KDE/Plasma 5 upgrade

The information in this article is representative of former times and has been archived. It can be used for reference, but is most likely not appropriate for current usage. Generally, archived articles should not be edited.

Plasma 5 is the current generation of KDE's desktop environment, based on Qt 5 and KDE Frameworks 5.

Preparations

Profile

It is highly recommended to use the Plasma desktop profile as it sets a number of important options to ensure things run smoothly.

In order to choose the most suitable profile, first list what's available:

root #eselect profile list

  ...
  [12]  default/linux/amd64/17.0 (stable)
  [13]  default/linux/amd64/17.0/selinux (stable)
  [14]  default/linux/amd64/17.0/hardened (stable)
  [15]  default/linux/amd64/17.0/hardened/selinux (stable)
  [16]  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop (stable)
  [17]  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/gnome (stable)
  [18]  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/gnome/systemd (stable)
  [19]  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma (stable)
  [20]  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma/systemd (stable)
  ...

Then, select the right profile, substituting the appropriate profile number (which may vary between configurations):

root #eselect profile set 8

make.conf

The plasma profile now takes care of the right settings for a full-blown KDE Plasma/Applications installation. In the foreseeable future, this entails both Qt 4 as well as Qt 5 based packages. It also handles possible USE flag conflicts on a per-package basis. If there are any existing definitions of qt4, kde or plasma in /etc/portage/make.conf, make sure to remove them before proceeding, else conflicts may arise. Also, never set -minimal in /etc/portage/make.conf. In case of USE handbook, the recommendation is to either remove it as well, or disable it if the KDE documentation is not needed.

Check for these flags and if necessary alter the file using your favourite editor:

root #grep -e "qt[[:digit:]]" -e "handbook" -e "kde" -e "plasma" /etc/portage/make.conf

Note
Older setups might still use the deprecated /etc/make.conf instead.

You should now also revise your entries in /etc/portage/package.use:

root #

grep -e "qt[[:digit:]]$" -e "qt[[:digit:]] " -e "handbook$" -e "handbook " -R /etc/portage/package.use

root #

grep -e "kde$" -e "kde " -e "plasma$" -e "plasma " -R /etc/portage/package.use

Of course you can adjust these flags afterwards again.

Note
If you run into a new conflict related to those flags, please report that to the Gentoo KDE team.

Clean up @world

Now is a good time to clean up @world. If it contains packages either directly from or depending on KDE Workspaces 4, it will lead to unsolvable emerge conflicts later on. The following command will probably take some time, but is not going to remove anything yet - examine the output.

root #

for x in amarok libkscreen kde-gtk-config ksshaskpass freespacenotifier kcheckpass kcminit kde4-l10n kdebase-cursors kdebase-startkde kdm kephal khotkeys kinfocenter klipper kmenuedit krunner kscreensaver ksmserver ksnapshot ksplash kstartupconfig kstyles ksysguard ksystraycmd kwin kwrited libkgreeter libkworkspace liboxygenstyle libplasmaclock libplasmagenericshell libtaskmanager plasma-workspace powerdevil qguiplatformplugin_kde solid-actions-kcm systemsettings; do equery -q d ${x} | sed -e "s/-[0-9].*//"; done | sed -e "/kdebase-meta/g" -e "/kde-meta/g" | xargs emerge --deselect --pretend

Note
This requires app-portage/gentoolkit to be installed. See also: Gentoolkit

If you are sure to proceed, run the above command without --pretend again. Only the @world file is going to be changed - while the packages stay installed, they will not block a subsequent installation of Plasma 5.

Apply the changes

Any packages affected by the profile change need to be rebuilt:

root #emerge --ask --changed-use --newrepo --deep world

Installation

It is now time to head back to KDE to proceed with the regular installation of KDE#Plasma and KDE#Applications.

Migration

SSH/GPG Agent startup/shutdown scripts

Configuration moved from /etc/kde/{startup,shutdown} in KDE SC 4 to /etc/plasma/{startup,shutdown} for Plasma 5, you will need to edit the scripts there (or copy your scripts from the old location).

Troubleshooting

The most common issue with upgrading is running into blockers. Unfortunately, some packages just can't be co-installed so they'll need to be removed. Feel free to drop by #gentoo (webchat) or #gentoo-kde (webchat) for assistance with resolving any blockers.

Missing application menus (users of x11-misc/appmenu-qt)

If previously x11-misc/appmenu-qt was installed, application menus (file, edit, view, help, etc) in kdelibs4-based packages might be missing. There is no way to fix this via a GUI, kde rc files will need to be edited to restore the application menu in Plasma 5. Find out which files were modified using the following command:

user $grep -iR menubar ~/.kde4

Change any lines containing MenuBar=Disabled to MenuBar=true, and the next time related applications are started, the menus should re-appear. Make sure all instances of MenuBar in the rc files are changed - some have more than one, like kmail2.

References