Arch Linux

azrdev

Member

Registered: 2014-01-26

Posts: 2

"Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

As per <https://www.archlinux.org/news/dropping-plasma-4/>, KDE Plasma 4 is removed from the arch repos, in favor of Plasma 5.

I am a KF5 (applications) + Plasma4 user, and I have a problem with this change: There is a bug in Qt 5.5 and earlier, that makes applications crash on screen add/removal: <https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-42985>. This affects all KF5 applications, and is the reason I've not yet traded Plasma 4 for Plasma5, so as not to have the whole desktop crash together with (some) applications.

It seems like this bug is about to be fixed for Qt5.6, which should be released in 2016-Q1, according to <https://wiki.qt.io/Qt-5.6-release>.

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So the request is: Until Qt 5.6 is out, please keep Plasma4!

Thanks
  azrdev

clfarron4

Member

From: London, UK

Registered: 2013-06-28

Posts: 2,163

Website

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

As per <https://www.archlinux.org/news/dropping-plasma-4/>, KDE Plasma 4 is removed from the arch repos, in favor of Plasma 5.

I am a KF5 (applications) + Plasma4 user, and I have a problem with this change: There is a bug in Qt 5.5 and earlier, that makes applications crash on screen add/removal: <https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-42985>. This affects all KF5 applications, and is the reason I've not yet traded Plasma 4 for Plasma5, so as not to have the whole desktop crash together with (some) applications.

It seems like this bug is about to be fixed for Qt5.6, which should be released in 2016-Q1, according to <https://wiki.qt.io/Qt-5.6-release>.

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So the request is: Until Qt 5.6 is out, please keep Plasma4!

Thanks
  azrdev

I suggest you report it as a suggestion/bug through the bug tracker. That way the people that you think need to see it will be assigned to it. Probably against the QT libraries.

Last edited by clfarron4 (2015-12-12 12:41:10)

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fsckd

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2009-06-15

Posts: 4,173

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

You may want to also post this on the arch-general mailing list. Only some developers peruse the forums and I'm not sure if the ones you want to reach do. May be also file a report on that bug in flyspray if no one has already done so. That way people are aware of it.

Edit: What clfarron4 said.

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azrdev

Member

Registered: 2014-01-26

Posts: 2

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Only some developers peruse the forums and I'm not sure if the ones you want to reach do. May be also file a report on that bug in flyspray if no one has already done so. That way people are aware of it.

There already is <https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/43986>.

You may want to also post this on the arch-general mailing list.

I'm not subscribed, mailman says I have to (or rely on moderation passing me through in time). Do you think that's necessary to get through?

ValdikSS

Member

Registered: 2011-03-30

Posts: 31

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Please-please-please don't drop Plasma 4 until said bug is fixed!
I switched from 5 to 4 this Thursday only because of that bug. It's a known bug but the fix that Qt team is proposing is not a good one since KDE guys says it's still crashes somewhere in a Qt and not in KDE.

Links:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=340267
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=345544
https://codereview.qt-project.org/#/c/114796/
https://codereview.qt-project.org/#/c/120700/
https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/43986

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,170

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Nobody is removing the packages from your machine.

masolit

Member

Registered: 2013-12-24

Posts: 46

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

.

Last edited by masolit (2019-12-03 16:10:05)

MadmanRB

Member

From: Like I will tell you

Registered: 2014-08-07

Posts: 80

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Personally I think Arch Dropping KDE4 right now is a big crock of crap.
Sure KDE5 is getting better but its nowhere near as solid as KDE4 right now, Plasma still locks up at random, errors are about plus there are a lot of good extentions for KDE4 that have not have got a KDE5 counterpart.
I think they should have gave KDE4 just another year to allow Plasma 5 and KDE5 in general to stabilize more, its close but I still find Plasma 5 problematic.
Granted however this isn't as bad as when KDE4 first came out, that wasnt ready for me until KDE 4.7

Last edited by MadmanRB (2015-12-13 21:59:21)

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hydn

Member

From: St. Kitts

Registered: 2012-09-23

Posts: 105

Website

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Personally I think Arch Dropping KDE4 right now is a big crock of crap.
Sure KDE5 is getting better but its nowhere near as solid as KDE4 right now, Plasma still locks up at random, errors are about plus there are a lot of good extentions for KDE4 that have not have got a KDE5 counterpart.
I think they should have gave KDE4 just another year to allow Plasma 5 and KDE5 in general to stabilize more, its close but I still find Plasma 5 problematic.
Granted however this isn't as bad as when KDE4 first came out, that wasnt ready for me until KDE 4.7

Agreed! I'm in a big LOVE affair with KDE 4. I posted here a few days ago about waiting to switch. Truth is I wouldn't be using Arch if I didn't have the "I want access to anything I want now" mindset. However, after 2 days of testing Plasma 5 in Virtualbox I can safely say I don't care for Plasma 5. :/ The closest would be XFCE and it lacks the options and dept of settings.

Right now I'm trying to modify Pacman to avoid everything Plasma/KDE5 for a long time to come I will be handpicking updates once weekly or when I can. Plasma 5 is slow and has a feminine feel to design I don't know how else to put it, my Wife LOVES how Plasma 5 looks. Add a pink wallpaper and its perfect for what it is.

Lol, as I type this I'm in Kubuntu IRC, just chating about the level of KDE4 support until 2019 and one person who seems happy with Plasma is Valorie ;)...
"[23:21] <valorie> I love Plasma 5, but everybody's tastes and needs are different"

Kubuntu 14.04 LTS
... now after trying Plasma using Manjaro in VB and also trying it using Kubuntu 15.10, I safely say my path forward is to stick with KDE4 if I can safely and seamlessly do so on Arch. If not, move to Kubuntu 14.04 and hope for a better solution by 2019. Maybe Xfce will get it right again if they finish a Xfce 5. :)

As far as security, breaking things/incompatibilities, how bad of an idea would it be not to upgrade and keep KDE4 for another year or 2?

EDIT: That was my 100th post! Love Arch and here's a tribute to my Arch KDE4 install: https://goo.gl/photos/7Ru4hPBSzEmVcgcDA

Last edited by hydn (2015-12-16 07:32:13)

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fsckd

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2009-06-15

Posts: 4,173

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Did people not see this:

KDE 4 installations will not be automatically upgraded to Plasma 5

If you really want to keep KDE 4 for the long term, I suggest help maintain it in the AUR. Arch Linux is a rolling release distro which stays close to the bleeding edge. The tendency is to drop unsupported older versions of software. No surprises there.

Right now I'm trying to modify Pacman to avoid everything Plasma/KDE5 for a long time to come I will be handpicking updates once weekly or when I can. Plasma 5 is slow and has a feminine feel to design I don't know how else to put it, my Wife LOVES how Plasma 5 looks. Add a pink wallpaper and its perfect for what it is.

Lol, as I type this I'm in Kubuntu IRC, just chating about the level of KDE4 support until 2019 and one person who seems happy with Plasma is Valorie ...
"[23:21] <valorie> I love Plasma 5, but everybody's tastes and needs are different"

That's supposed to be a bad thing?

Folks, I understand you prefer 4 over 5 but let's not drag this thread down.

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Silkworm205

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2012-05-21

Posts: 267

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

I think the Arch Linux Archive could bear mentioning here. If anyone removes a kde4-centric package accidentally while trying to keep it, there's always the Archive to fall back on. Remember security risks and the like though if you take this route.

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Ropid

Member

Registered: 2015-03-09

Posts: 1,069

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Don't overlook that post #7 by masolit. It's a repository with the latest version that had been released of the KDE4 stuff.

hydn

Member

From: St. Kitts

Registered: 2012-09-23

Posts: 105

Website

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

This looks to me what I need to do?: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux_Archive

So basically I can lock the date for Pacman to say December 11th 2015? But then how about securtiy updates?

is it possible to just stick with locking/freezing updates for KDE4 to Plasma 5 only?

Thanks!

Last edited by hydn (2015-12-16 16:17:47)

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Silkworm205

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2012-05-21

Posts: 267

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

You can use it to lock your machine to a time specific state. This means that new features, security patches, driver updates, etc will NOT be updated. The risk is up to you. You can freeze the system, still allowing installation of other software from the date, OR you could use it to simply download KDE4 and its dependencies, then try to pick and choose valid updates.
Bear in mind, Partial upgrades are not supported. Eventually, something might break. You'll most likely be making more work for yourself with this route.
As Ropid pointed out, consider masolits post with his repository details. I know very little about user repositories, so I'll just post this.

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hydn

Member

From: St. Kitts

Registered: 2012-09-23

Posts: 105

Website

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

That masolits URL was broken.

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Silkworm205

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2012-05-21

Posts: 267

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

The link is meant to be interpreted by pacman, not a web browser. The "$arch" part is a good indicator of that.
The bit on unofficial repos I linked will tell you how to add that repo if you want to use it.

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hydn

Member

From: St. Kitts

Registered: 2012-09-23

Posts: 105

Website

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Edit: These two lines were in my pacman.conf for months:
IgnoreGroup = kf5 plasma-next
IgnorePkg = konsole kwrite kate gwenview konsolepart4 katepart4 yakuake

...because even before KDE4 lost support every update broke some part of KDE4. For example kate and then Dolphin which I ended up having to use Dolphin from the AUR. So froze KDE4 a while back,.

As per: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 7#p1499317

I've ended up with this in /etc/pacman.conf

...

IgnoreGroup = kf5 plasma-next
IgnorePkg = konsole kwrite kate gwenview konsolepart4 katepart4 yakuake

...

[core]
SigLevel = PackageRequired
Server=http://ala.seblu.net/repos/2015/12/09/$repo/os/$arch

[extra]
SigLevel = PackageRequired
Server=http://ala.seblu.net/repos/2015/12/09/$repo/os/$arch

[community]
SigLevel = PackageRequired
Server=http://ala.seblu.net/repos/2015/12/09/$repo/os/$arch


# If you want to run 32 bit applications on your x86_64 system,
# enable the multilib repositories as required here.

##[multilib-testing]
##Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

#[multilib]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# Not sure about this one yet have to research.
[multilib]
Server=http://ala.seblu.net/repos/2015/12/09/$repo/os/$arch

Which resulted in downgrade of only Thunderbird, Chromium and 2 or 3 other minor packages. So now pacman -Syu results in:

...
:: Starting full system upgrade...
warning: attica-qt5: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: baloo: ignoring package upgrade (5.14.0-2 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kactivities-frameworks: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: karchive: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kauth: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kbookmarks: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kcmutils: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kcodecs: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kcompletion: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kconfig: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kconfigwidgets: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kcoreaddons: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kcrash: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kdbusaddons: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kdeclarative: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kdesignerplugin: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kdesu: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kdewebkit: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kdnssd: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kemoticons: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kfilemetadata: ignoring package upgrade (5.14.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kglobalaccel: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kguiaddons: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: ki18n: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kiconthemes: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kidletime: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kinit: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kio: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-3 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kitemmodels: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kitemviews: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kjobwidgets: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: knewstuff: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: knotifications: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-2 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: knotifyconfig: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: konsole: ignoring package upgrade (15.08.0-1 => 15.08.3-1)
warning: kpackage: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kparts: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kplotting: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kpty: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kservice: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: ktexteditor: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-2 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: ktextwidgets: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kunitconversion: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kwallet: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-4 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kwidgetsaddons: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kwindowsystem: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: kxmlgui: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: plasma-framework: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-2)
warning: solid: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
warning: sonnet: ignoring package upgrade (5.13.0-1 => 5.16.0-1)
 there is nothing to do

What's wrong? Also what's the best / most seamless way to still upgrade some packages such as Chromium, Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, etc.

Last edited by hydn (2015-12-17 06:46:38)

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jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

You are doing it wrong. There is no best/seamless way to upgrade selectively: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … nsupported

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agapito

Member

From: Who cares.

Registered: 2008-11-13

Posts: 678

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Edit: These two lines were in my pacman.conf for months:
IgnoreGroup = kf5 plasma-next
IgnorePkg = konsole kwrite kate gwenview konsolepart4 katepart4 yakuake

...because even before KDE4 lost support every update broke some part of KDE4. For example kate and then Dolphin which I ended up having to use Dolphin from the AUR. So froze KDE4 a while back,.

You should change your distro if you want a pure KDE4 installation.

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hydn

Member

From: St. Kitts

Registered: 2012-09-23

Posts: 105

Website

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Edit: These two lines were in my pacman.conf for months:
IgnoreGroup = kf5 plasma-next
IgnorePkg = konsole kwrite kate gwenview konsolepart4 katepart4 yakuake

...because even before KDE4 lost support every update broke some part of KDE4. For example kate and then Dolphin which I ended up having to use Dolphin from the AUR. So froze KDE4 a while back,.

You should change your distro if you want a pure KDE4 installation.

Thanks, yea ...Kubuntu 14.04

Edit: Screw it. I love Arch too much to switch. So I've restored default pacman.conf and did -Syu which upgraded 353 packages @ +600M @ _3G installed. Rebooted and nothing broken so far. I will use KDE4 until it breaks, when that happen... Arch Linux Archive to temp rollback and then follow the Wiki instructions to upgrade to Plamsa 5. Not excited about it but prefer to stick with Arch. Here's screenshot after sync with everything that's current: https://goo.gl/photos/en8BUvJQ9xbfsxRA8 Hope to get at least a good few months more out of KDE4.

Last edited by hydn (2015-12-17 07:51:49)

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davidm

Member

Registered: 2009-04-25

Posts: 371

Re: "Dropping Plasma 4" - not before Qt 5.6, please

Edit: These two lines were in my pacman.conf for months:
IgnoreGroup = kf5 plasma-next
IgnorePkg = konsole kwrite kate gwenview konsolepart4 katepart4 yakuake

...because even before KDE4 lost support every update broke some part of KDE4. For example kate and then Dolphin which I ended up having to use Dolphin from the AUR. So froze KDE4 a while back,.

You should change your distro if you want a pure KDE4 installation.

Just for some info to be helpful: Gentoo still has full KDE4 support.  In stable amd64 it is still using kde4 and nothing special needs to be done.  Unstable (~amd64) still supports kde4 but you need to use "package.mask" to prevent qt5 apps and plasma 5 from being pulled in and keep kde4.

Last edited by davidm (2015-12-23 23:51:35)

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