KDE 4 in gentoo portage?

Message

Phoenix591 · Post by **Phoenix591** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 1:54 am

Ok, here is the decision about KDE 4.0.0. From the current topic in #gentoo-kde on irc.freenode.net, "KDE 4.0.0 *will* be in Portage but p.masked." so its official . Also in the topic and very relevant, "Every "when" makes it take a day longer."[/quote]

Aitikin · Post by **Aitikin** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 1:56 am

Schweet. I haven't said it yet and I don't plan on it. So thanks devs!

Rad · Post by **Rad** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:35 am

To the devs: I had hoped for this decision - great to hear! And of course also a big "thank you" for providing the pre-release versions through the kde overlay before the final version.

rek2 · Post by **rek2** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:15 am

Thanks!! can't wait to unmask it and try it!!

Hurray for KDE4!

siddesu · Post by **siddesu** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:15 am

Running KDE4-svn (with windowmaker as a wm haha), compiled and worked just fine on the very first try. Thanks for the great work, and kudos to the kde team as well

NathanZachary · Post by **NathanZachary** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:50 am

Well I just downloaded the Kubuntu disc with KDE4 on it, and I have faith that when it hits the Portage tree it will be better. I can't believe the amount of bugs just booting into the DE on the Kubuntu Live disc. I'm glad that the devs decided to actually place 4.0.0 into the tree, but I think I will wait a while before trying it out on my main machine.

Carlo · Post by **Carlo** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 4:32 pm

Let_Me_Be wrote:KDE4 contains all aplications

This is not correct. KDE 4.0 e.g. comes without PIM applications.

Let_Me_Be wrote:KDE 3.5 is going to be deprecated very soon, I don't see any posibility supporting both KDE 4 and KDE 3.5 properly.

Actually it's the first time KDE 3 is reasonably stable, minus some known quirks and some stuff upstream doesn't maintain actively since quite a while. KDE 3 will live on for years, while KDE 4 will probably need another one or two years, before it may match the functionality and quality of the latest KDE 3 release.

enzobelmont · Post by **enzobelmont** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:00 pm

kalos wrote:Well I just downloaded the Kubuntu disc with KDE4 on it, and I have faith that when it hits the Portage tree it will be better. I can't believe the amount of bugs just booting into the DE on the Kubuntu Live disc. I'm glad that the devs decided to actually place 4.0.0 into the tree, but I think I will wait a while before trying it out on my main machine.

i'm running from overlay, and let me tell you... it is far better than previous beta versions.

it is not completely polished, but i like it.

try overlay version.

BitJam · Post by **BitJam** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:06 pm

I realize it is not a mainstream app, but KStars in 4.x is much better than the 3.x versions. Some of the new features include:

Anti-aliasing
Line and polygon clipping
No label overlap
Faster rendering using a spatial index
Greatly improved INDI support

It runs faster while looking better and more professional.

NathanZachary · Post by **NathanZachary** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:58 pm

I will probably give the overlay a try on my test machine, but I don't think I'm going to put it on my main workstation. I think I'm actually more excited about 3.5.8 getting marked as stable for x86 than for 4.0.0 hitting the testing branch.

albright · Post by **albright** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:13 pm

4.x is much better than the 3.x

... except for the way it randomly crashes when dragging
the sky around ... (and - curiously - draws the crescent
moon illuminated from the wrong side!! - this does *not*
happen in the 3.5 version

)

BitJam · Post by **BitJam** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:27 pm

albright wrote:
4.x is much better than the 3.x
... except for the way it randomly crashes when dragging
the sky around ... (and - curiously - draws the crescent
moon illuminated from the wrong side!! - this does *not*
happen in the 3.5 version )

Please report these bugs! A backtrace after a crash would be very helpful.

I have experienced occasional crashes. Most of them were due to code that was inherited from the 3.5 version. Early versions of 4.x were crashy, but crashing hasn't been a problem for me since the summer.

PS: Thanks for reporting this now. I expect the moon bug to be fixed within days. I'm really glad someone is using KStars. I'd love to hear if you have any other feedback, but we should probably take it up in either a new thread or PM's and email because it is getting to be a little OT.

PPS: I sent you a PM.

Enjolras · Post by **Enjolras** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:01 pm

GivePeaceAChance wrote:Any idea how long that'll be?

At this pace we will be getting the ebuilds the same day that KDE4 goes into debian stable

. I'm not blaming the packagers or anything like that, but even in this world of open source and volunteers, the one that freely takes the responsibility should act accordingly. It's not only we as users, but there are also some distributions that depend on the ebuilds to satisfy their customers. I've been a Gentoo die hard for the last 6-7 years and never complained, and I'll probably stay like that for a lot of time, but on this occasion Gentoo has sadly proven that it is not the distro to trust. I'm sure that there are very good reasons for this delay, but even knowing that, it is also a fact that a KDE major is not the same as 'yet another little rev of [put your favourite obscure package here]'. I'm sure that this is not what the devs want to hear/read, but it is what I think. Sorry! There is also all that crap about 'do not ask when', 'every WHEN delays it one more day', etc... Of course I could do it by myself, but it happens that I've not assumed my responsibility as a dev while others have done. I'm sure that the ebuilds would eventually come and all of us will be enyoing and forgotting, but you like it or not, this has been the first time in 7 years that I've looked (only looked) at other 'Linux flavours'.

Anyway, keep the good work on the other areas and let it be good in KDE too.

Regards.

beso_1717 · Post by **beso_1717** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:30 pm

At this pace we will be getting the ebuilds the same day that KDE4 goes into debian stable . I'm not blaming the packagers or anything like that, but even in this world of open source and volunteers, the one that freely takes the responsibility should act accordingly. It's not only we as users, but there are also some distributions that depend on the ebuilds to satisfy their customers. I've been a Gentoo die hard for the last 6-7 years and never complained, and I'll probably stay like that for a lot of time, but on this occasion Gentoo has sadly proven that it is not the distro to trust. I'm sure that there are very good reasons for this delay, but even knowing that, it is also a fact that a KDE major is not the same as 'yet another little rev of [put your favourite obscure package here]'. I'm sure that this is not what the devs want to hear/read, but it is what I think. Sorry! There is also all that crap about 'do not ask when', 'every WHEN delays it one more day', etc... Of course I could do it by myself, but it happens that I've not assumed my responsibility as a dev while others have done. I'm sure that the ebuilds would eventually come and all of us will be enyoing and forgotting, but you like it or not, this has been the first time in 7 years that I've looked (only looked) at other 'Linux flavours'.

Anyway, keep the good work on the other areas and let it be good in KDE too.

Regards.

well, the overlays for it is present and should already work for installing the packages. i think that the problem is that compiling all the stuff and being sure that it doesn't break something else while also mantaing other more important things will get the ebuilds to be delayed. speaking of other distro, of what i know the things stands in this way:
- opensuse has some packages compiled in an external repository
- fedora also has the same approach
- ubuntu has them on the experimental repo
others distros i don't remember to have read about them already supported. also you have to understand that packaging for a prepackaged system is one thing, while making ebuilds to be compiled on a source system, having in mind that there isn't a system that is = to another is not that easy. also this release is not like 3.5.8 in regards of 3.5.8, but is a major versioning and in this the things are much more complicated. i think that the ebuilds will be ready towards the end of this week or at the beginning of the next one. please be patient a little more. and if you aren't then try out the external overlay and use that before the ebuilds get into portage.

TNorthover · Post by **TNorthover** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:34 pm

beso_1717 wrote:well, the overlays for it is present and should already work for installing the packages.

Only 3.97.0 and the svn are in the normal overlay at present.

i think that the ebuilds will be ready towards the end of this week or at the beginning of the next one.

Is that a hunch, or more recent information I've missed?

zAfi · Post by **zAfi** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:37 pm

we should not forget that we're actually not talking about KDE4 but about KDE 4.0. KDE4 will still take a long time with some releases, some more patches and a lot more bug fixes.
Some kdedev stated some time ago (don't ask me where) that kde 3.5 was actually the way they wanted to have kde3, so i don't think gentoo should wait for including 4.0 in ~x86. Else we won't have kde4 added till 5.0 is out (or something like that^^). And for my understanding the ~x86 branch is exactly for software like that, isn't it?

vitaemortis · Post by **vitaemortis** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 4:29 pm

zAfi wrote:we should not forget that we're actually not talking about KDE4 but about KDE 4.0. KDE4 will still take a long time with some releases, some more patches and a lot more bug fixes.
Some kdedev stated some time ago (don't ask me where) that kde 3.5 was actually the way they wanted to have kde3, so i don't think gentoo should wait for including 4.0 in ~x86. Else we won't have kde4 added till 5.0 is out (or something like that^^). And for my understanding the ~x86 branch is exactly for software like that, isn't it?

While KDE 4.0.0 is only the first release of this Major Release Circles. I think it is save to say that it is for now KDE 4. As will be all the following KDE 4.x.y Versions. So I agree with you. It should be in the unstable Part of the portage system.
I am also OK if the ebuilds are going to be masked, or only in an overlay. (Personally i think the overlay system has the potentional to be a very powerful tool for the gentoo portage system. and should be explored more) But 3 days after the release of a such important DE and no ebuilds in sight (especially since there are some for the 3.97-rc releases which i imagine could be changed to fit the 4.0.0 release) is not a very good sign for Gentoo. one of the reasons why i stayed with Gentoo, was that i could very fast test new versions of programs without really breaking my installation.
So I hope the ebuilds will be ready soon.

StifflerStealth · Post by **StifflerStealth** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 4:47 pm

Enjolras wrote:I'm sure that the ebuilds would eventually come and all of us will be enyoing and forgotting, but you like it or not, this has been the first time in 7 years that I've looked (only looked) at other 'Linux flavours'.

KDE 4.0.0 isn't worth switching distros over.

KDE 4.0.0 really is rough and in some cases unusable. You should not make it a main desktop yet. For example, in Konq file manager, you cannot copy and paste files between folders. The KDE devs know about it, but it's not fixed yet in SVN. copy and paste is the one of the whole reasons for a file manager. My point is that it is really rough, and (this is to everyone) to have this much drama over the release of a piece software is ****** nonsense. Seriously folks, use the svn of KDE4, because it is in far better shape than the tagged 4.0.0. Just look at the commit logs and you will see proof of that.

So, I ask this nicely: Stop the drama. KDE 4.0.0 is not worth all this. This is coming from a hard core user of KDE as well. I helped with the pertty patches and KDEMod on Arch for a bit, just because I love KDE and I want to see things tweaked, but KDE 4.0.0 is not worth all this hassle. Yeah, it's nice and has a new bells and whistles that are cool, but they all do not function properly yet. Give it time and then it will be worth all the hassle, but not until then.

No more drama please. No more war. No more speculation. No more stupid sayings like "We'd rather see rough ebuilds in portage than no ebuilds at all" (that will never happen, and yes, people have said stuff to this affect).

Remember: "Good things come to those who wait." An extremely wise and old person that said that a very long time ago, but it is very, very true.

Veldrin · Post by **Veldrin** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:00 pm

Thank you... I couldn't have said it better.

I will try KDE4 some time soon, but as main desktop, I guess it has to wait till 4.1.

cheers
V.

vitaemortis · Post by **vitaemortis** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:03 pm

Veldrin wrote:Thank you... I couldn't have said it better.

I will try KDE4 some time soon, but as main desktop, I guess it has to wait till 4.1.

cheers
V.

So will I, but that does not stop the child in me to want the ebuilds of kde4.0.0 as soon as possible.

Enjolras · Post by **Enjolras** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:05 pm

StifflerStealth wrote:
Enjolras wrote:I'm sure that the ebuilds would eventually come and all of us will be enyoing and forgotting, but you like it or not, this has been the first time in 7 years that I've looked (only looked) at other 'Linux flavours'.
KDE 4.0.0 isn't worth switching distros over.

Of course not, that's why I only 'looked at'

KDE 4.0.0 really is rough and in some cases unusable. You should not make it a main desktop yet. For example, in Konq file manager, you cannot copy and paste files between folders. The KDE devs know about it, but it's not fixed yet in SVN. copy and paste is the one of the whole reasons for a file manager. My point is that it is really rough, and (this is to everyone) to have this much drama over the release of a piece software is ****** nonsense. Seriously folks, use the svn of KDE4, because it is in far better shape than the tagged 4.0.0. Just look at the commit logs and you will see proof of that.

So, I ask this nicely: Stop the drama. KDE 4.0.0 is not worth all this. This is coming from a hard core user of KDE as well. I helped with the pertty patches and KDEMod on Arch for a bit, just because I love KDE and I want to see things tweaked, but KDE 4.0.0 is not worth all this hassle. Yeah, it's nice and has a new bells and whistles that are cool, but they all do not function properly yet. Give it time and then it will be worth all the hassle, but not until then.

No more drama please. No more war. No more speculation. No more stupid sayings like "We'd rather see rough ebuilds in portage than no ebuilds at all" (that will never happen, and yes, people have said stuff to this affect).

Remember: "Good things come to those who wait." An extremely wise and old person that said that a very long time ago, but it is very, very true.

While all of this is true, that shouldn't be an issue for the distro. If KDE 4.0.0 is not ready for the distro users, then it is distro devs' fault. If KDE 4.0.0 is buggy and unstable, then it is mainstream devs fault'. Just for delaying the ebuilds the mainstream code won't be magically better. But as I said in my previous message, all of this will be forgotten once the ebuilds are out and we all realize that KDE 4.0.0 is not worth all this buzz. I think that the problem here is not with these very ebuilds but with the fact that this is probably the first time in Gentoo's history that an important piece of software such is a new KDE major is not ready for us even before public release.

Regards

troyt · Post by **troyt** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:14 pm

I'm willing to wait for a working KDE 4.0 release - but I have to wonder about the double-standard I see with GNOME: I've been a user of Gentoo for 5 years now; it's not like using Gentoo is a foreign concept to me.

However, on all of my Gentoo systems (4-5 of them), GNOME simply doesn't work - and that's for the stable release, not ~arch.

I haven't been able to load GNOME on Gentoo for about 18 months now, in spite of many complete re-builds of everything GNOME.

Whenever I post to the forums asking why GNOME won't work, the only thing I hear is "I have that problem too... if you figure it out, let me know"

Why is it OK to mark GNOME as "stable" when myself and quite a few other users can't even get the cursed thing to load the desktop (even after removing and re-installing all of GNOME), yet when KDE is in the same state, it won't even make it into portage as hardmasked?

I have no intention of hijacking a thread; I gave up on GNOME. But why is it acceptable for GNOME to be completely broken for many users, yet be marked as "stable", while KDE 4.0 isn't even allowed into portage hardmasked?

Ray ishido · Post by **Ray ishido** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:06 pm

Hi all,

just my 2 cents to try to show how the pb is complex.
I am personaly using gnome without any pb. I remenber that when the version 2.18 was'nt in portage a week or two after it was disponible. of course a lot of people were waiting for this version and the debate were the same as here ("why it is not in portage?", "other distro already have packages",...). As I was impatient, and as other gentooers report few bug, I tried an ovelay an everything crashed. At this moment I understood the devs decision. If they had put it into portage, I bet the forum would have been full of message asking why it crashed.
I am very impatient to test kde 4.0, but reports I read from other distro's users (mainly on opensuse) are saying it's quite a buggy version, só as an overlay already exist, I think it would be a good idea to stop this debate and respect the dev's choice.

StifflerStealth · Post by **StifflerStealth** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:30 pm

troyt wrote:I'm willing to wait for a working KDE 4.0 release - but I have to wonder about the double-standard I see with GNOME: I've been a user of Gentoo for 5 years now; it's not like using Gentoo is a foreign concept to me.

However, on all of my Gentoo systems (4-5 of them), GNOME simply doesn't work - and that's for the stable release, not ~arch.

I haven't been able to load GNOME on Gentoo for about 18 months now, in spite of many complete re-builds of everything GNOME.

Whenever I post to the forums asking why GNOME won't work, the only thing I hear is "I have that problem too... if you figure it out, let me know"

Why is it OK to mark GNOME as "stable" when myself and quite a few other users can't even get the cursed thing to load the desktop (even after removing and re-installing all of GNOME), yet when KDE is in the same state, it won't even make it into portage as hardmasked?

I have no intention of hijacking a thread; I gave up on GNOME. But why is it acceptable for GNOME to be completely broken for many users, yet be marked as "stable", while KDE 4.0 isn't even allowed into portage hardmasked?

From my understanding, Gnome not working is not a Gentoo issue, but a Gnome issue. If you experience a not working Gnome, go to the Gnome's website and file bugs. That is the only way Gnome will work again, not by discussing it on a Distribution's website. Go to the Gnome devs directly to get your problem solved. This is to all Gnome users.

As far as KDE not being in portage, well ... it takes a lot of time to put KDE in there. There are what, 300 some ebuilds for it? All those need to be tested. Also, there are new eclasses, and if I remember right from the dev manual, new eclasses need to be reviewed first before going into portage, which is a several day process. Once the eclasses are ok'ed and in, the ebuilds can go in. So, that process is not done yet, obviously. And once they are in, they will be package masked. I would not be surprised if 4.0.0 was never unmasked and only 4.0.1 will get a change to be unmasked. In fact, I would applaud the devs if they never unmasked 4.0.0.

Cheers.

vitaemortis · Post by **vitaemortis** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:36 pm

Ray ishido wrote:Hi all,

just my 2 cents to try to show how the pb is complex.
I am personaly using gnome without any pb. I remenber that when the version 2.18 was'nt in portage a week or two after it was disponible. of course a lot of people were waiting for this version and the debate were the same as here ("why it is not in portage?", "other distro already have packages",...). As I was impatient, and as other gentooers report few bug, I tried an ovelay an everything crashed. At this moment I understood the devs decision. If they had put it into portage, I bet the forum would have been full of message asking why it crashed.
I am very impatient to test kde 4.0, but reports I read from other distro's users (mainly on opensuse) are saying it's quite a buggy version, só as an overlay already exist, I think it would be a good idea to stop this debate and respect the dev's choice.

The difference is 2.18 was a buggy minor release the Gnome 2 release circle. In the Release circle time of gnome it would be something like the KDE 3.4 and KDE 3.5 while there are improvements between those minor releases, they are so similar, that if there are problems with one version, it can corrupt the hole system.
KDE 4 on the other side, is a complete code rewrite of the Desktop, so every libary which Kde 4 uses has a compleate different version then kde 3.5. Because of that, one should be able to reduce the Danger of corrupting the system to a minimal risk. Since KDE 4 is so different to KDE 3 it seams prudent to think that many people wants to test them. (For daily use like the GNOME 2.18 is KDE 4.0 not usable)
That said, i think that the developers should have put a masked version of ebuilds into the portage. Because, the people will see the rbuilds are there, and if they are hard masked they will (hopefully) read in the package.mask why they where hard masked. People understand that. What they do not understand is however, why are there no ebuilds of such a important software, why are there no (easy to access ) official information about the status and so on. And in the 6 to 7 years in which i used Gentoo, it seams that the information for the users is slowly drifting further away. (at least in the last 2 years)

KDE 4 in gentoo portage?

Nice!

My $.02

Re: My $.02