Tag: Planet KDE

With Neon’s infrastructure moving ahead nicely I’ve been able to update my Plasma Wayland images to build on the Neon infrastructure fresh each day.  It uses packages built from KDE Frameworks and Plasma Git master branches and has a default session of KWin running as a Wayland compositor.  The foundation is Ubuntu 16.04LTS.

Download the ISO today

or

follow the 1 step instruction on Martin’s blog if you already have Neon Dev edition unstable installed.

As usual it doesn’t work in Virtual Box.  Rendering errors appear often, especially with a second monitor. Control-c doesn’t work on konsole.  Otherwise it’s perfect 🙂

 

We made a tech preview release of KDE neon User Edition 10 days ago and I made up a survey to get results for how people’s experiences were.  We got 59 responses, here’s a summary:

Location?

Most people from Europe, a number from the US, the rest spread around the usual parts of the world.

How did you make the installable drive/disk?

First past the post is people who used a Virtual Machine, sensible enough for a testing release.

Next is ROSA which I discovered recently and seems to work on most OSes.  Then people who use dd and risk wiping out their hard disk with a 1 letter typo.  Surprisingly there are still people who write to a DVD to install, I’ve no idea why.

In the other category is:
rufus (Windows only)
usb-image-creator (Ubuntu only)
suse imagewriter (unmaintained)
gnome multiwriter (Linux only and why would you want to write multiple at once?)
using: sudo cp neon-useredition-20160426-1028-amd64.iso /dev/sdb + sync (err, does this even work?)

Problems which occurred during booting of the live system

no problems for most

several people reported the black bar in the isolinux/syslinux theme.  these themes are spooky voodoo.

people commented on UEFI not being supported, UEFI is even more spooky voodoo and secureboot is evil voodoo.

“The GRUB splash is practically blank. Pressing the arrow keys opened a dropdown list for language selection. Then I pressed the Esc key to get to the GRUB splash. The “Install” option isn’t any different from the “Try without installing” option.”

“Select the language Spanish, and half the options were translated.”

Problems which occurred running the live system

Lots of “none” here too.  Mostly querying the lack of applications, that’s a feature for now, we’ll add apps soon.

“klipper in menu? Im-config in menu? Panel icons wrong size/blurry”

“Upon mouse click in kicker panel consistently resulted in black screen with no recovery. Possible issue with Plasma 6 and AMD GPUs.”

“Baloo crashed immediately (notification in system tray), but did not seem to affect system function.”

Problems which occurred running the installer

‘The “Continue” button is available even after all the steps.’

“You do not ship with open-vm-tools-desktop, so my virtual desktop was smaller than the Ubiquity window”

“the installer was unable to install some packages: (although the provided list was blank), so i couldn’t install the system”

“Does not recognize UEFI partitions/System. Only legacy boot possible.”

“1. On the second page of the installer is a non replaced variable: “$(RELEASE)” 2. While installing there is no teaser how awesome kde is :-), just a blank page.”

‘Text “$(RELASE)” is displayed in german version of “Download updates while installing neon” * Checkbox “Download updates while installing neon” cannot be checked’

“Can’t continue installation in second step (prepare) due continue button is non-functional. Improvement: Install-Program should be in favorites”

There’s bugs in here that come from Ubuntu and bugs that come from not having various bits installed.  I don’t think there’s much point spending much time on this as I expect to change to Calamares soon.

Problems which occurred on the installed system:

Quite a few without problems

Lots complain about missing icons, this is a cache issue “On the kicker menu, there were no icons, but they appeared after a re-boot.” we’ve fixed this, I hope.

“Can not start system, just weird colors after install. ”

“After install of guest additions on VirtualBox desktop panel would load but then disappear.”

“Wanted to install it on dualboot with win 10. Grub does not appear so I cannot boot kde neon which I prefere as primary OS.”

“got a grub shell after install”

“Text garbage on the light blue loading screen after the GRUB menu.”

“if a display goes to sleep plasma partly crashes (same happens on kubuntu) it’s a qt problem as far as i know”

“Illegible characters till NVIDIA driver loaded ”

“Unable to use software-properties-kde : Error: could not find a distribution template for neon/xenial” (known bug this one)

“System boots to console login prompt. X can be started after login. ”

Problems which occurred when installing new software

“Plasma Discover crashed” I have this too and it’s a priority to look into

“There was a problem installing kde-l10n because of conflict with plasma-desktop-data”
Problems which occurred when updating the system to latest packages:

No problems for most people but some issues:

• The updater applet didn’t seem to work for some reason. Had to use Discover.
• * First boot after “apt-get update” and “upgrade”: the system boots to graphical login screen, but after login only the “x” pointer ist visible. –> Hard reset
• * After reboot only console login is visbile, X does not start “Timeout locking .Xauthority”
• Could not find repos
• ANOTHER – using Discover, added Gwenview – it installed but closed Discover on completion?

Thanks a lot to everyone who tested and gave feedback.  That gives me a good idea of the priority areas to work on.  Keep on testing and reporting bugs and of course any help welcome 🙂

 

KDE neon User Edition Tech Preview is out now.

It’s a build of KDE neon using released software, our clever CI system watches download.kde.org for new releases such as Plasma 5.6.3 and packages them pronto.  If you want to use the latest released software, this is the way to do it.

It is built on a foundation of Ubuntu 16.04LTS and comes with Qt 5.5.

Please have a look at the known issues, there are still quite a few.

Then help out by filling in our testers questionnaire which asks for problems installing and running this build.

User support on Facebook group, G+ group, KDE Forums and Telegram group, links on neon.kde.org.

There’s elections in Scotland and other countries of the UK next month and I’ve been writing blog posts on the various party manifestos as I work out who should run the country.

KDE has always had an adoption problem in Wales.  Elite hackers like Alan Cox and Dafydd Harries have been big supporters of Gnome and the main reason why is because Welsh doesn’t have a letter K, something KDE has always had an obscure fetish for.

Well no more, the Monster Raving Loony Party of Wales is standing on a platform to introduce the letter K into the Welsh language.  Please give your support to this worthy campaign which will allow KDE to at last make inroads into this most beautiful of countries.

Party Election Broadcast

KDE neon is a package archive of KDE software built on a stable foundation.  We use Ubuntu because it’s good technology that we’re familiar with and which provides a Long Term Support foundation we can use.  When we started the only practical version to use at the start was 15.10 so our packages have been built using that.  But with 16.04LTS due out next week it’s time to move to a solid foundation where we expect to stay for the next couple of years.

If you have installed KDE neon on 15.10 (you can run Info Centre to check) you can now upgrade that foundation to 16.04LTS.

Neon offers no support for this I’m afraid, it’s not brilliantly well tested and I’m afraid there’s no GUI because that’s written in PyQt which we don’t yet have in Neon.  And obviously Ubuntu offer zero support for it because we’re an unrelated project.  16.04LTS isn’t released until next Thursday 21st so you may want to hold back until then.

Firstly check it’s all up to date:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install neon-desktop
sudo apt full-upgrade


In /etc/apt/sources.list.d/neon.list make sure you’re using the new archive address (with the /dev/)
deb http://archive.neon.kde.org/dev/unstable wily main

run the upgrade
do-release-upgrade

and follow its prompts.  You’ll need at least 1.5GB of free disk space.

Alternatively you can just do a reinstall from one of our daily images which are already on 16.04LTS.  Download KDE neon.

This still contains only KDE Frameworks and KDE Plasma.  The packages are built from Git branches and intended for KDE contributors and testers.  The packages are not compatible with many packages from Kubuntu, e.g. KDE PIM will get uninstalled.

Coming soon, user edition packages built from released software and installable images for them.  Qt 5.6 on its way too.  Then KDE Applications and other bits.

 

It’s your fortnightly update to the Plasma Wayland image.  Rather pleasingly window decorations are the right colour and I can resize windows.

Now can anyone get the Ascii Art plugin working?

The tech preview of the KDE neon developer edition installable image was out yesterday.  It’s an 800MB download you can dd onto a USB disk and run live or install.

files.kde.org

Why are there no apps?

KDE neon doesn’t have builds of applications yet, we’re doing Qt, Frameworks and Plasma for now to keep it manageable while we get it up and running. Apps will come in future weeks.

No Konsole?

No apps yet as I say, xterm is included.

How do I install software?

Appstream issues mean Muon isn’t working well, you can use apt on an xterm.

It has “stable” in the name, does that mean it’s stable?

Not necessarily, it’s built from Git stable branches, not released software.

When will the user edition be available?

No timelines, whenever we can get it done

Does this include Qt 5.6?

It comes with Qt 5.5.  Backporting Qt will be done when possible, it’s not our priority and there’s a bug with 5.6 currently anyway.

Why no Xenial?

Neon only uses a stable base, we’ll move to Xenial when it’s stable.

How do I install this?

It’s the developer edition, if you don’t know how to install it then it’s probably not for you.

Is this or is this not a distribution? You are a leader we must be told!

Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals!

 

To celebrate the release of KDE Plasma 5.6 we’ve made a tech preview of our KDE neon developer edition installable images built directly from developer Plasma/5.6 Git branches
files.kde.org

Remember it’s the developer’s edition built directly from Git.  There’s still plenty bits we need to tidy up still.  Have fun with it and let us know how you get on.

 

 

Since it’s announcement KDE neon has had some pleasingly positive press coverage (and one not so positive).

First off was Swapnil’s article on CIO.com Jonathan Riddell to announce project Neon at FOSDEM

On the Rio Noguera Palasera in sunny Catalunya I learned freestyle kayak by surfing against the current on a standing wave and realized we should go to the source. Upstream is where the beauty comes from so working upstream is where we should be.

Not the force it once was but still a badge of achievement, Slashdot covered it Project Neon Will Bring Users Up-to-Date KDE Packages
KDE neon is a project to give KDE users and contributors a way to get KDE’s desktop software while it’s still fresh

I gave a talk at FOSDEM and the video is up.

For video podcast views with chatty Americans I did an interview for the Linux Action Show (start 37 minutes in).

And for English audio podcast polite chat with tea and biscuits I did an interview for Linux Luddites.

I also gave an interview to Hacker Public Radio podcast at FOSDEM.

Even Bryan “Terrible Idea” Lunduke gets a ribbing on his podcast Bad Voltage.

 

KDE neon’s developer edition has gained builds of Git stable branches for Plasma.  These are ideal for contributors and testers who want to check out the state of Plasma 5.6 branch and check it’s still sane.  sources.list line is:

deb http://archive.neon.kde.org/stable wily main

Of course it’s not compatible with the unstable git branch packages.

---

And I updated the Wayland image so you can check out how well Plasma works running Wayland.  Main issue today seems to be that strangely the window decorations are blue instead of black.

• Plasma Wayland ISO Image (933MB)

My image for testing Wayland has had an update.

• Download 883 MB ISO file

This includes the latest sources from Git master with KWin providing the Wayland compositor and built from a mix of Neon/Ubuntu/Kubuntu packages.

It’s full of obvious bugs for you to hunt down and help fix.  It’s not at all ready for every day use.

The KDE Plasma team is distribution agnostic which is described in this quote from the KDE neon FAQ,

“KDE believes it is important to work with many distributions, as each brings unique value and expertise for their respective users”.

 

We’ve been working hard at KDE neon HQ to get the project going and today I’m pleased to say the Developer Unstable package archive is up and running. This gives daily packages of KDE Frameworks and Plasma desktop built direct from Git master branches. Expect some breakage, it’s called unstable for a reason. Ideal for testers and contributors to these two projects. To install it you’ll need an install of *buntu 15.10 (wily) and follow the Package Upgrade instructions.

In fact we already had some breakage where some packages sneaked in with larger version numbers than they should have, if you installed packages last week you’ll need to remove them and reinstall. Harald added some cleverness to stop this happening in future.

apt remove plasma-framework libkf5plasma5 libkf5plasmaquick5 libkf5solid5 libkf5solid5-data libkf5sonnet5-data libkf5sonnetcore5 libkf5sonnetui5 libkf5threadweaver5 qml-module-org-kde-solid qtdeclarative-kf5solid sonnet-plugins
apt install neon-desktop

(This will also remove applications has neon has no KDE applications yet, just apt install dolphin konsole and anything else you want.)

Coming soon in no particular order… Developer Stable packages built from Git stable branches, User Stable packages built from released apps, KDE Applications packages and installable images.

KDE people getting to know our Gnome friends. The Gnome chap gave me a bit hug just after so it must have gone well whatever they were talking about.

Ruphy on WikiToLearn one of the more stylish speakers of the day

Rasterman gave a talk on Enlightenment and how it’s being ported to Wayland for use in Tizen projects and more. Turns out Rasterman is a real person called Carsten, good speaker too.

Hallway track

Paul holds court to discuss in Project Kobra. No I’ve no idea.

Stephen Kelly on his CMake addon CMakeDaemon which lets IDEs understand CMake files for code completion and highlighting goodness.

It’s the KDE neon launch party, what a happy bunch.

KDE  neon website is now live.

Serving the freshest packages of KDE software.  Developers’ archive with packages built from KDE Git available now, stable archive with packages built from released tars coming soon.

Launch party tonight in La Paon, Grand Place, Brussels

(Under a .uk domain name until we finish the KDE incubation process.)

KDE neon launches this weekend at FOSDEM.

The launch party is on Saturday in La Paon, Grand Place, still time to sign up if you want to come.

My talk is on Sunday in the desktop devroom at 12:45CET.

And I’ll be on the KDE stall in building K demoing it and talking about it to anyone who’s interested.

Holding website at http://neon.kde.org.uk/

And follow for news and updates on

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kdeneon/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KdeNeon

Google+: https://plus.google.com/113043070111945110583

 

I like these Italians, they make good food and use canoes as plant pots

Oh it’s gorgeous

Here is deepest Padania a 4 story mansion provides winter cover to KDE developers working to free your computers.

I woke up this morning and decided I liked it

The mansion keeps a close lock on the important stuff

The pool room has a table with no pockets, it must be posh

Front door

The not so important stuff

Jens will not open the borgen to the Danish

David prefers Flappy Birds to 1000€ renaissance painting

Engineers fail to implement continuous integration

Bring on the 7 course meal!

In the basement Smaug admires the view

Guest Blog for Arnav Dhamija, first year computer science undergraduate at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus.

Hey everyone, I am a first year undergraduate student at the university and I have an idea I want to use for the GSoC with KDE to make Dolphin an even better file manager. My project idea revolves around making file selections from multiple directory trees as easy as possible.

A full description of my project can be found here: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/126622/

And the user survey link for features and usability improvements can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/L9LDW2P

TIA for the feedback : )

I just published a live Plasma image with Wayland. A great milestone in a multi-year project of the Plasma team led by the awesome Martin G.  Nowhere near end-user ready yet but the road forward is now visible to humble mortals who don’t know how to write their own Wayland protocol.  It’ll give a smoother and more secure graphics system when it’s done and ensures KDE’s software and Linux on the desktop stays relevant for another 30 years.

I maintain a membership database for my canoe club and I implemented the database years ago using a PHP library called Phormation which let me make an index page with simple code like:

query = “SELECT * FROM member WHERE year=2015”
show_table(column1, column2)

and an entry editing page with something like this:

query = “SELECT * FROM member WHERE id=$id”
widgets.append([column1, “name”, Textfield])
widgets.append([column2, “joined”, Date])
show_index(widgets)

and voila I had a basic UI to edit the database.

Now I want to move to a new server but it seems PHP has made a backwards incompatible change between 5.0 and 5.5 and Phormation no longer runs and it’s no longer maintained.

So lazyweb, what’s the best way to make a basic web database editor where you can add some basic widgets for different field types and there’s two tables with a 1:many relationship which both need edited?