Slack 13 + KDE 4.3?

Michielvw · 08-18-2009, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boler

According to the KDE release notes KDE 4.3 is more stable than 4.2.4. I haven't tried either so I can't judge for myself.

KDE 4.2.4 is plenty enough stable. From what I have seen it works well. I looks polished and more than plenty ready for the desktop. IT doesn't work for me personally, but that is more the case of how I want to work than actually a problem of KDE4.</fact>

Quote:

Originally Posted by boler

Personally I would have liked to see Slackware 13.0 released with KDE 3.5.10 if KDE 4.3 was too much of a hurdle to incorporate.

I think you are actually missing the point here quite a bit. The reasons KDE 4.3 is not in Slackware-current, are these [1]:

KDE 4.3 was not ready at the time that Slackware hit the Release Candidate status. This means that you basically freeze the code except for that what is really urgent of wanted.
Changes to the core of Slackware are needed to make KDE 4.3 to work. See previous point regarding Release Candidates.

I hope that explains it a bit better.

-M.

[1] - These reasons are just thought up by myself. Not to be taken for facts or sold thruths.

Interject · 08-19-2009, 02:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michielvw

Changes to the core of Slackware are needed to make KDE 4.3 to work. See previous point regarding Release Candidates.

I hope that explains it a bit better.

-M.

This is what I don't understand, what changes to the "core" of Slackware are needed. Can someone please enlighten me?

Daedra · 08-19-2009, 02:26 AM

I have to be honest I really want KDE 4.3 in 13, but since I'm not the one doing the work I am hardly in a position to complain.

Michielvw · 08-19-2009, 04:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Interject

This is what I don't understand, what changes to the "core" of Slackware are needed. Can someone please enlighten me?

As far as I know, there is PolicyKit (Which if I did my research correctly requires ConsoleKit, which requires others ... etc.). Plus I am pretty confident if AlienBOB says there are changes needed, he knows what he is talking about. The last time I decided to build KDE was back in the early 3.x days.

I am not saying it is actually impossible to implement. I am saying that new applications, technicalities like this would need to be properly tested and a Release Candidate is *NOT* the place for that.

Hope that helps to make it a little more clearer [1].

-M

[1] - You could always install -current and try building 4.3 yourself and see what is needed ;-)

Lufbery · 08-19-2009, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michielvw

As far as I know, there is PolicyKit (Which if I did my research correctly requires ConsoleKit, which requires others ... etc.). Plus I am pretty confident if AlienBOB says there are changes needed, he knows what he is talking about.

I'm not sure about the Policykit requirement. I read through the instructions on building KDE 4.3, and I didn't see it listed as a dependency.

That's not to say it's not a dependency, just that it wasn't listed on KDE's instructions for building it.

FWIW, it would be interesting to see what it would take to build KDE 4.3, and what specific changes are needed to Slackware.

I'll probably be content to run Slackware 13 as it comes from the factory (with some additional packages, of course), but I also like to learn about how it's put together and how it works overall. Learning more about the changes required to make KDE 4.3 can help me learn more about Slackware overall.

Regards,

guanx · 08-19-2009, 08:19 AM

I will not use KDE 4.2 because of its stupid Konsole program. For KDE 4.3 I don't know (didn't try it).
Without the big Settings menu, Konsole is as inconvenient as gnome-terminal.

cfdev · 08-19-2009, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob

Slackware 13.0 will ship with KDE 4.2.4. Changes to the Slackware core are required for a fully functional KDE 4.3 which we are not willing to add this late in the development cycle.
KDE 4.3 will be the target for Slackware 13.1 I guess.

Eric

really? I had hoped

Thanks for this really good version !

gargamel · 08-19-2009, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guanx

I will not use KDE 4.2 because of its stupid Konsole program. For KDE 4.3 I don't know (didn't try it).
Without the big Settings menu, Konsole is as inconvenient as gnome-terminal.

I find everything in the setup menu I used to use in KDE 3.5.10. What do you miss?

gargamel

Michielvw · 08-19-2009, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lufbery

I'm not sure about the Policykit requirement. I read through the instructions on building KDE 4.3

Ah, Well I based this on what I heard so far, and of course on this page. Where it states:

Quote:

The KDE Application Development Framework introduces a PolicyKit wrapper making it easy for developers who want their application to perform privileged actions in a secure, consistent and easy way. Provided are an authorization manager and an authentication agent, and an easy library for developers to use. Read here on TechBase for a tutorial!

Also as noted on the PolicyKit Introduction page:

Quote:

PolicyKit and KDE

PolicyKit is closely integrated with KDE starting from version 4.3. In kdebase-workspace we have an authorization manager and an authentication agent. What matters the most, though, is polkit-qt library, in kdesupport, that lets us use the PolicyKit library through a nice Qt-styled API.

But admittedly, I am the first to admit I may have understand this wrong as being a direct dependency to KDE. I guess time will tell. [1]

-M.

[1] - See earlier post about guesswork

Lufbery · 08-19-2009, 03:02 PM

You may be absolutely correct. Check out this page on building KDE. I may have missed the Policy Kit requirement.

Regards,

guanx · 08-20-2009, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gargamel

I find everything in the setup menu I used to use in KDE 3.5.10. What do you miss?

gargamel

I develop console programs and found the Konsole in KDE 3.x convenient because of the Encoding, Keyboard, Schema, and Size submenus. Now in KDE 4 the Konsole program has degraded to the same as the stupid gnome-terminal, then KDE becomes much less atractive to me.

Furthermore, in Konsole, the shortcut on the Tabs bar to create a new tab disappeared. Now KDE has turned itself to a GNOME. Hope things can improve in later versions.

rworkman · 08-20-2009, 02:56 AM

I initially thought 4.3.x would depend on PolicyKit too, but after building it both with and without PolicyKit installed, it seems to still be an optional dependency. Best I can tell, we don't really lose anything by not having PolicyKit. Here's a screenshot of 4.3.0 after some tweaks to make it mostly usable for me: http://slackware.com/~rworkman/kde43.jpg

mjjzf · 08-20-2009, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GazL

Anyone still nervous about KDE 4.2 can always stick with Slack 12.2 a little longer. Infact I've been wondering about doing this myself as I'm quite happy with the 2.6.27.y kernel series and don't use KDE anyway (though I'm still curious to see how it's shaping up).

I am considering staying at 12.2 because I find Xfce 4.4 considerably more pleasant than 4.6. There are some advantages to Slack13.0, and I quite like Dragon, but I am not sure it outweighs the very nice system I have set up.

GazL · 08-20-2009, 06:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjjzf

I am considering staying at 12.2 because I find Xfce 4.4 considerably more pleasant than 4.6.

What is it you don't like about XFCE 4.6?

rworkman · 08-20-2009, 07:14 AM

I'm guessing it's the new desktop menu thingie - right-clicking on the desktop now requires one more click to get to the applications menu, whereas it only required one total click on 4.4.x. For whatever reason, lots of people are upset about that, which is fine (I'm not a huge fan either), but it's not *that* big a deal.