Upgrading KDE

[2handband]

Hi! First post. I'm giving Salix a test-run because I'm looking for something I can recommend for noobs that isn't as buggy as Ubuntu or as overbuilt as openSUSE. Is there an easy way to upgrade the stock KDE 4.4.3 to 4.4.5, or even better yet to 4.5.x?

[sqlpython]

Welcome!
Another KDE lover, Like myself a user of KDE since 1999......
My impression is that most Slack people like Xfce or OpenBox and the like......

Anyhow I have been running KDE 4.4.5 on Debian Squeeze and I believe 4.4.3 on Salix and there is really nothing much to be gained in between the two. The main changes are bug fixes and translation updates. Adjustments in Konsole, KAlarm and Okular... Meanwhile seems the updates in 4.4.3 have taken care most BUGS.. which were not large numbers of annoyances anyway.
So, look to 4.5 as the next logical step... I haven't investigated the 4.5 upgrade but my thought is that it will need an Kernel upgrade as well to support the libs being used by 4.5... I will take a seat and wait as that is too much reconstruction to do on a Standing install. You end up with a house of cards effect as many of the other Contributed package become backports by comparison and you will have incompatibility issues and dependency issues cropping up..

Have good time using Salix.. I believe you will be very satisfied with the KDE install as is......

[2handband]

Welcome!
Another KDE lover, Like myself a user of KDE since 1999......
My impression is that most Slack people like Xfce or OpenBox and the like......

Anyhow I have been running KDE 4.4.5 on Debian Squeeze and I believe 4.4.3 on Salix and there is really nothing much to be gained in between the two. The main changes are bug fixes and translation updates. Adjustments in Konsole, KAlarm and Okular... Meanwhile seems the updates in 4.4.3 have taken care most BUGS.. which were not large numbers of annoyances anyway.
So, look to 4.5 as the next logical step... I haven't investigated the upgrade but my thought is that it will need an Kernel upgrade as well to support the libs being used by 4.5... I will take a seat and wait as that is too much reconstruction to do on a Standing install. You end up with a house of cards effect as many of the other Contributed package become backports by comparison and you will have incompatibility issues and dependency issues cropping up..

Have good time using Salix.. I believe you will be very satisfied with the KDE install as is......

I make heavy use of KDE activities, which in 4.4.3 were so buggy as to be unusable. In 4.4.5 they're fixed.

[thenktor]

Wait for 13.2 or install the 13.2 alpha. Then you can get KDE with slapt-get. I'm running it on my notebook.

[2handband]

Since this is back-compatible with Slackware, the packages in alien_bob's repos should work, correct?

[thenktor]

Yes, you can use them, too.

[gapan]

Is there an easy way to upgrade the stock KDE 4.4.3 to 4.4.5, or even better yet to 4.5.x?

No. There is a way, but it's not "easy".

[sqlpython]

I make heavy use of KDE activities, which in 4.4.3 were so buggy as to be unusable. In 4.4.5 they're fixed.

I see...
As I also believe I make heavy use of KDE as well, I would be grateful if you would describe the offenders so that I could check my own install for these same problems. Currently, I can not really say that I detect any....
The Bugs that I have been wrestling with on and off these past months were not KDE but rather tied to Mozilla Firefox and ThunderBird in relation to Google connections..but not KDE and I would like to examine my KDE install.
Thanks...

[2handband]

I make heavy use of KDE activities, which in 4.4.3 were so buggy as to be unusable. In 4.4.5 they're fixed.

I see...
As I also believe I make heavy use of KDE as well, I would be grateful if you would describe the offenders so that I could check my own install for these same problems. Currently, I can not really say that I detect any....
The Bugs that I have been wrestling with on and off these past months were not KDE but rather tied to Mozilla Firefox and ThunderBird in relation to Google connections..but not KDE and I would like to examine my KDE install.
Thanks...

Try creating some activities, and in particular select "different activity for each desktop" in your virtual desktop pager. You'll encounter some very weird behaviors such as sliding wallpaper and widgets that don't want to move where you tell them to. They didn't get activities working right until 4.4.5.

[sqlpython]

Try creating some activities, and in particular select "different activity for each desktop" in your virtual desktop pager. You'll encounter some very weird behaviors such as sliding wallpaper and widgets that don't want to move where you tell them to. They didn't get activities working right until 4.4.5.

Ok, I am aware of the Plasma Widget issue of which you speak. I do work with QT Designer and PyQT...
There was a solution out there for people using 4.4.3 where as Widget didn't install nor run properly then would move and over all functional problems with Some Plasma Widgets..
This situation seemed to solve by adding the missing package kdebindings in Gslapt
.......Can't remember if I added it in Salix as it has been trouble free but I did in Debian..
Most of KDE is written in C++ but not most Plasma Widgets many are written in Python or a combo of Python and C++.. So adding the kdebindings seems to cure the situation for all the Widgets that I have tried....but then I haven't tried them all..
Give it a try...

EDIT: I discovered it was only added to Salix/Slackware and Not Debian... so apparently the my Widget issue was just Salix..but it is solved.