[SOLVED] Installing KDE 4.x on Debian 5/Lenny?

kcredden · 10-22-2010, 04:12 PM

Folks: I've recently started trying out Debian 5 coming from Ubuntu. I'm very much in love with KDE 4.4 now they've fix it so it actually runs. but I'm unable to install it on Debian 5.

Right now I have Debian 5.0.3 on an Asus Eee netbook, and it's running KDE 3.5.x. I installed this from a Disk marked Debian, Official CD KDE i386, Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.3 "Lenny" (I bought the entire 33 CD set.)

I've tried to install KDE 4.x via synaptic, using the kdebase-runtime-bin-kde 4:4.1.0-2.

Even after a 3h download and install, it still boots with KDE 3.x. There is no switching to KDE 4.x in the KDM as well.

I've been unable to find a repository. I thought about using a Ubuntu KDE install, but after reading some posts here, I thought I'd better ask your opinions first. (Which I should ask too. if I see programs I like in Ubuntu, should I just compile them from tarballs instead of the .DEB binary to make sure they work in Debian 5?)

Should I wait till Debian.org actually puts KDE 4.x on their repositories (I hear the next version will have KDE 4.5.x on disk.)

Help?

System:

Asus Eee 1000HA
1.67ghz ATOM processor
2g memory
160g HD
Grub2
Debian 5.0.3, w/KDE 3.5.10
Ubuntu 9.04/Gnome

pljvaldez · 10-22-2010, 04:49 PM

Lenny doesn't really support KDE4.

You could just update to Squeeze (testing branch), which is due out around the end of the year. Just change "lenny" or "stable" in your sources.list to "squeeze". Then run

Code:

aptitude update
aptitude install dpkg aptitude apt
aptitude full-upgrade

Note that some of the packages may have minor issues between now and the end of the year since they're bug squashing and whatnot. But typically Debian's testing branch is as stable as a typical non-LTS ubuntu install.

kcredden · 10-24-2010, 10:40 AM

ouch...that's a painful option but only one it seems I have. Thanks for the help. I only wish I didn't spend the big bucks to buy the entire 33 CD set now. But I didn't start with KDE 4.4 until about a month ago too. Downloading an upgrade will take hours.

- Kc

pljvaldez · 10-25-2010, 11:12 AM

If you have a good net connection, you might try just downloading the netinstall *.iso image, burn it to CD and then install over the web. You'll want to type tasks=kde-desktop at the boot prompt. Or download the first CD for KDE (i386 here or 64-bit here). You only need the first CD for a full desktop and then you can get anything else you want over the web.