Is Plasma5 Ready for Inclusion in Slackware?
 

In the "Request for Current" thread, Board Member Darth Vader asked,

IMHO, that subject calls for its own thread.
;)

My short answer, No, it is not.
I wouldn't mind IF kde5 played well with others, but it does not. It scrambles the Xfce appearance settings.

Since the first of the year I've installed it about once a month, when AlienBob has been kind enough to make the updates available. I've used it for as long as a day or so, or as short as 4 to 8 hours.
I've spend several hours trying to change it appearance to something I can live with, but eventually I uninstall it and re-install kde4 (only to have access to the few kde applications I like). The last time, on the weekend of 25 May, I finally did a complete fresh install rather than deal with the clutter kde5 leaves behind.
As I've said before, installing kde5 is like unexpectedly finding yourself walking on the beach in your street clothes and a week later you are still trying to get the sand out of your shoes.
kde5 leaves numerous files... I'm guessing some sort of configuration files for every little thing, in your home directory.
It adds a dozen or so items to the application auto start panel in the Xfce session and startup settings.
It plays havoc with the fonts in applications and the Xfce desktop appearance.
Yes, someone has pointed out there is a configuration file to fix the font size problem, but it does nothing to fix the color override problem introduced by kde5.
It has been almost a month since the last time I installed kde5, so I don't remember everything, but I do remember you cannot change the wallpaper for each virtual desktop. That function does still work for different "activities."
What ever blows up your skirt, but I won't be using kde5......
Up to you.
:)

Is Plasma5 Ready for Inclusion in Slackware?
 

Eric does excellent work on kde 5. However, I probably won't be using it either because Xfce works so well. Over the years I've ran into some nasty bugs with each version of kde and simply do not find it to be a reliable project to use. I have not seen the same breakage in Xfce ever so why switch to a desktop environment that could possibly lower productivity?

IMO, at the very least we will need Qt5 added and KDE 4 removed. Even if the Plasma 5 desktop is not perfect yet, I think it should be included.

As for all the issues cwizardone brought up, I've had Plasma 5 installed at various points during the last several years, and I've never run into any of them. Does Plasma 5 really screw up Xfce settings if you don't even run start up the Plasma 5 desktop? That doesn't seem possible. And anyway, if you don't want to run Plasma 5, simply don't install it. Problem solved.

At the moment I'm using XFCE on Slackware and OpenBSD; it meets my needs. I ran KDE4 on a few boxes for some time. KDE4 is a good, stable desktop that uses a bit more resources than XFCE.
If and when Mr. Volkerding includes Plasma 5 in Slackware I will take it for a test drive and offer my opinion.

If this thread is going to actually be helpful to anyone then it is my opinion that it, KDE 5, let alone KDE altogether, is judged on it's own merits and "readiness for primetime", and not by personal preference or "bugs" that only affect (maybe) other DEs. I am by no means an Xfce hater. I relied on Xfce as my main WM/DE for years until KDE 4 got reasonable again and I had a few problems with Xfce as well as a few features of control and use I sorely missed.

Let's face it the change from KDE v3 to v4 was HUGE and premature, so much so it seems to have put a lot of people off permanently. That premature bit seems like it is occurring yet again with v5 but at nowhere near the scale as the previous transition. I have to say that I plan to stay with v4 awhile longer and that any adoption in the next Slackware release has my complete confidence that it will be just fine. Is it ever going to be a "one size fits all" where everyone is perfectly pleased? Of course not. There are things in KDE I don't like, others I will never use and yet others they abandon that I want and have to jump through hoops to get back but still it remains the most complete single package of any WM/DE out there which still does allow considerable "pick and choose" for each user's preferences.

KDE 5 on Slackware may not be perfectly ready just yet but for me anyway it is very close, has a reasonable footprint and quite solid and stable. I have to salute Patrick and Eric for the work and timetable they follow. It suits me just fine.

Good question, but I'm not about to install it again to find out.
:)
And, why install it if you are not going to 'test' it? Also, if you launch a kde application from within another DE, will that do the same thing as starting kde as the DE?
:scratch:

It hopefully does the same as kde4 and launches necessary background processes and runs as usual. If not, that is a regression.

Running AlienBob's Plasma5-testing (Plasma 5.13).

I find Plasma5 a solid piece of work, stable, fast, and frugal on resources. I see it as a worthy addition to Slackware; even an essential one in these days.

I also booted into Xfce several times, and I didn't see the mess described by the original poster. Moreover, I have Willy's Mate and Cinnamon on the side, and all three (Xfce, Mate, Cinnamon) behave very well even with Plasma 5 installed.

To be more specific: one of the first orders of business whenever I setup a Slack box is to customize Xfce's fonts. I had done so in my current box, and KDE's Plasma never messed up with these settings.

So, I beg to differ with cwizardone on this matter. I would really like @volkerdi to add Plasma 5 to Slackware. Please!

I definitely haven't seen what you're describing.

Never saw this either. I've only seen it put files in ~/.kde.

In it's current form (ktown), this is absolutely a valid question, but if it replaces KDE4 in -current, it may be installed just because the person chose to do a full install.

BTW, the current Plasma5 puts a lot of files in ~/config and ~/local directories.

Maybe you do not use the Eric's build?

Honestly, I will love it to stay in ~/.kde and leave alone the other directories. :D

@dugan

I will respond here to your reply from Requests.

IF my Quad-Cores and Octo-Cores with at least 8GB RAM, but some has 32GB, then IF those computers does not qualify me to use that wonderful and modern Plasma5, then there is a huge problem. Huge like the Everest Mountain.

According with http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/01/18/op...p-using-today/

They say that the Qt5 interface, specialy the QML part is rendered over OpenGL for optimal performance.

But this "excesive" usage of OpenGL has its darkside. Looks like a so called "desktop video-card" will offer lamentable performances with the modern Qt5.

I hope Patrick Volkerding will take note about this (mis)feature, and he will not force all of us to become gamers.

I use Plasma with a lowly Intel onboard Haswell graphic chip with desktop acceleration enabled. I see good results, so I don't see this as a problem.

Yeah, we know that Plasma5 works better on an Intel platform.

The bad thing is that from 8 computers which I have, 6 of them are AMD platforms and two Intel mini-PC. And I use AMD Radeon or NVIDIA video cards.

OK, mostly Radeon, because I noticed its better open-source support for Linux.