KDE/Plasma 5.18 for Debian

Update 2020-04-03: Please see this post for updated location of the packages!!! Now for i586 and amd64 architectures!

I have been trying out the Plasma Desktop for one week now, and I am very positively surprised. Compared to the clumsy history of KDE3, the current desktop is extremely small-footprint and smooth, surprisingly. Integration is as expected great, and mixing programs from the “other world” (Gtk/Gnome) works also extremely smooth.

If there are a few things I would change, then mostly the chaos about kwallet and Gnome keyring. I would love to have one secret storage, and it seems that Gnome Keyring is preferrable, but this is in flux at the moment. Also, it is not that pressing, because I have moved all my passwords into pass and thus don’t need the secret storage that much anymore.

So, after a bit of working with Plasma, I realized that Debian still ships an old version, the most recent being 5.18.3 LTS. Thus, I embarked onto a journey of updating all the necessary packages, and there are a lot: in total 106 packages I did update (and one new one!) until I finally had a new plasma-desktop package available. If you are interested, there are binaries for amd64 and sources in my Debian repository (WARNING: These packages are for Debian/sid and maybe testing, and cannot be used with Buster!):

deb https://www.preining.info/debian unstable kde
deb-src https://www.preining.info/debian unstable kde

As usual, don’t forget to import my GPG key, and all packages are without warranty :-;

There are two packages that I didn’t manage to update: kde-gtk-config which has changed a lot and contains far less files, and breeze-icons which fails on its own symlink tests. If anyone has an idea, please let me know.

If other packages are missing, please also drop me a line and I’ll try to update them.

Enjoy.

18 Responses

  1. Frans says:

    I’ve been using KDE on my laptop for a while now and I’m quite pleased too.

    Incidentally, I just dug this up out of my drafts: https://fransdejonge.com/2020/03/kde-compact-window-switcher-missing/

    • Hi Frans,
      thanks for your comment, and uups, the kwin-addons wasn’t updated, have done this now 😉 And fixed the wrong version in breaks in plasma-desktop.
      Thanks!

  2. Tom says:

    I have updated two sid installations that were localized in German. One remained German, the other changed to English, also programs like Firefox.
    Calling up the regional settings in the system settings reproducibly causes the system settings to crash.
    Which package could be responsible?
    If possible I will gladly deliver detailed information.

  3. Barlafuss says:

    Thanks Norbert, updated a Debian Testing . It worked like a charm 🙂

  4. Antonio says:

    Hi Norbert,
    I tried the packages you released on debian/sid and they work well, you did a great job.
    I wanted to ask you if you plan to update the repository when new versions become available and if you will also include kde applications.
    Thanks,
    Antonio

    • Hi Antonio,
      Thanks for the feedback. Yes I plan to update the packages to new versions as they arrive.
      Concerning applications, let me know which you want (per email please).

  5. Hello,
    Error: Skipping acquire of configured file ‘kde/source/Sources’ as repository ‘https://www.preining.info/debian unstable InRelease’ doesn’t have the component ‘kde’ (component misspelt in sources.list?)
    W: Skipping acquire of configured file ‘kde/binary-amd64/Packages’ as repository ‘https://www.preining.info/debian unstable InRelease’ doesn’t have the component ‘kde’ (component misspelt in sources.list?)

    GPG key is already accepted.
    Help, please.

  1. 2020/03/25

    […] "Compared to the clumsy history of KDE3, the current desktop is extremely small-footprint and smooth, surprisingly. Integration is as expected great, and mixing programs from the “other world” (Gtk/Gnome) works also extremely smooth." https://www.preining.info/blog/2020/03/kde-plasma-5-18-for-debian/ […]

  2. 2020/03/25

    […] Norbert Preining: KDE/Plasma 5.18 for Debian […]

  3. 2020/04/03

    […] have written before about getting updated packages for KDE/Plasma on Debian. In the meantime I have moved all package building to the openSUSE Build Service, thus I am able to […]

  4. 2020/12/22

    […] long journey has come to nice finish. 9 month ago I switched to KDE/Plasma, and started to package newer versions of it than available in Debian. […]

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