Hi there

I am upgrading to -current these days. I normally make my own installers and all that, but this time is a little bit different; as this time Slackware comes with KDE 4.x by default. I tried KDE 4 a time ago. I hated it. So I will most likely keep my KDE 3.5.x

The question here is how to do it. There are two possible ways for this, one is to keep QT 3.x and the original KDE 3.5.x with security patches. The other one is to fork KDE 3.5.x and port it to QT4. NO, I will not use KDE 4.x.

First option. I have tried upgrading everything but the KDE series, and of course L has to be taken care of with the utmost care. I have upgraded the a, ap, d, k, tcl, and most of l whitout noticing anything weird.

I still have to upgrade the n series, which I have not done yet for two reasons: one, that I usually recompile Apache and PHP, and two, that I usually merge some of those packages into metapackages.

I still have not downloaded the x and xap series.

So far the only thing that broke my system was QT 4. The new cairo and pango also break some of my old GTK apps (I use the gtk-qt engine and the Baghira style), so I reverted to my old cairo and pango, which work well. I have not installed most of the KDE 4 dependencies, and I plan not to install any specific KDE4 dependency. The goal here is non-intrusively erradicate KDE4 and keep KDE3 on my Slackware 13 boxes.

Eventually, KDE 3.5.x will be phased out, and more, QT3 will be phased out. Many apps out there rely on QT4. So even if this temporary solution does work, a fork must be created so KDE 3.5.x can run on QT4.

I searched this forum about this issue and found no answers. As I lost most of my source files, it seems I would have to start from zero; if someone is not already working on it. Has anybody tried?

Some of the reasons I hate KDE 4: it does look like Vista, it is less customizable than KDE 3.5.x, and there is no way to change the square shadow of the plasmoids (again, that makes them look like in the Vista desktop). It crashes. It devours memory. It lacks most of the usability of KDE 3.5.x.

In sum, it is quite ugly.

Hey, if/when you want someone to test some of your KDE-3.5.x+Qt4 packages, give me a shout. I agree with virtually everything you have said so far about KDE-4. Not sure I all-out HATE it, I haven't given it a fair enough try for that yet, but as I have switched to XFCE on my Slackware64-current machine, it doesn't look like KDE-4 will get that much more out of me. I find LOTS of bugs in it, and the crashes of both background and foreground KDE processes is annoying to say the least. I restart kdeinit/kdeinit4 many times per day to keep things working. (I did that in KDE-3.5.4 too, but sometimes not for days at a time.) Plus, one little thingy I really miss is Konquerors 'Go-->Storage Devices' menu item; why remove that?? Yeeks!

BTW, are you thinking of the 64bit or 32bit, or both?

Anyhow, lots of luck and success with this project if you undertake it.

Sasha

1. This is gonna be a lot of work, and I am not sure, how many people out there will appreciate the result.

2. Isn't this more a KDE topic, and therefore be posted elsewhere? All you said is, that you don't like KDE 4, and the only relationship with Slackware is that release 13.0 includes KDE 4, but not 3.5. But that is true for quite a few distros.

I am not a mod, and do not want to interfere with them, of course. I am just asking.

gargamel

KDE has come a long way since 4.0. It was the future but is now the norm. I've actually gotten pretty comfortable with it after the initial shock of something different to what I was used to. It's here to stay......

Never hurts to ask and you do make a good point since you mention it; this *is* more of a desktop-software issue than a Slackware issue.

If the OP feels the same way, he/she could report their thread, and suggest that it be moved to a better venue. Then the moderator(s) of this forum can decide if it would be better suited elsewhere.

Otherwise, if the OP feels it's a Slackware issue, we'll leave well enough alone for the time being.

Sasha

Depends on what the OP means by forking. If he means something like Dropline Gnome or GSB, then it is appropriate here IMHO. Even that will require changing more Slackware packages than many might be comfortable with, as far as I can see. Not to mention a lot of time and effort collecting patches from various places and ensuring they work (eg: xz support for Ark), as KDE no longer support 3.5 .

Hi there

For any questions about it, I feel this should be like a GSB fork, appliable to other distros but intended for Slackware. This will not be a yum update xx. And most probably it will produce SlackBuilds rather than packages.

I used to have my own GNOME fork, forked and compiled by myself and mostly unintrusive (it replaced almost no official packages). Unfortunately, those SlackBuilds were forever lost to the forces of evil before I could publish them. It was based on three sources: 1.the official KDE SlackBuilds, 2.FRG/GSB, 3.the official GNOME build method.

I have compiled my own KDE fork back in 2006; it was a boring experience which I thought I wouldn't repeat. (just the compiling took 36 hours in average, not counting the hours of actually tuning the code and the SlackBuilds).

I will therefore go forward as much as I can. I intend to produce mostly methods and SlackBuilds. I intend this to work on a 32-bit architecture, but most things should also work for 64-bit if compiled for that arch. So if that answers your question, Sasha, this would be for both 32 and 64-bit.

I just downloaded and upgraded the x and xap series. The new versions of cairo and pango are working now.

I will now search -and make a list- of those specific KDE4 deps. I am downloading the KDE3 sources, at 60% as I write this (my connections is not as fast as I wanted).

David.

IMO this is absolutely a thread for the Slackware forum.

I found 4.2.4 somewhat functional but after the near perfection of 3.5.10 it was a real kick in the teeth.

Anywho, I was about to do some experimenting but some of your comments made me question my strategy.
Either I'm underestimating or you're overcomplicating.

My plan was to install Slackware, minus KDE, and then compile KDE3 and QT3 on it. According to BLFS you can install both QT3 and 4 on the same system.
Actually, I just now looked in extra/kde3-compat and QT3 is in there along with kdelibs3.

KDE4 is just a baby comparing with kde3.5. Give him time please I hope KDE4.3 will be in slack13 but the possibility is low...

OK...Maybe a little of both?

My plan A worked, but with some annoying quirks that wouldn't easily iron out.
Plan B however went pretty smooth.
First I did a fresh install including the kde folder minus ALL "kde*" packages.
Then I went to the kde3-compat folder and installed everything but kdelibs3.
Finally I installed all the "kde*" packages I normally do from 12.2. And I'm typing from there now.

For updates I'll try blacklisting kde in slackpkg and pointing it to current, and installing slapt-get pointed at 12.2 to pick up kde3 updates.

Hopefully this will work until KDE becomes acceptable again,
I'm anxious to see 4.3.

Problems I'm getting:
KDM hanging when you switch users
kdeinit issuing an error when logging in


What I did:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...779/page4.html

I had to make other modifications for using intel graphics.
2.6.31 kernel, xf86-video-intel 2.8.


For those interested

Intel graphics stuttering?
http://anholt.livejournal.com/41306.html

Looks as if there is a Mesa fix for stuttering.

Feels like 1995 all over again. I'm hacking and tweaking.
Good thing is so is everybody else

Hi,

I'd certainly be interested in Slackware 13 with KDE 3.5. My problem is with KDE 4.2 and VNC. I haven't been able to get clear legible screens when I connect in remotely using VNC, or any other of the alternatives I've tried. As I mostly connect in using VNC on Slackware 12.x with no problems I won't be upgrading until I can get this issue resolved.

Randy

Can't you just not install KDE during installation and than manually install 3.5 with all the dependencies?