@AlienBob -Heheh. Well Eric you don't sound like an old man to me since I'm likely decades older than you but you started out just fine. It did get a little patronizing but I expected that because I wondered myself how smart it was referring to you as a developer when I know you have worked on your DAW and must assume that was because you actually use it I only mention that one aspect that I was aware of as I wrote so you realize I in no way intended to paint you as or assumed you are any kind of one dimensional. Also I'm by no means stuck in the past. I agree with almost everything you said and realize it's really largely a matter of degree. It's obvious things can't stay the same in a changing world and it's equally obvious that if too much changes we are all lost... everyone of us at some personal threshold anyway.

Anyway all I was trying to say is there's a reason "stick shifters" like me come to Slackware - We like hands on direct methodology that makes good sense and it seems right from the get-go PatV likes that too. If it ain't broke.... We like new stuff but ON TOP of fundamentals that don't change much. For insight on how I see that I really don't see huge change from KDE4 to KDE5. It wasn't nearly as big a gap as KDE4 was to KDE3.

Speaking of which I did take some exception to your recalling that KDE4 was EOL when it was adopted by Slackware. I'm absolutely positive that despite Patrick waiting until the initial explosion was over with all those "jump the gunners" KDE4 was rather heavily in fix mode for more than a year after Slackware adopted it. I'm only at all hazy if it was substantially more than just one year. I switched to Xfce for around two years while I casually upgraded KDE to see if they got their act together. They did and I went back. I'm cautious but I'm no stick in the mud I just don't give up casually.

Anyway back to the main topic of this thread, I have grown to enjoy slackpkg and don't consider any of the trials I experienced anything more than a common learning curve and I'm better for the experience. That said, I reiterate, it's great for fresh installs and probably very decent for short distance upgrades. It was problematic for a system that went from KDE4 to Ktown, a few versions of Ktown, and then from KTown to Vtown and finally to Slackware Plasma5. All my manual upgrades worked fine and the fresh install was so good it seemed worth the risk to go for the last upgrade. It was worth the risk because now I know my path. I will fix and build mostly on my current Main until the Official Release is birthed. I will continue to test Current and switch from "snapshot" to actual testing with timely updates via slackpkg+. The only reason that line got blurred is how long it's been since 14.2 hit the streets and Current was demonstrably better, especially with (and kudos and thank yous to your fine work, Eric) while I don't consider Plasma 5 a quantum leap from v4, it was very much a breath of fresh air and was also solid right from the start.

So a sincere and heartfelt Happy Holidays to you and yours and once again thank you for being a driving force for good in Slacxkware.

Eric wasn't talking about when KDE4 was adopted by Slackware (that happened back in 2009 with KDE 4.2.4 in Slackware 13.0), he was talking about when Pat released 14.2 in 2016. KDE4 was essentially not being developed anymore since Plasma5 was the hot stuff and there were only a handful of security updates for KDE4 that were pushed after 14.2 was released.

Actually the story is as follows. When I was working on the 64bit port of Slackware (starting September 2008) it still came with KDE3. I never liked KDE3 and was 'forced' to move over when Pat dropped GNOME in Slackware 10.2.
It took quite some time to work my way through the development of that 64bit port of Slackware from scratch, starting with discussions on how to re-write SlackBuilds and unifying them so that the same scripts would be able to compile both the 32bit and 64bit distro.
While I was working on the plumbing and the lower levels, KDE4 got added to "/testing" thanks to the work of Robby Workman and Heinz Wiesinger, and it remained in 'testing' when Pat released Slackware 12.2 in December 2008.
KDE4 had already matured to a level that I was comfortable with it (we had waited for a stable KDE4 release unlike those bigger distros who failed to acknowledge the developers' request not to use KDE 4.0 in production), so I decided to skip KDE3 and went straight for KDE4 as part of the 64bit port. I basically adopted the work of Robby and Heinz and have been the primary maintainer of the KDE subsystem in Slackware ever since.
KDE3 was officially replaced by KDE4 in March 2009 after the team had been running it on our private Slackware64 test rigs for months and were confident that it was stable. There was no feeling of running 'abandoned software', to the contrary! And Slackware 13.0 was released in August 2009 with KDE4 as its primary DE.

In my previous post I was not referring to the initial adoption of KDE4 into Slackware, but to the release of Slackware 14.2 in June 2016, SEVEN years later and still shipping KDE4. I had Plasma5 ready and stable in my 'ktown' and had been working on it since late 2014. In June 2016 KDE4 was no longer developed and only kdelibs4 received bug fixes occasionally as part of the developers' "Long Term Support" effort.

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I actually remember much of that. Thanks for the reminder and the specifics, especially the precise timing. I'm not much good with time but I'm usually pretty great with timing, especially 1...2...3 ...GO!! I'm glad that's clear now. I did misunderstand.

Thanks for details!

I do not known why, but I was convinced that you had been always the maintainer of KDE software in Slackware.

So, if I can ask, who's the original author of those mega-builds used by Slackware since X.org was adopted ?

Just curiosity...

The original KDE.SlackBuild for KDE4, created by Robby and Heinz was basically a simple versions update from the KDE3 scripts. The KDE source layout for Slackware packages did not really change until after Slackware 13.37 was released. Then the KDE developers decided to cut up the big "meta-packages" like kdeedu, kdegraphics, kdegames etc into many individual software packages and I had to radically alter the KDE.SlackBuild script framework.
That is when I adopted the concepts as used in the modular X build in Slackware and applied those to a revised KDE.SlackBuild. The modular KDE4 build was first added to Slackware 14.0.

For Plasma5 some more rework was needed when the developers abandoned the time-synchronized releases of all their "KDE Software Collection" and started releasing Frameworks, Plasma and Applications each with their own schedule and agenda. In the beginning, the resulting mess infuriated me so much that I wrote this rant: https://alien.slackbook.org/blog/kde...-act-together/
The "KDE devs need to get their act together" line echoed across the FOSS ecosystem for a while ;-)

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Here you go, kde-4 on -current.
As I've said before, I don't see, as a "end-user," any benefit to running kde-5. That, and it is ugly beyond words. Looks like the goal was to save bytes with kde-5, not improve the interface. I've spent hours trying different "themes" on kde-5 and couldn't find anything as attractive as what is available with kde-4. Find a "theme" that can make the networkmanager applet look like it does in the image below, and I'll try it........ again.

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Funny, I think the user interface of Plasma5 is a huge improvement over KDE4. Not just in terms of functionality, integration and ease-of-use but especially in terms of aesthetics. I think that my desktop is visually pleasing and all I do to it is use one of my own photographs as the desktop background.
You see, to each his own.
I wonder if anyone will keep a KDE4 desktop alive similar to Trinity. I think KDE3 was about the ugliest desktop I ever used.

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Couldn't disagree more, but, as the saying goes, "each to their own," or "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder," or "whatever floats your boat," or "whatever blows up your skirt," etc., etc., etc.

Happy New Year!

I liked plasma 5 for the bit I used it. (I switched back to xfce, but I could honestly flip a coin and use either.) My partner has a grudge against KDE since KDE 3. I really liked enlightenment, and if it wasn't such a pain to build now, I'd probably still be using that. I tend to switch desktop managers every other year or so, because I get bored.

I haven't benchmarked it, but does plasma 5 run more efficiently than KDE 4? Could've just been my imagination.

I got used to the change from 3 to 4, so I can do the same for 4 to 5. DE's & WM's are only superficial, it's what's underneath or behind them that matters.

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Hmmmm..... I would guess the quickest way would be to click on "report" in lower right-hand corner of the message in question, in this case #27, and in the box that pops up, make your request. That might work.