Information about Debian KDE packages.

• See also [kde-debian], ?"DebianQtKDE", ["?KdeTipsAndFaq"], Debian wiki Index ["Debian"]

Contents:

A: Overview

• 1) Debian/KDE Overview

B: Getting and Installing KDE 3.2 FAQ

• 2) Getting KDE 3.2 FAQ (woody)
• 3) Getting KDE 3.2 FAQ (sid/sarge)
• 4) Installation

C: Other Info

• 5) Other Questions
• 6) #debian-kde - The IRC channel
• 7) I want to help, what can I do?
• 8) I have a question not completely covered here
• 9) Other Documents
• 10) Mailing lists
• 11) Updating the ["DebianKDE"] wiki page

A: Overview

1) Debian/KDE Overview

• DebianWoody contains KDE 2.2, and always will.

• DebianTesting (which will eventually be released as [http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/ Sarge]) currently contains KDE 3.1.5.

• DebianUnstable (aka Sid) currently contains KDE 3.2.2.

• If you want to know recent versions online, look at these urls:

  • http://packages.debian.org/stable/x11/kde

  • http://packages.debian.org/testing/kde

  • http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde

• Or run this script in shell (save in a file and make it executable):

kdestable=lynx -dump http://packages.debian.org/stable/x11/kde || grep Package: || sed -e 's/.'''(\([^\)]'''\).*)''\1''' kdetesting=lynx -dump http://packages.debian.org/testing/kde/kdebase || grep Package: || sed -e 's/.'''(\([^\)]'''\).*)''\1''' kdeunstable=lynx -dump http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kdebase || grep Package: || sed -e 's/.'''(\([^\)]'''\).*)''\1''' echo KDE Stable ["Woody"] version: $kdestable echo KDE Testing ["Sarge"] version: $kdetesting echo KDE Unstable ["Sid"] version: $kdeunstable END

• (2004/01/22) KDE is group-maintained

• If you see a bug and it is not packaging related (i.e. you know it's a programming error), file a bug at the KDE bts website (http://bugs.kde.org) instead of/as well as the Debian BTS, unless it is release critical. If you do file bugs with both systems, please note in each bug the ID of the bug in the other system.

(Info from: )

B: Getting and Installing KDE 3.2 FAQ

2) Getting KDE 3.2 FAQ (woody)

• a) Is KDE 3.2 available for Debian?
  • Yes it is, but the packages should be considered experimental quality. You will probably have to manually intervene in the installation by using dpkg --force-overwrite. And, some things will be broken. If you aren't comfortable with this, be patient. Higher quality packages should be available in the next week or so.
• b) Where are the KDE 3.2 packages for woody?

  • They are available at the KDE mirrors, not the Debian ones, because Debian only supports KDE 2.2 in Woody. Add that line to /etc/apt/sources.list:

     deb http://download.kde.org/stable/3.2/Debian stable main

• c) What are some problems people have encountered?
  • k3b and kugar apparently have file overlaps with the KDE 3.2 debs, so they can't be installed at the same time.
  • error message on startup: "Could not start kdeinit. Check your installation and try again." (This is due to a missing newline on line 164 of /usr/bin/startkde, after "LD_BIND_NOW=true")
  • conflicts with other backports (openoffice.org 1.1, xfree86 4.3.0 use freetype 2.1.4, whereas the KDE 3.2 packages were built against 2.0.9?) Probably conflicts with other backports than these, too.
  • Passwordless logins don't work in kdm. This is a known problem with a known fix. Replace the file /etc/pam.d/kdm-np with the one from www.kde-debian.org/~domi/kdm-np as an easy fix.

3) Getting KDE 3.2 FAQ (sid/sarge)

• a) Is KDE 3.2 available for Debian?
  • KDE 3.2.2 is included in sid.

  • Yes it is, but the packages should be considered experimental quality. You will probably have to manually intervene in the installation by using dpkg --force-overwrite. And, some things will be broken - see ?"DebianQtKDE". If you aren't comfortable with this, be patient. Higher quality packages should be available in the next week or so.

• b) Where are the KDE CVS packages for sarge/sid?

  • If you want to track KDE cvs HEAD, muesli is planning on keeping fairly up-to-date:

     deb http://rs.fuzz.nl/muesli/686/kde_head/ unstable/

Mirror update:

 deb http://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/software/kde-unstable-debian/kde_head/ unstable/

4) Installation

If you want to use KDE as the display manager on a workstation or laptop, you need to have installed the X Window System before installing KDE.

• To get a bare minimum base install of X, do an:

    apt-get install x-window-system-core

Install the kde package if you want the whole of ["KDE3"].

  apt-get install kde

Install the kde-core meta-package to get a minimum KDE install [arts, fontconfig, kdebase, kdelibs]:

  apt-get install kde-core

If you go for kde-core, you may also want some of kdeaddons, kdeadmin, kdeartwork,kdeedu, kdegames, kdegraphics, kdemultimedia, kdenetwork, koffice, kdepim, kdeprint,kdesdk, kdetoys, kdeutils.

The KDE Display/login Manager kdm is nice to have installed as well. You can get it with:

  apt-get install kdm 

Sid [aka unstable]

• shouldn't be too difficult

   apt-get update
   apt-get install kde-core

• you can easily install futher KDE meta-packages from the list above, or individual packages/applications

Sarge [aka testing] (using sid debs)

As of 20-Feb-2004, the current version of KDE on DebianTesting is finally installable again.

If you want to get the latest KDE packages from sid (on a testing system):

• create /etc/apt/preferences containing:

     Package: *
     Pin: release testing
     Pin-Priority: 900

   Package: *
   Pin: release unstable
   Pin-Priority: 600

• add lines to /etc/apt/sources.list pointing at unstable

     deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian unstable main
     (replace ftp.uk.debian.org with your normal Debian mirror;
      not all mirrors are equal!)

• update and install KDE from unstable!

     apt-get update
     apt-get install -t unstable arts fontconfig kdebase kdelibs

• if you need i18n, also do (replace XX with your language code, for example, de):

     apt-get install -t unstable kde-i18n-XX

• you can easily install further KDE packages - just remember to use -t unstable

• apt-get upgrade will work as normal, and keep you up-to-date

Woody [aka stable]

• Ralf's Woody debs for KDE are still around - but none of his extra packages, just basic KDE. See [http://download.kde.org/stable/latest/Debian/README README] for some information.

• Add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list to get the packages:

     deb http://download.kde.org/stable/latest/Debian stable main

• Then apt-get install arts kdelibs kdebase and whatever other metapackages you want, like kdepim, kdenetwork etc.

(Info from: ?HereOn, ...)

C: Other Info

5) Other Questions:

I can't compile KDE programs - it can't find Qt libraries.

If you get an error about missing Qt libraries when compiling programs for ["KDE3"] on Debian, try running configure with the following option:

   --with-qt-includes=/usr/include/qt3

If this still doesn't work, and you definately have kdelibs-dev and libqt3-compat-headers installed, try reading the [http://opendoorsoftware.com/cgi/http.pl?p=["DebianQTChecklist" "Qt-Trouble" document]] or asking on debian-kde@lists.debian.org for help.

(Info from: )

6) #debian-kde - The IRC channel

What and where is #debian-kde?

#debian-kde is the ?FreeNode IRC channel for discussion of Debian and KDE. (A list of ?FreeNode servers can be found [http://freenode.net/irc_servers.shtml here].) Feel free to come in and ask for help troubleshooting a problem not covered here in the wiki or in the FAQ. But be sure that it's not before asking, as questions that are will be ignored, at best.

Nobody answered my question, why?

Maybe you were really irritating while asking it. Maybe the answer is already here or in the FAQ or easily available at the other end of a Google search. Or, maybe nobody who knows the answer was in the channel at the time you asked it. Or, maybe people are asleep/busy. People do have lives outside of irc.

Try waiting for a while (an hour or two) to see if anybody knows the answer. Don't repeat the question unless it has been a long while and several new people have entered the channel.

(Info from: )

7) I want to help, what can I do?

• Write better descriptions for the packages. Email such descriptions to the package maintainer or to debian-qt-kde@lists.debian.org. Or commit them to KDE CVS if you have write access.

• Write man pages for programs without them. You may also want to translate existing manpages.

• Keep this FAQ up-to-date

• Run lintian and linda on the packages and fix all the errors and warnings.

• [http://www.gnupg.org/aegypten/development.en.html Package] libksba, newpg, pinentry and other packages needed for kmail PGP/MIME support.

Already available for woody with this line in /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://www.opensides.be/debian woody main

• If you are interested/involved in the development side of Qt/KDE for Debian, join the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-qt-kde debian-qt-kde mailing list]

(Info from: )

8) I have a question not covered here:

• See the following documents, or check in #debian-kde on the ?FreeNode (irc.freenode.{info,net,org}) network.

(Info from: )

9) Other documents:

• ?KdeTipsAndFaq has answers to oft-asked questions about KDE in general in the IRC channel, excluding the ones covered on this page. Look there for post-install KDE usage issues.

• [http://davidpashley.com/debian-kde/faq.html FAQ]

• [http://opendoorsoftware.com/cgi/http.pl?p=["DebianQTChecklist" Qt Trouble?]]

(Info from: )

10) Mailing lists:

There are at least four mailing lists used by Debian KDE maintainers.

• Two at lists.debian.org (debian-kde, debian-qt-kde)

• two at lists.kde.org ( [kde-debian], kde-debian-devel, archived under http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.debian )

Conversations are scattered randomly between these lists, plus occasional other ones (orth's kdecvs list, etc.). Thus, trying to get a consistent, coherent answer on any topic from the maintainers is just about impossible. They're far too busy tracking bugs in an old, out-of-date version to answer you.

(Info from: )

11) Updating the DebianKDE wiki page:

If you'd like your name, not your IP address, to be listed in the changes list at the bottom of the edit page, and on the RecentChanges page, when in the edit mode for this page, do this:

• 1) You'll need to have a user page, with your user name. So, create one if you don't yet have one. See ?KwikiUserName .

• 2) Turn on cookies in your web browser.
• 3) Click the "Preferences" link at the top of the page.
• 4) Enter your user name, and click the save button.
• 5) A cookie will be created in your browser which contains your user name.
• 6) Edit the ["DebianKDE"] page. When you save your changes, your name, not IP, will be associated with your changes, and also listed as the changer .

I think it might be valueable to the KDE community if this was done. It would allow readers to see who has made the updates useful to them. Perhaps also it would be a nice convention for persons who create or make any substantial update to any section of this page to add their name to a list of updaters at the end of each section, like this: