KDE/KDE4

From openSUSE

What to expect of KDE 4.0

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - there has been a lot of discussion about what was promised and what is going to be released. In order to appreciate KDE 4.0 and the packages provided by openSUSE, you should read and spread the following: blog 1, blog 2 , blog 3

To make a long story short: KDE 4.0 is not and never was meant to replace 3.5.x for regular users. The main goals were porting to Qt4 and creating the frameworks to create all the things announced for KDE 4. Frameworks are unfortunately hardly visible to the user, so most things that use them, like plasmoids, panel-functionality etc., will only appear after the frameworks are in place, i.e. starting with 4.1.

Please note that several applications, most noticeable the ones of KDEPIM (KAddressbook, KMail, KOrganizer, Kontact) and Quanta have not been released as part of KDE 4.0. Many other KDE3 applications have not been ported yet to KDE 4.0 libraries or are only available as unstable development versions.

4.0 is the start of KDE 4 and needs testing by the community, that's why it was released and that's what you should install it for. If it suits your needs already, be happy, if not, you know what to expect now.

Current Status

• Build Service: The KDE:KDE4:STABLE:Desktop build service project contains KDE 4.0.4 packages, for installation/update see below. These packages are as current as possible and contain some openSUSE customisations, to make it easy to identify KDE 3 applications in the Kickoff start menu, for example. The KDE:KDE4:UNSTABLE:Desktop build service project contains KDE Devel packages. These are provided as-is and are considered experimental and bleeding edge. Feedback is appreciated though.
• Live CD: KDE Four Live is a frequently updated Live-CD containing the above packages. The latest release includes KDE 4.0.4.
• openSUSE Factory contains currently the KDE 4.0.4 packages.
• openSUSE 10.3 Gold Master: The openSUSE 10.3 CD and DVD and default repositories were released containing a preview of KDE 4. At this point, the KDE Team worked on the base technologies of KDE 4 and finely split the packages into platform, desktop and apps. openSUSE 10.3 offers by default a KDE3 desktop with single KDE4 applications. openSUSE 10.3 can be updated to KDE 4.0.4 using the Build Service.

Safety Advice :-)

Our KDE4 packages use ~/.kde4 for storing settings and data. KDE 3 applications continue to use ~/.kde, even if used within KDE4 workplace.

If you have edited your .profile or .bashrc to change KDEHOME both KDE 3 and KDE 4 applications will share the same config files. This will enable KDE 4 applications to 'upgrade' config files they find but KDE 3 applications will probably be unable to use the updated files.

Package Naming

The packaging of KDE4 is more fine-grained than with KDE3. For applications it's now kde4-<appname>, the kde4- prefix is supposed to stay as long as an application is not considered stable enough for daily usage and to avoid confusion with the KDE3 equivalent. The module packages (with the exception of kdelibs4 and kdebase4) are usually empty and exist only because of the corresponding debuginfo packages. They suggest all packages which are created from them for installation. The naming and splitting of the packages is not yet final, e.g. applications still enter or leave KDE modules and packages may have to be renamed to conform to the latest openSUSE package naming policies, like the one for libraries.

KDE 3 and KDE 4

The KDE4 packages install into the /usr prefix, so KDE3 and KDE4 can safely be installed at the same time. On openSUSE 10.2, single files of packages not marked as conflicting may conflict, but you can usually safely ignore those file conflicts.

To prevent the accidental starting of KDE4 applications within a KDE3 session add at the top of /opt/kde3/bin/startkde

If you are using another window manager then adding this line to the .bashrc file should also load the correct applications.

This has been already done in the Factory and KDE:KDE3 packages which also contain some other minor patches for better co-existence with KDE4 (may need to run kbuildsycoca --noincremental once to become fully active).

Installation

Build Service Project (KDE:KDE4)

The KDE:KDE4:STABLE:Extra-Apps build service project offers KDE 4.0.x packages.

Click on one of these One Click Install files to install the required packages and optionally register the repository for future. If you get a message that dependencies cannot be resolved, enter the "Advanced Mode" of the one-click handler and enable the "standard" online repository of your distribution.

Version: 10.3

Or you can choose to install a more basic KDE 4 desktop. Developers can also optionally install the KDE 4 build dependencies: all the packages you need to have installed for compiling KDE 4.0 from source (experts only).

zypper sa http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/STABLE:/Desktop/openSUSE_10.2/ 102-kde4
zypper sa http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/STABLE:/Extra-Apps/openSUSE_10.2/ 102-kde4-apps
zypper install -t pattern 'KDE 4 Default'

Version: Factory

Or you can choose to install a more basic KDE 4 desktop. Developers can also optionally install the KDE 4 build dependencies: all the packages you need to have installed for compiling KDE 4.0 from source (experts only).

Note: On 10.2, if the above commands do not work for you, try the following: add the repositories through yast (Installation Source>>Add>>Specify URL). Then goto Software Management>>Filter>>Installation Sources and select the url for the kd4 desktop repository given above. Install every package in that repository except the "devel" packages. Also, install only your appropriate KDE translation package. Click Accept, then ignore the conflicts as mentioned above. This will download about 600 mb of data.

Starting KDE4

After installation you will find a new session type "KDE4" at your login manager for starting a full KDE4 session. So if you have autologin enabled, you have to logout, pick your username and the session type from the menu at the bottom of the login-screen and type your password.

KDE 4 UNSTABLE Repository -- Bleeding Edge

The KDE:KDE4:UNSTABLE:Desktop build service project contains KDE Devel packages -- snapshots of current trunk/. These are provided as-is and are considered experimental and bleeding edge. Feedback is appreciated though.

Compiling from Source

To compile KDE4 from source code, follow the guide available on the KDE Techbase wiki.

• openSUSE specific instructions
• Instructions for building KDE4.

Performance Issues

• KWin 4.0 Release Notes
• There seems to be an issue with the fglrx driver and KDE4, which causes windows to be painted/repainted very slow on KDE4, while this does not occur on KDE3. It doesn't matter if compositing effects are turned on or off in KDE4. Using the free radeon or radeonhd drivers seems not to cause such performance problems. You may have to blacklist the 'fglrx' driver in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, to prevent it from being loaded automatically on bootup. If you change your xorg.conf to use the radeon or radeonhd driver, but the fglrx module is still loaded (even if it is no used) you might encounter those performance problems in KDE4.