Features/KDE49

KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.9

Summary

Rebase to KDE Plasma Workspace 4.9. including Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces, the KDE Applications and the KDE Platform.

Owner

• KDE SIG
• Email: rdieter@fedoraproject.org, ltinkl@redhat.com, than@redhat.com, jreznik@redhat.com
• IRC: #fedora-kde

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 18
• Last updated: 2012-09-10
• Percentage of completion: 95%

4.9.1 currently available in Rawhide, queue'd for f18

Detailed Description

New features overview

• KDE Plasma Workspaces, KDE Applications and KDE Platform 4.9
• more split packages for some previously monolithic modules
  • kdemultimedia: audiocd-kio, dragon, juk, kmix, kscd, libkddb, libkcompactdisc
• based on top of Qt 4.8
• interactive Qt Quick splash screen
• udisks2 Solid backend
• prepare support for Features/DisplayManagerRework for KDM

As version 4.x of the KDE libraries (kdelibs) has been under a feature freeze since 4.7 due to the development of KDE Frameworks 5, we'd like to backport interesting features to be released within Fedora 18.

There's a plan to break the CD size limit and release a 800 MiB image (due to the Features/MiniDebugInfo Feature).

Benefit to Fedora

KDE Plasma Desktop is a popular, feature rich and stable desktop environment used by a lot of Fedora users.

Scope

Requires rebasing to the latest upstream version and preparing distribution specific patches. All new required packages are already included in distribution. But as upstream changed release schema and now provides split tarballs for some previously monolithic modules, we are going to follow this decision in Fedora too as we want to stick as close as possible to upstream. This involves changes in packaging, new reviews and small overload for packaging system.

How To Test

1. yum groupinstall kde-desktop
2. set KDE as default environment + KDM
3. login to KDE desktop

or use Fedora KDE Plasma Workspaces spin

What should be checked (KDE):

• distribution integration
• custom branding changes (KDM theme, KSplash theme - the QML one, artwork) - for Preview Release
• working sound in Phonon, esp. with regards to the PA and GStreamer integration
• "root" modules in System Settings (due to pk1)
• Device Notifier (due to new udisks2 Solid backend)

We are working on test plan for KDE QA.

For more specific Desktop testcase see Desktop Validation testing page.

User Experience

• Modern, feature rich and stable desktop environment.
• split packages (advantage especially for other desktop environments users to select favourite applications without need to install the whole KDE stack)

Dependencies

• upstream KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.9 release, see [1].
  • final release is August 01
• Fedora branding/theming from Fedora Design team!

Contingency Plan

Given how the KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.9 and Fedora 18 schedules align, there should be plenty of buffer time between the KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.9 and Fedora 18 releases. We are already working on importing and polishing beta version of KDE. In case of problems with upstream release, we can revert to older release or we can omit individual problematic modules of this feature. KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.9 could later be shipped as an update.

Documentation

The Fedora KDE Desktop User Guide is very important part of this feature for users. It guides users how-to use the latest KDE Plasma Desktop and it's targeted to both former KDE 3.5 user and first time KDE 4 users.

Fedora KDE Desktop User Guide (draft)

Upstream documentation sites:

• http://docs.kde.org/
• http://www.kde.org/documentation/

Release Notes

This release features the KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.9, the KDE Applications and the KDE Platform.

The 4.9 is the latest release of KDE 4. There are a lot of enhancements and new features.

Comments and Discussion

• See Talk:Features/KDE49