Now forced to use KDE/Plasma 5?

mhex · Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 6:57 am Post subject: Now forced to use KDE/Plasma 5?

After a bad experience with the upgrade to KDE5, e.g. external display issues and ugly unusable plasma widgets etc,
i managed to mask all related packages and happily switched back to KDE4.

However, today it looks like portage wants me to go to kdebase-runtime-meta 15.12.3 which obviously triggers a bunch
of error and conflicts messages because, as mentioned above, these packages are masked by me.

Can someone confirm this or something similar?

regards and thanks

m.

asturm · Developer Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 8935

Portage is still providing Plasma-4, but Applications that have slot 5 (Frameworks-5 based) upgrades have been removed. See also: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-7942094.html#7942094

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 2:59 pm Post subject:

Why were these not left until KDE5 reached a stable/working status? I already upgraded but was considering reinstalling with 4 due to the many unfinished things in 5 (multiple monitor bugs among the top issues we have). Guess I am stuck now.
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overshoot · n00b Joined: 19 May 2002 Posts: 62 Location: Socorro, NM

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 4:16 pm Post subject:

I don't mind the upgrade. I like the way Plasma looks and works, but it isn't ready. It is my opinion that before it gets listed as "stable", it should at LEAST have the functionality of its predecessor. This upgrade seems forced, kind of like systemd or Obamacare being rammed down our throats. I'll just keep using 5 until it works, I guess. Don't want Gnome due to being tied to systemd, otherwise I'd switch.
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kensington · Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 5:33 pm Post subject:

Plasma 4 reached upstream end of life almost a year ago, and entered long term support mode two years before that. We are one of the last distros that still keep Plasma 4 available, but it is increasingly difficult to keep everything in good order.

While we don't plan to remove Plasma 4 just yet, we have been doing some cleanups recently to ease our maintenance burden. kde-apps/kdebase-runtime-meta did see a cleanup with newer versions pulling in Plasma 5. You might look at kde-base/kdebase-startkde which is still Plasma 4-only.

44616e6e79 · n00b Joined: 10 Jul 2016 Posts: 1

Fair point, if upstream declares Plasma 5 as stable, distro has to follow suit. What if I don't want that and choose to be stubborn and keep KDE4 as-is, unsupported, etc. Is there a way I can force the system state to remain unchanged, but still update the rest of the packages?

I've read about setting up an /etc/portage/packages.provided directory with the list of packages I want to keep as-is in it. So far it's not proven successful. Any recommendations on that?

proteusx · Guru Joined: 21 Jan 2008 Posts: 338

I wonder what is meant by stable nowadays.

So called "stable" plasma 5, here in my triple monitor setup, is broken.
Nvidia graphics card, nouveau driver, HDMI, DVI, VGA connectors, each with a 23 inch monitor attached.

A couple of days ago I was forced to make the transition to plasma 5 because
of the kde-xxx:4 packages disappeared from portage.

Here are a few things that worked perfectly in kde-4 and are now broken in plasma 5:

If you create different taskbars (they call them panels) in each screen
plasma 5 will not keep the taskbars it their prescribed places.
After rebooting all taskbars end up on top of one-another in whichever screen starts at (x,y) = (0,0)
You can have only one full-screen Folder-View, and this can only be in the main screen.
The other two screens can only be "Desktops".
If you create folder views on the non main screens, after reboot they disappear and you get an empty screens with the
default kde wallpaper.
Task managers on non main screens, set up to display only the tasks in their allotted screen,
display tasks from the other screen and vice-versa.
Moving toolbars or widgets between screens result in random lock ups.
Virtual Displays do not permit different widgets or background colours/wallpapers.
Desktop links to folders do not appear with the icon of the original folder but with the default folder icon.
The link's "Icon Settings" have no icon settings at all, but only an option to assign a keyboard shortcut for that link.

I noticed other problems too (e.g. some old konsole profiles not working, no more shelves, usb automounting no longer working,
configuration files scattered all over the place, etc.) but these are not as serious.

Now I need a way to get rid of this crap and return to kde-4.
The lesson is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
This plasma 5 was a bad move.
Very frustrating.

i4dnf · Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 8:13 am Post subject:

For the issues with kde/plasma forgetting the screen setup, and clobbering all on screen1 at restart, try disabling the KScreen 2 service. (Systemsettings -> Startup and shutdown -> Background Services)
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asturm · Developer Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 8935

This is also solved in 5.6.5.

If you have multi-screen issues, don't bother with 5.5.5.

i4dnf · Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 1:04 pm Post subject:

Unfortunately not solved by 5.6.5 (at least here). Didn't bother to check in 5.7.0 since I don't need the supposed kscreen daemon functionality anyway (I don't plug and unplug displays thousands of times per day), but according to this KDE Bug it should be solved in 5.7.0.
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Fitzcarraldo · Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 10:34 pm Post subject:

I'm still seeing problems in 5.7.0 on my Compal NBLB2 laptop: widgets disappear from the Desktop when the laptop resumes from suspension; widgets disappear from the Desktop but are still indicated in the Add Widgets pane as being instanced; the wallpaper changes back to the default KDE wallpaper seemingly randomly; sometimes widgets on the Desktop move to the Panel; Firefox installed by merging www-client/firefox flickers badly and cannot play videos (firefox-bin works fine, though). Apparently 5.7.1 is imminent and I hope it fixes some of these problems.
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proteusx · Guru Joined: 21 Jan 2008 Posts: 338

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 1:26 am Post subject:

Yeah, 5.7 is a good alpha, or maybe even beta. We had multiple screens working in 4.x for eons, and we're up to 5.7.x and still no dice. Hell I could get this working on Windows 98SE easier than this. My boss is not happy, my front desk people are not happy, and that makes my job Hell. I understand that the Gentoo team is NOT to blame here, but I AM upset with the rollout of Plasma 5 by the KDE team. It has permanently tarnished the standing of KDE with me, and I have used it since the late 90's.

The only problem we all seem to have is that it decides which monitor is located at 0,0 and if any other monitor is above or to the left of said monitor, the crap hits the fan when any monitor is removed. I am not familiar at all with how X handles this, but I cannot believe 3 and 4 worked so well, and 5 is such an epic fail. The only solution I have found is to mark your upper-left-most monitor as the primary one, and it works because it has 0,0 and everything else just falls into place.
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proteusx · Guru Joined: 21 Jan 2008 Posts: 338

I did a bit of reading to understand what is going on with KDE.

The multihead problems are 8 months old.
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=356225
They released Plasma 5 purportedly as stable while they knew of these bugs.

They are a happy bunch, high on their QML, javascript multi-paradigm, declarative, reactive, what-have-you,
maybe aspiring after careers with Google, Facebook or even Microsoft (why not?),
yet their brilliancies inadvertently omitted to test if multihead functions properly; despite the numerous bug reports.

The whole thing smacks of incompetence.
Just look at the file pollution in ~/.config.
They do not ever bother to put their stuff in its own subdirectory.

And they deflect criticism like politicians:
"The X-server is crap", "QT5 is buggy", "It is all impossibly difficult", "The issues have nothing to do with our development model", and such.
https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2016/07/multi-screen-woes-in-plasma-5-7
The comments are interesting reading.

Of course no one is asks him how come that multihead configurations worked perfectly in KDE3 and KDE4
and in the new and "improved" plasma 5, multihead is totally broken and sooooo difficult to fix.

With some trepidation I realize I must ditch this crap much as I like the Konsole and Okular.
Come to think of it I also liked very much khexedit and kmail (the original one); where are they now?