KDE4 "stable" upgrade hell [partly solved]

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

I run 3 stable systems, and I'm trying to find a non-disastrous upgrade path from KDE3 to KDE4. so far without success.

1) Why is there no upgrade guide for this procedure? All I can find is for people running unstable months ago. For a straight upgrade via emerge -DNu world on a stable system, there is no guide I can find.

2) The first thing that happens is I have to change a bunch of USE flags. BUT since there is no upgrade guide I have to guess what they are for and why.

3) KDE4 overwrites startkde. Now I'm in it. I'm stuck with KDE4 for better or worse, with no way to go back.

4) KDE4 fails on my machine. The splash screen materialzes the first icon, then goes black. Moving the cursor around I get a stroboscope effect, but since <ctrl>-<alt>-<backspace> no longer works, I can't even log out. I have to hit the reset switch.

5) I changed .xinitrc to exec /usr/kde/3.5/bin/startkde. At least I can get 3.5.10 back. But no -- startx brings up a strange mixture, with plasma running *and* the 3.5 kde panel.

This is a horrible disaster. Can somebody please help me?

First, how can I get startx to load KDE 3.5.10 without plasma and co.

Second, what happened to KDE4, why isn't it working? I don't even know where to look for the reason the display is so botched.

Cheers,

Jon.

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3414 Location: Canada

Honestly, I believe is best now to uninstall all kde-related packages, and install them back from console. I suspect your installation did not have kde-3.5 in proper slots, so now indeed you have a strange mixture.

kiss-o-matic · Guru Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 423 Location: Tokyo

This is how I've installed kde4. Everywhere I read advised against having both, or simply trying to upgrade one. Remove->Re-emerge. The kicker might be getting rid of all the kde3 packages though.

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

3.5 was correctly slotted, it is a *stable* system I have never used kdeprefix, layman or anything of the sort.

This bug seems to have something to do with the mixed applications. I still have no idea why the display is messed up. https://bugs.gentoo.org/237718

WHY IS THERE NO UPGRADE GUIDE FOR STABLE SYSTEMS?

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3414 Location: Canada

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

OK, I don't have the slot named in world. How do I correct this?

I've looked into startkde, but can't find any reason why any KDE 4 stuff would start.

At this point I'm just trying to get back to a stably operating KDE 3.5.

This upgrade is a total fail. Ha ha on me.

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3414 Location: Canada

without slot info, we actually do not know are these kde-4 or 3.5 packages or a mixture.
I would save the list of all of them in a file, unmerge all of them, and then do

emerge kdebase-meta:3.5

if you want kde-3.5 or

emerge kdebase-meta

if you want 4.0

That will give you working environments, to which you can later add extra packages (or extra meta packages), always putting :3.5 at the end
if you want kde-3.5 versions.

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

OK, I've fixed that. I appended :3.5 to each of these entires in world, ran emerge --depclean and KDE4 is gone.

What now?

I'm guessing, since I have a pretty minimal KDE 3.5 installation, I need to now emerge konqueror:4.3 and see what that pulls in.

This is pretty nonstandard I guess.

anton_kg · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 10 Feb 2007 Posts: 93

I absolutely agree with you. This is hell.
No slots, no smooth migration, no proper guideline, some nasty bugs like
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=280670
many programs like k3b, amarok are not ready yet ... an sooooo on.

I jut wish KDE team good luck with this. It could be done much smoother and hope the lesson will be learned.

Olis · Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:17 am Post subject:

SamuliSuominen · Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 11:21 am Post subject:

gerard27 · Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 1:26 pm Post subject:

Hi jesnow,
What do you have in /etc/conf.d/xdm ?
Some time ago I did emerge -uD world.
kde4 got installed and I now have both kde3.5 and 4.
I still use kde3.5,I don't like 4 much,but in the end it will be necessary to switch.
I put

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

OK, if you use kdm, it takes care of everything somehow, I like startx. This is because I have separate X sessions for each family member that the can hot key to. kdm doesn't do that, but e.g. 'startx -- :3' does just fine.

I used the third way of installing kde back in the day -- emerging individual applications and letting their dependencies pull in everything else. It looks like I can emerge 4.3 the same way. But I still don't undertstand how I can arrive with a stable system at this situation.

gerard27 · Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 1:54 pm Post subject:

Wouldn't it be simpler to have different users on kde?
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

No, because then each time someone else comes to the computer, they have to log out and log in again. Having 3 separate X-sessions gives my family 1-click instantaneous access to their currently running kde session.

So I will not use xdm/kdm/gdm.

gerard27 · Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:43 pm Post subject:

I never used startx.
I'm sure there's a config file associated with it that you can modify/change.
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

gerard27 · Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:45 am Post subject:

FYI when you use "Switch User" in kde you'll be starting a NEW XSESSION.
With ctrl-alt-F7...F9 you can switch between users.
No need to log out,this is not Windows.
Then there's also the command "man startx"!
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

gerard27 · Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:50 pm Post subject:

I think you are pulling my leg!
You joined three years ago?
The switch user thingy has been in kde for ages.
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

gerard27 · Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:38 pm Post subject:

jesnow if you want help I can tell you what I did.
If you're in the mood to listen and not get angry again
let me know.
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

rickj · Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:17 pm Post subject:

I upgraded to KDE4 almost by accident, when it unexpectedly went stable on x86. Since I run a "stable" system, and prefer startx, I simply changed the line in /etc/rc.conf to:

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3414 Location: Canada

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

jesnow · l33t Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 877

Yes, a one-slider "get rid of the crap" control. I want that!

I thought KDE4 was supposed to be better for laptops? I'm thinking maybe for low-resource systems we shoudl use a lightweight wm, there are a bunch around that will run most KDE and gnome apps.