Dropping KDE
 

Well I got an itch to scratch from another post so here it is.

I think it would be a mistake to drop KDE. My 2 cents worth.

I add my voice to keeping KDE. It would be a mistake to drop it.

And here comes a 20+ page argument. I personally think it should be dropped though.

It should be noted this conversation was spawned from this thread: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...098/page9.html

KDE could completely disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't even notice.

Edit: I would notice for a second because the installer ISO would shrink by at least 1GB.

Although, I prefer xfce, there are plenty of kde apps I would not like to lose.

Just because PV dropped Gnome did people lose Gnome applications? No, because they are on SBo.

Plus, I'm pretty sure that Eric would continue to provide KDE 5 for people that want it and/or it's applications.

I wish he dropped everything else but KDE. Dedicated KDE distro, only thing I found lacking is Kmail. Every app is fast, it's stable, and light. Everything that was wrong with KDE4 has been corrected and getting better constantly.

Not without a suitable replacement.

Any project is destined to make all the decisions in accordance to it's scope. Different answers for a server distro or a distro for older hardware ...or any other distro for any given specific purpose.
And of course there are also distros concentrated on a specific desktop.
Now, let's make the hypothesis that the target is to have a distro that aims to be for "general use", and strives for "best desktop experience" etc. Gnome is out of the question due to systemd.Xfce4 is flexible, modular, simple.Plasma offers a full blown desktop environoment, with a ton of well integrated applications, modern features and a unique, consistent look and feel. So, different animals (Xfce4 and Plasma) and imho both of them must be included if we follow the hypothesis.

After learning about the financial situation I've decided not to vote. I would understand if it is removed but I'd have to find a new distro for my desktop if it was. It would be really bad to keep Alienbob hanging and not put it in.

Sure, if Pat will maintain the dependencies for Plasma5.
Despite what people seem to think, the whole plasma framework is very easy to build, using the single kde.SlackBuild script, and patches/fixes are rarely needed. KDE Plasma is quite cleanly built on top of abstraction layers. It is a very mature body of code and I applaud the KDE developer community. Packages like Chromium or LibreOffice are the real ball busters that never simply compile and require many hours of investigation every time anew.

The Plasma5 dependencies on the other hand are a major pain in the ass. Every time Pat upgrades icu4c, or boost, or poppler, I have to test for breakage and spend time rebuilding big packages like qt5 and qt5-webkit.

Pat rebuilds all the broken packages in -current before he uploads the updates so that Slackware itself never really breaks. But as a 3rd-party packager, I have to spend un-anticipated nights in order to rush out fixed packages to help people un-break their Plasma5 Desktop Environment. This puts a strain on me which I am frankly sick and tired of. It would really help if the same would be done for Qt5 and friends.

If Pat drops KDE4, and will not add a base layer of support for Plasma5 (most notoriously Qt5 and then recompile all the packages that can use qt5) then I think the future of my 'ktown' repository of Plasma5 packages is doomed. My day job simply is becoming too demanding and the time left to work on Slackware is dwindling. I need to become more efficient or drop the parts of my work that are not used a lot. I wonder how many people actually run -current and use my Plasma5.

A remark about KDE4 versus Plasma5 - just a few nights ago I built two Live ISOs for the team: both based on a full Slackware64-current, but one containing KDE4 (not Plasma5) and the other ISO containing Plasma5 (but not KDE4). The Plasma5 based Live ISO is 3.8 GB in size, the KDE4 based ISO is just 180 MB smaller. Barely noticeable difference IMHO.

Dropping KDE
 

I use i3wm as my main work environment but I like to have the possibility of using plasma and apps.

Thanks Eric. A lot.

I think the poll should be altered:

Do you think that KDE should be removed from Slackware at the risk of also losing Eric (AlienBob)? Yes or No.... In this case I would vote No. We cannot cut off the right arm to salvage the left.

Or perhaps: Should Pat drop KDE but include the dependencies for Plasma5? Yes or No.... In this case I would vote Yes.

So its relative for me and not a clean cut answer.