 'XX' in the next command: # upgradepkg --install-new x86_64/kdei/kde-l10n-XX-*.t?z Check if any ".new" configuration files have been left behind by the upgradepkg commands. Compare them to their originals and decide if you need to use them. # find /etc/ -name "*.new" A graphical tool for processing these "*.new" files is slackpkg: # slackpkg new-config Then reboot your system. =============================================================================== Eric Hameleers - alien at slackware dot com - 06dec2011