Debian and KDE4: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait
Debian developer Ana Guerrero, as spokesperson for the KDE team, has announced that KDE4 will appear during the first week of April 2009.
Guerrero's announcement on the Debian-KDE mailing list indicated that KDE4 is moving from the experimental to the unstable repository, although the exact date is not quite certain.
A special tool in KDE 4.2 called kaboom will aid in a flawless update from KDE 3.5 as well as from existing KDE4 installations. The issue is adopting user settings in the hidden .kde and .kde4 directories. Up to now it had been unclear which directory would be used in the final analysis. The kaboom tool does not support KDE4 installations from the Debian backport.
Debian had left itself quite a bit longer development time with KDE4 than other distros. For about a year adventuresome users could install from the experimental repository, with often problematic results. Some consideration was even made for a short while about releasing KDE4 together with Debian 5 (Lenny), although that idea was quickly scrapped. Now, after Lenny's release and a lot of preliminary work, KDE 4.2 is finally ready for exposure to a wider circle of Debian users.
Comments
comments powered by DisqusSubscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.
-
Arch Linux Available for Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you've ever wanted to use a rolling release distribution with WSL, now's your chance.
-
System76 Releases COSMIC Alpha 7
With scores of bug fixes and a really cool workspaces feature, COSMIC is looking to soon migrate from alpha to beta.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 Available for Installation
The latest release of OpenMandriva has arrived with a new kernel, an updated Plasma desktop, and a server edition.
-
TrueNAS 25.04 Arrives with Thousands of Changes
One of the most popular Linux-based NAS solutions has rolled out the latest edition, based on Ubuntu 25.04.
-
Fedora 42 Available with Two New Spins
The latest release from the Fedora Project includes the usual updates, a new kernel, an official KDE Plasma spin, and a new System76 spin.
-
So Long, ArcoLinux
The ArcoLinux distribution is the latest Linux distribution to shut down.
kde4 backports and kaboom
answers to my question on debian-kde list can be followed at:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/2009/04/msg00019.html
and
http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/2009/04/msg00020.html
greetz
devil
kaboom and backports
"The kaboom tool does not support KDE4 installations from the Debian backport."
I'm afraid this is a misunderstanding. You should look at [0] KDE4 backports for Lenny and [1] the information about kaboom. Once you read that you will notice..
KDE4 backports aren't officially supported by Debian, you can read in [0]: "Please, do not file bugs in the Debian BTS, these packages are not official packages". Besides, there's no restriction from kaboom in any way to have this unsupported.
Regards,
[0] http://kde4.debian.net/
[1] http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/kaboom.html
A good approach