Debian KDE/Plasma Status 2020-11-04

About a month worth of updates on KDE/Plasma in Debian has accumulated, so here we go. The highlights are: Plasma 5.19.5 based on Qt 5.15 is in Debian/experimental and hopefully soon in Debian/unstable, and my own builds at OBS have been updated to Plasma 5.20.2, Frameworks 5.75, Apps 20.08.2.

Thanks to the dedicated work of the Qt maintainers, Qt 5.15 has finally entered Debian/unstable and we can finally target Plasma 5.20.

OBS packages

The OBS packages as usual follow the latest release, and currently ship KDE Frameworks 5.75, KDE Apps 20.08.2, and new, Plasma 5.20.2. The package sources are as usual (note the different path for the Plasma packages and the App packages, containing the release version!), for Debian/unstable:

deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/frameworks/Debian_Unstable/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/plasma520/Debian_Unstable/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/apps2008/Debian_Unstable/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/other/Debian_Unstable/ ./

and the same with Testing instead of Unstable for Debian/testing.

The update to Plasma 5.20 took a bit of time, not only because of the wait for Qt 5.15, but also because I couldn’t get it running on my desktop, only in the VM. It turned out that the Plasmoid Event Calendar needed an update, and the old version crashed Plasma (“v68 and below crash in Arch after the Qt 5.15.1 update.”). After I realized that, it was only a question of updating to get Plasma 5.20 running.

There are two points I have to mention (and I will fix sooner or later):

  • Update will need two trials because files moved from plasma-desktop to plasma-workspace. I will add the required replace/conflicts later.
  • Make sure that kwayland-server packages (libkwaylandserver5, libkwaylandserver-dev are at version 5.20.2. Some old versions had an epoch so automatic updates will not work.

As usual, let me know your experience!

Debian main packages

The packages in Debian/experimental are at the most current state, 5.19.5. We have waited with the upload to unstable until the Qt 5.15 transition is over, but hope to upload to unstable rather soon. After the upload is done, we will work on getting 5.20 into unstable.

My aim is to get the most recent version of Plasma 5.20 into Debian Bullseye, so we need to do that before the freeze early next year. Let us hope for the best.

59 Responses

  1. Zaileion says:

    Absolutely thrilled someone is bringing recent releases of KDE to Debian. Thank you sooo much for your hard work and dedication!! So does anyone know if Telepathy works? Telepathy is the Instant Messaging integration into KDE from the desktop its called instant messaging and its a little silhouette guy in the systray. You can sign into Google hangouts. Skype, telegram, Lync, etc etc all from one location app integrated into the desktop.
    Super helpful for someone like me that uses many messaging services. I’ve tried it in several different distros and can’t get it to both connect and function Google or Skype or several other services but a few do work… Apparently it’s the signond service but I don’t know. I have spent weeks and weeks night after long night trying to get it working to no avail. I would love some help but bugs.kde.org, Manjaro, KDE Neon, Debain and Reddit forums cannot seem to fix it… If anyone can figure this out you would make many people very happy.

  2. Ferdinand says:

    The update to 5.20.2 works fine for me, but apt install libkwaylandserver5 libkwaylandserver-dev does not result in an update, but stays at 5.19.5-1~np1. Do you have any idea why that is?

  3. Anonymous says:

    Hi Norbert and thanks a lot for all your work on Plasma in Debian!

  4. Anonymous says:

    Thanks for your, and the rest of the involved teams, work on KDE in Debian!

  5. Barlafuss says:

    problem here (debian Testing) on apt update with new sources (ok with the old ones):
    Err:9 https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/plasma520/Debian_Testing ./ Release
    404 Not Found [IP: 195.135.221.134 443]
    Get:10 https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/apps2008/Debian_Testing ./ Packages [458 kB]
    Reading package lists… Done
    E: The repository ‘https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/plasma520/Debian_Testing ./ Release’ does not have a Release file.

    Any hint ? Thanks

    • Debian Testing doesn’t have Qt 5.15 by now, thus the repository for Plasma 5.20 hasn’t been built till now. It will be there sooner or later, but only after Qt 5.15 has transitioned to Debian Testing.

      • Barlafuss says:

        Ok, sorry I didn’t realize it. Thanks for all your great job on plasma for debian

  6. Ryan Voots says:

    I’m seeing some weird apt behavior with the following 7 packages,

    libkf5parts-plugins libkf5service-bin libkf5style5 libkf5su-bin libkf5syndication5abi1
    libkwalletbackend5-5 qml-module-org-kde-solid

    apt always thinks they’re ready to upgrade but just installs the same version on them over and over. An example apt policy below:

    qml-module-org-kde-solid:
    Installed: 5.75.0-1~np1
    Candidate: 5.75.0-1~np1
    Version table:
    5.75.0-1~np1 500
    500 https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/frameworks/Debian_Unstable ./ Packages
    *** 5.75.0-1~np1 100
    100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
    5.74.0-2 499
    499 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid/main amd64 Packages
    5.54.0-1 495
    495 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster/main amd64 Packages

    • One call of apt-get clean might be necessary. On OBS there is no binary-only rebuild version bump, so the qt 5.15 version has the same version number now. Please call the command mentioned and redo.

      • Anonymous says:

        Yep that got it. Had to do a bit more cleaning from stuff that had epochs also but once done it’s all looking good. About to test the update to apps 20.08.3 that just showed up for me today too. Thanks so much for all this.

  7. Thomas Florek says:

    Upgrade experience seemless again on my sid(uction) installation.
    Some non-important glitches on my plasma panel, simply reconfigurable.
    Thank you, Norbert, for your contributions and your blog postings.

  8. Anonymous says:

    Thank you so much for the update on this
    York work is much appiricated

  9. Barlafuss says:

    Today a lot of packages to upgrade and hundreds to remove.
    I suspect some transition phase. I wait

  10. João Pedro Sousa says:

    Hi! Again, thank you for your excellent work on bringing updated KDE Plasma to Debian! Amazing job!

    Now this one gave me a lot of trouble. On Debian Testing + KDE 5.19 I have upgraded to KDE 5.20 as before but got several dependencies issues. In the end I had to fully downgrade to Debian Testing then fully upgrade to Debian Unstable and then upgrade to KDE 5.20. All good now!

    By the way, how do you find Debian Unstable as an everyday work machine these days. Stable enough?

    • Zaileion says:

      I’ve been using debian unstable for a decade as my daily driver with almost 0 trouble. Lately I’ve had difficulty with a couple dependencies specifically gcc-6-base/gcc-8-base or something like that but beyond that I’ve had issues that have, in the grand scheme of things, been immeasurably low. Debian unstable is more stable then most if not all other distros. Ubuntu is built on unstable… just for a comparison.

  11. Shmerl says:

    So what is a good way to update it in testing now? I switched the repo to deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/plasma520/Debian_Testing/ ./
    Keeping the rest the same. Trying to upgrade is causing this now:

    The following packages will be REMOVED:
    accountwizard akonadi-server akregator ark bluedevil breeze dolphin dragonplayer gwenview juk k3b k3b-i18n kaccounts-providers kactivitymanagerd kaddressbook kamera kate kcalc kcharselect kde-baseapps kde-cli-tools kde-config-screenlocker
    kde-config-sddm kde-plasma-desktop kde-spectacle kde-standard kde-style-oxygen-qt5 kdeaccessibility kdeconnect kdepim-addons kdepim-runtime kdepim-themeeditors keditbookmarks kfind khelpcenter khotkeys kinfocenter kio-extras kmag kmail kmenuedit
    kmousetool kmouth knotes konq-plugins konqueror konsole konsole-kpart kontact korganizer kross kscreen ksysguard ktexteditor-katepart ktorrent kwalletmanager kwin-common kwin-wayland kwin-wayland-backend-drm kwin-x11 kwrite libcolorcorrect5 libk3b7
    libk3b7-extracodecs libkf5akonadiagentbase5 libkf5akonadicalendar5abi1 libkf5akonadicontact5 libkf5akonadimime5 libkf5akonadisearch-bin libkf5akonadisearch-plugins libkf5akonadiwidgets5abi1 libkf5alarmcalendar5abi1 libkf5bookmarks5
    libkf5calendarsupport5abi1 libkf5calendarutils5 libkf5eventviews5abi1 libkf5grantleetheme5 libkf5gravatar5abi2 libkf5identitymanagement5 libkf5incidenceeditor5abi1 libkf5kaddressbookgrantlee5 libkf5kaddressbookimportexport5 libkf5kcmutils5
    libkf5kdelibs4support5 libkf5kdelibs4support5-bin libkf5khtml-bin libkf5khtml5 libkf5kiofilewidgets5 libkf5kipi32.0.0 libkf5konq6 libkf5kontactinterface5 libkf5krossui5 libkf5ksieveui5 libkf5libkleo5 libkf5mailcommon5abi2 libkf5mailimporter5
    libkf5mailimporterakonadi5 libkf5mailtransportakonadi5 libkf5messagecomposer5abi1 libkf5messagecore5abi1 libkf5messagelist5abi1 libkf5messageviewer5abi1 libkf5newstuff5 libkf5parts-plugins libkf5parts5 libkf5pimcommon5abi2
    libkf5pimcommonakonadi5abi1 libkf5pimtextedit-plugins libkf5pimtextedit5abi2 libkf5plasma5 libkf5plasmaquick5 libkf5runner5 libkf5templateparser5 libkf5texteditor5 libkf5tnef5 libkf5webengineviewer5abi1 libkf5xmlgui5 libkpimimportwizard5
    libkscreenlocker5 libkwin4-effect-builtins1 libnotificationmanager1 libokular5core9 libpowerdevilcore2 libreoffice-kf5 libweather-ion7 mbox-importer milou okular partitionmanager pim-data-exporter pim-sieve-editor plasma-browser-integration
    plasma-dataengines-addons plasma-desktop plasma-discover plasma-framework plasma-integration plasma-nm plasma-pa plasma-runners-addons plasma-sdk plasma-wallpapers-addons plasma-widgets-addons plasma-workspace plasma-workspace-wayland powerdevil
    print-manager qml-module-org-kde-runnermodel sddm-theme-breeze skanlite sweeper systemsettings task-kde-desktop

    • These are not build failures, but the Qt 5.15 is not completely updated in Testing, in particular libkf5xmlgui5 still depends on 5.14, thus the Plasma packages cannot be rebuild. It will take a bit more time.

  12. Martin Insulander says:

    I would also like to chime in to all praises of the work you put into this.

    Just tried debian desting 5.20.2 and running startplasma-wayland failed with the following error:

    /usr/bin/kwin_wayland: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libkwin.so.5: undefined symbol: _ZN14KWaylandServer19XdgSurfaceInterface21windowGeometryChangedERK5QRect
    “/usr/bin/kwin_wayland” (“–xwayland”, “–exit-with-session=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/startplasma-waylandsession”) exited with code 127

    I tried with a clean user. I also did a quick shoot on x11 but didn’t figure out where that one failed.

    • There are already done comments about this, you need to manually “downgrade” kwayland-server (or so) from 4:5.19.5 to 5.20.2. Then it will work.

      • Martin Insulander says:

        Hi, I’m sorry, I didn’t make the connection. Manually selecting version for libkwaylandserver5 did work out well.
        Thank you!

  13. Helge Reimer says:

    The same problem as with the release of KDE Apps bundle 20.08 for sid.
    KMyMoney should be removed with the update.

  14. Barlafuss says:

    So, is it good to update debian testing today? With plasma519 or plasma520 ?
    Thanks for any advice on the go.

    • Martin Insulander says:

      520 works well for me with multimonitors etc, so far and it seems to be relatively easy to switch back.

  15. Barlafuss says:

    mm, not fully good for me on 520 (on Virtual Machine for the moment).
    Update seems OK because via ssh I can launch dolphin, etc. But when I login, after splash screen, I see only a completely dark screen. Even if the system is working, because, as said, via ssh I can use it.

    • Are you using sddm? If yes you might got hit by a temporary bug, that is already fixed but you need to manually select the correct session. You were probably kicked into a plasma-wayland session.

      • Barlafuss says:

        Hi Norbert, thanks for Your time.
        Yes, I use sddm. Not using wayland on host. I have only plasma section, no other section to choose in debian VM.
        I updated the VM to today packages release, but no good news, dark screen again 🙁

  16. Jérôme says:

    Hi Norbert,
    Thanks for all your work.
    I isntalled your packages : plasma 5.20 … on my laptop and since, plasma fail to start (locked on plashcreen with x11 and direct crash with wayland).
    On x11 I can launch plasmashell from tty and have de semi functional desktop (without kwin).
    When I try to restart kwin I have the error : kwin_x11: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libkwin.so.5: undefined symbol: _ZN14KWaylandServer19XdgSurfaceInterface21windowGeometryChangedERK5QRect
    I think I need asome packages but I did not find which one…
    Any idea ?
    Regards. Jerome

    • Please read the comments, this has already been answered. You need to manually “downgrade” kwayland-server (or so) from 4:5.19.5 to 5.20.2. Then it will work.

  17. Shmerl says:

    It all upgraded nicely in testing after builds passed.

    By the way, do you plan to update your repos to newest Plasma during Debian freeze (assuming Qt version will be compatible and etc.)?

  18. Hi

    I’m impressed, I have never tried the beta till now 😉 Great to hear that it works basically.

    Concerning the videos, good question, I don’t know. Any warnings on the command line or so?

  19. Found the missing b-d, please wait a bit, new versions of 7.1.0 and 7.2.0-beta1 are being build right now.

  20. digikam-user says:

    Hi Norbert,
    yes, now also videos are working. Thank you!

  21. zele says:

    Hi Norbert,
    thank you for starting massive movement around bringing modern plasma destop to debian. Without you who knows when this would be possible. I am using your repositories starting with Plasma 5.18 and successfuly upgraded to 5.19 and now to 5.20. But one problem persists for some time: kwin window rules cannot be created nor edited. For example if you try command kcmshell5 kcm_kwinrules and try to edit rules you get error:
    … module org.kde.kitemmodels is not installed …
    This error appeared after installing Plsama 5.19 and remains after upgrading to 5.20. Something is probably wrong with module “kitemmodels” …

    • Installing qml-module-org-kde-newstuff should help. This will be in one of the next packages.

      • zele says:

        Yes, thank you. That’s it 🙂

        • Joe says:

          In case someone else needs the help, for me qml-module-org-kde-newstuff did NOT work. What I had to do was install qml-module-org-kde-kitemmodels. After that it worked fine. For me this even worked on Debian Testing.

          Now if we can just get that stupid reverse scrolling but with laptop trackpads solved we’d be good to go 🙂

  22. Héctor says:

    Hi, Nobert,

    When I press the combination keys “Meta + .” the emoji selector is launched and these are shown in black and white and many of them are not displayed correctly. I have installed the package: “fonts-noto-color-emoji” and “fonts-noto-*”

    https://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/2020/11/msg00085.html
    https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=974924

    Thank You!

    • I guess you need to install ibus-data

      • Anonymous says:

        Hi, Nobert, ibus-data is already installed on my system.

        ibus-data/testing,testing,now 1.5.23-1 all [instalado, automático]
        Intelligent Input Bus – data files

        Thank You!

        • HI Hector,

          you also reported the bug at Debian, right.

          Ok, the font searched for is “emoji”. If you search with fc-match emoji you will see which actual font will be used. In my case this is

          $ fc-match emoji
          NotoColorEmoji.ttf: "Noto Color Emoji" "Regular"
          

          I would be interested in which font is selected on your side.

  23. Héctor says:

    Hi Nobert,

    I resolve seems this works:

    https://hastebin.com/hohatemure.xml

    Note: Plasma 5.20 seems ok

    Thank You!!

  24. Heinz says:

    Hi Norbert,
    first: thank you for your work. Its all working like a charm.
    second: today i have following issue when i run apt full upgrade:
    Kein Hash-Eintrag in Release-Datei /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/download.opensuse.org_repositories_home:_npreining:_debian-kde:_other-deps_Debian%5fUnstable_._InRelease

  25. Anonymous says:

    W: No Hash entry in Release file /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/download.opensuse.org_repositories_home:_npreining:_debian-kde:_other-deps_Debian%5fUnstable_._InRelease
    E: The repository ‘https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/other-deps/Debian_Unstable ./ InRelease’ provides only weak security information.
    N: Updating from such a repository can’t be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
    N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

  26. Shmerl says:

    Running latest update gave me this error:

    W: No Hash entry in Release file /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/download.opensuse.org_repositories_home:_npreining:_debian-kde:_other-deps_Debian%5fTesting_._InRelease
    E: The repository ‘https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/other-deps/Debian_Testing ./ InRelease’ provides only weak security information.
    N: Updating from such a repository can’t be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
    N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
    Aborting on non zero error code: 100!

  27. George says:

    Hi Norbert

    When will qt 5.15.2 be available for Debian unstable?

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