Thinking of upgrading to Plasma 5

English Open Chat
1

I’m running the basic openSUSE 13.2 KDE currently and was considering trying out Plasma 5 (without moving to Tumbleweed) and have a couple of questions

  1. Since it’s new, is there any issue with KDE apps that will not work in Plasma 5? Specifically I am wondering about DigiKam.
  2. Does Plasma 5 take more/less or about the same resources as Plasma 4? I’m running openSUSE on a 2 core Intel w/4GB of RAM and embedded graphics.
  3. At this stage of the game, is the non-Tumbleweed Plasma 5 relatively stable? Otherwise I might wait for openSUSE 13.3(?), whenever that is due to come out (if there is a schedule).

Thanks!

2

“Otherwise I might wait for openSUSE 13.3(?), whenever that is due to come out (if there is a schedule).” But wait, aren’t you a shaman?

3

No. KDE4 applications work fine in Plasma 5, as they do in any other DE.
Plasma5 even changes KDE4’s settings to make the apps look more integrated.

But as Plasma5 uses different directories, ServiceMenus and Device Actions (e.g. “Download Photos with digiKam”) installed by KDE4 applications will not be seen.

Does Plasma 5 take more/less or about the same resources as Plasma 4? I’m running openSUSE on a 2 core Intel w/4GB of RAM and embedded graphics.

Hard to say, and depends on your settings of course.
It does take a bit more RAM, but work is going on to optimize that, might end up in 5.4 already.

Otherwise there should not be much difference to KDE4 I’d say (with comparable settings).
I have it running on lower spec systems than you and it runs fine, feels even a bit faster than KDE4.

At this stage of the game, is the non-Tumbleweed Plasma 5 relatively stable?

Yes.
But 13.2 only has 5.2.2 at the moment, whereas TW is at 5.3.0.
You can use the additional KDE:Frameworks5 repo though (which is the devel repo for Tumbleweed), which already has 5.3.1. You get stable updates there even before TW gets them, at the day of release. Those packages are then submitted to TW.
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Frameworks5/openSUSE_13.2/

If you use that, it might probably be a good idea to add KDE:Qt5 as well. Otherwise you might get problems when Qt 5.5 is released, as it will take some time until it is released as update for 13.2 (if it ever will be), and the packages will already need it.
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Qt5/openSUSE_13.2/

I do also maintain a repo of co-installable Plasma5 packages branched off from KDE:Frameworks5, if you add that too and prefer the packages from there, you can even install Plasma5 while keeping KDE4 as fallback or whatever.
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/wolfi323:/branches:/KDE:/Frameworks5/openSUSE_13.2/
My repo contains also a lot of KF5 applications (the released ones where available, otherwise development snapshots) that are also co-installable with their KDE4 counterpart.

4

Thanks!

Yeah, I would probably have tried Plasma 5 either way, unless somebody came out with a significant reason for me not to (other than trying to find the time and being prepared in case my system blows up).

5

Well, for “trying” it out, my packages are probably the best option… :wink:

But exchanging KDE4 and Plasma5 is easy enough too (with the standard packages):

  • install plasma5-session, the standard packages will uninstall the KDE4 desktop and replace it with Plasma5
  • to get back to KDE4 again, install kdebase4-session. This will remove Plasma5 again as a consequence.

Note though, that you do have to choose “Plasma 5” manually on the login screen (or set “plasma5” as default in /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager) on 13.2 in any case. The 13.2 packages do not replace the kde-plasma X session, if you don’t choose “Plasma 5” you’d probably end up with some fallback (twm or IceWM).

6

Since you are swapping out KDE 4 for Plasma 5, is it advisable to not do it while I am in KDE? Either to use the window manager (or fvvm?) or the command line instead?

7

It shouldn’t matter.
But don’t expect everything KDE4 desktop related to fully work afterwards in the still running session.

The underlying KDE4 libraries (and all applications) stay installed anyway though. 13.2 only contains the Plasma5 desktop itself.

If you want to “upgrade” the KDE applications as well, you need to add the KDE:Applications repo and switch to it. But at this time there are “only” 72 KDE applications released as KF5 version, most of them are games, but also Konsole, Kate/KWrite, and others. But in particular dolphin is still KDE4 based.
See also https://kde.org/announcements/applications/15.04.0/

8

Dragonbite,

Before I went to TW I used Wolfi’s repos. They work very well, he does a terrific job with them!
They helped sell me on Plasma 5! Now I use it all the time & I’ve had no real problems with it both in 13.2 & TW. I think you’ll like it too.
Lastly, to all those who read this thread use 13.2 are not yet super proficient at Linux (like me) & want to try Plasma 5, you should definitely install Wolfi’s repos.

9

I have to say Kudos to the openSUSE people because I just tried the package as outlined here https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:KDE_Plasma_5 and it couldn’t have been easier! Not only that, there doesn’t seem to be a hitch anywhere.

I did get nervous for a moment when I rebooted and logged in to fwwm before logging out and having to select Plasma 5 :wink:

I’m definitely going to check out the KDE:Frameworks5 and KDE:Qt5 repositories but first things first… trying to figure out how to swap the Application menu’s KDE logo to an openSUSE one! :slight_smile:

10

If you use the (openSUSE) default Kicker, just right-click on the icon and choose “Application Launcher Settings”, there’s an option to set a custom image.

For Kickoff this was not possible in 5.2 as shipped with 13.2 IIRC. I think that option got re-added in 5.3 only. You’d have to edit ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc manually in this case, I think that should work.

11

[HR][/HR]I have tried plasma 5 but it has a similar issue to one found in XFCE https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11107
HDMI simply doesnt like plasma 5, if I turn my HDMI monitor off and later switch it back on the display remains blank

12

Thanks wolfi!!
I’m using 5.3 in TW. After right clicking it I got GUI & looked it over for button. No button but one needs to click the K then it’s in fine print but it does say Choose. Now I got little red Geeko in for the Kickoff.
Once again Thank You!

13

Yes, in Kickoff’s settings you have to click on the old icon (which is actually a button) to be able to select a new one. Actually just the same as in KDE4.
But this feature is only available in 5.3, not yet in 5.2 as included in openSUSE 13.2.

Kicker (the openSUSE default application launcher) OTOH has a checkbox labelled “Use custom image”, and a text field with a “browse” button for specifying an image. That one was already available in 5.2 IIANM.

14

It surprised me that at first I didn’t have any sound after upgrading, but it was easy enough to use the Sound configuration and kMixer to get it working again.

It’s not bad. I look forward to it being as configurable as KDE 4, especially with Gnome and Unity making it harder for customizing without “extensions” and “themes”… KDE (and Xfce) I find easier to customize. But Plasma 5 is kinda nice so far.