Where are the KDE updates?

[lynx13]

Hi,

I am upset about the KDE update policy.

The latest stable version is 4.13.x and this version is available since 14 days.

My distribution has 4.11.4 which is from the release date in February!

Where are KDE updates?? We didn't even get 4.12.x, why?

I can't add KDE repos via the official method in MCC, so how do I resolve this? I am absolutely unhappy with KDE 4.11.1 as well as with Mageia 4 which is the biggest mess the Mageia community did so far.

Any ideas welcome!

Thanks.

[jkerr82508]

I am absolutely unhappy with KDE 4.11.1 as well as with Mageia 4 which is the biggest mess the Mageia community did so far.

Mageia does not promise to provide software version updates for stable releases:
https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Updates_policy

The KDE team are hoping to provide an update for Mageia 4, but like all Mageia teams they need volunteers to make it a reality.

Keep in mind that by using Mageia you are part of the Mageia community and so any "mess" is your mess. Why not volunteer to help clean it up?
https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Contributing

Jim

[doktor5000]

I am absolutely unhappy with KDE 4.11.1 as well as with Mageia 4 which is the biggest mess the Mageia community did so far.

Why exactly are you unhappy with KDE 4.11, and with Mageia 4? What mess do you mean?

[lynx13]

Yeah. Of course it's my fault now. My gosh, what are you guys talking about??

Is there even the possibility to add KDE repos? And why don't we get the stable releases by default?

I already donated money to Mageia. And I was one of the few who reported lots of nasty bugs regarding the Nvidia catastrophe in Mageia 4 to Bugzilla. I already did something to change the mess.

There are other issues too: KDE and GTK not working together properly. Problems while booting when portable USB media is plugged in. And some other stuff too, but this is not part of the question here.

Again: How can I use stable KDE releases?If there is no possibility, I'm gone and when will never turn back. There are enough distros out there. Thanks.

[jkerr82508]

My apologies. You obviously have contributed to Mageia. I was misled by your reference to the Mageia community as though it were a separate entity. So again, apologies.

As I indicated in my earlier answer, the KDE team are hoping to provide an update, possibly to KDE 4.13, but there are outstanding issues that need to be resolved first. Meanwhile, KDE 4.11.5 is available in the testing repo.

https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13221

If you want to always have the latest version of software, then you are unlikely ever to be happy with Mageia. As a release-based distro, Mageia normally only provides software version updates when a new Mageia release is made. In order to always have the latest software, you would need to use a rolling release distro, such as Arch linux or Mageia's development version, cauldron.

http://www.kde.org/download/distributions.php

Jim

[lynx13]

@Jim: No worries. You couldn't know that actually.

KDE 4.11.5 isn't enough, this release would have made sense in March or so.

Right now we are in the sixth month of an active release of Mageia and what you try to tell me is there is no need to update the distro any further. This is not how this should be handled, six months are a helluva time. I don't think one needs to stay in the place one were when a distro was released. It doesn't feel right and it is not what Linux is about.

Unfortunately I never made good experiences with Cauldron. I used it before Mageia 3 and there were too much issues.

I still believe in Mageia. But I experienced too much problems since release 3 and Mageia 4 was the worst experience so far and is to this date. The only hopes I have yet is the updates. Mageia 4 was dead for me from the start, it wasn't thought through and not tested properly and should not have been declared as major.

For comparisions: I'm using Linux since 2005 and have to say that Mageia 2 was the best I ever tried and ever used. Maybe this was a coincidence. But the releases after 2 never ever offered this magic and stability(!) again. And my hardware didn't change a bit...

Regards

[doktor5000]

KDE 4.11.5 isn't enough, this release would have made sense in March or so.
Right now we are in the sixth month of an active release of Mageia and what you try to tell me is there is no need to update the distro any further.

Exactly. If by updates you mean simple version or feature updates that's exactly what our policy is about.
Backports could be used for that, but it was disagreed by most packagers that KDE should be a backport: https://ml.mageia.org/wwsympa-wrapper.f ... 00257.html

This is not how this should be handled, six months are a helluva time. I don't think one needs to stay in the place one were when a distro was released. It doesn't feel right and it is not what Linux is about.

If you think there should be more updates, help the QA team validate some updates, then they would have more ressources.
Just take a look at the list of update candidates that's currently pending: http://mageia.madb.org/rpm/list/listtyp ... es_testing
And you honestly demand them to work harder?

Sorry but I'll not tolerate that stance. Consider this a friendly reminder.

[lynx13]

Exactly. If by updates you mean simple version or feature updates that's exactly what our policy is about.

If you think it is normal that a Desktop environment doesn't need to be updated, which is NOT a "simple version" update, than I think you don't get the idea of a stable and up2date system, Sir.

In the releases prior to 4 we didn't have to wait six months or what even for a mini-mini-update for KDE, that's a fact no one can disagree. I'm worried that Mageia is dying, because you also said

If you think there should be more updates, help the QA team validate some updates, then they would have more ressources.

The ressources weren't the problem in 3 and 2, were they? So, what's going on under the hood? You need to understand that nobody gets this "policy" and if you think that's good for a young distro you are possibly wrong and time will tell you that.

Consider _this_ a friendly reminder, I already do enough to help.

Regards.

[doktor5000]

Exactly. If by updates you mean simple version or feature updates that's exactly what our policy is about.

If you think it is normal that a Desktop environment doesn't need to be updated, which is NOT a "simple version" update, than I think you don't get the idea of a stable and up2date system, Sir.

If we currently have a stable version, why update it? Stable isn't achieved by simply installing the latest version to be "up to date".

If you think there should be more updates, help the QA team validate some updates, then they would have more ressources.

The ressources weren't the problem in 3 and 2, were they? So, what's going on under the hood? You need to understand that nobody gets this "policy" and if you think that's good for a young distro you are possibly wrong and time will tell you that.

Since then we have more packages, more users and hence more bugs get reported. But the number of contributors did not increase at the same time.
So now we have much more updates to validate, more bugs to fix and more security updates to push. Did you actually have a look at the
list of updated candidates I've posted? And you really demand that even more updates are added to the todo list of the QA team?

Also people don't respond to calls for help like viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6708
Instead people complain that it's not working like they want it to work, and that they want it another way - like in your case.

But so far everybody got the policy, and understood it. Most people provided feedback, that they prefer having stable packages, instead of just the latest.

Consider _this_ a friendly reminder, I already do enough to help.

Seems you didn't get what community and contributing is about. What you're doing is complaining and demanding.
If you want KDE updates, help to make them happen.

[xboxboy]

@OP

I'm afraid I have to agree with most responses here. If you're not happy with the current package arrangement, being open source, you are free to update/compile/install the updates as you see fit.

Many years ago, I would go out of my way to grab the latest firefox builds. But now I'm more than happy to wait for the team to send down the updates when they are ready. Come to think of it, I would do it with Nvidia drivers also.

Back when I was a mandriva user, someone (not sure who now) had created RPM's for the latest version of KDE and you just added the repo and like magic, there was the latest version. While it would be nice to get the latest KDE, I guess I speak for most mageia users, who would rather the slim (let's face it: There is no Microsoft or Apple sized developer base or manhours) resources focus on security and bug updates, rather than refreshing, what is already a modern and smooth desktop.

Mageia isn't perfect, and I have a pretty serious bug that effects my raid arrays. But, I will continue to use Mageia for many reasons. The main one being that it generally "Just Works". It's stable. Secure. Receives regular security and bug updates.

And, they are a friendly group. The guys on IRC always help out. The documentation keeps getting better, and better.

I think you may be confused in what YOU want from your linux experience: It sounds like you want GENTOO software, but with UBUNTU effort.

Mageia is a GREAT distro, and I drop it's name as often as I can.

[wintpe]

I feel i have to add my two peneth

what you are asking for is exactly the opposite of what i want from mageia.

im a very conservative person, I like updates when something is definitly broken or insecure, but
i absolutly hate updates because they are new and shiny, just for the sake of it.

I want stable, unchanging and sticking to the major versions that the release starts with.

for example, kde are always messing with the damm interface adding unnessasary features, like
the windows 7 style plasma, hence why im using rasorqt now , with kwin.

many people who come to mageia come to it , because they want a stable working environment.

seems like you want the opposite, and like xboys post i suggest you go to gentoo,
and spend your life compiling updates rather than doing any actual work.

mageias stability is why i spend my time puting it on friends and neighbors PC's

I could not do that with a gentoo style OS.

So im happy with mageia, as are many here.

An i for one do not want that to change.

Its a free operating system, you cant demand that the people who build it change it just because its not what you want.

there are loads of operating systems to choose from, suggest you try your luck browsing distrowatch for one that does

exactly what you want.



regards peter

[ozky]

Kde 4.11 is long term support release so there is no need to update kde.

As annouced on the dot the KDE Workspaces receive long term support for two years which ends in August 2015. Thus there will be more KDE Workspaces releases than noted above but the dates are not yet fixed.

http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/ ... e_Schedule

[lynx13]

@doktor: So we have different definitions of "stable". For me "stable" means "roll it the hell out!" And Mageia didn't do this with KDE.

If you have a fulltime position in the Mageia QA department, let me know!

@xboxboy: Come. Down. How do you know what I want from a Linux distribution and _which_ I need? I also can't say "you suck" because of your shitty M$-nickname, can I!?

Mageia was great, this was in 2012 with the release 2. All other versions were lame. And I am disappointed about that for the same reason as you: I thought it was great.

@wintpe: If you don't want change, don't use Linux. Linux is fluent and alive as nothing before in computing, over time you learn to adapt and create. That's one of the myriads of reasons which make working with it worth it. You are looking for Windows 7 in Linux-territory, if I may use the soothsayer skills from "xboxboy" here. When we are talking about stability, check the icon problem with GTK and KDE, it's a lot of fun!1 And waste of time.

@ozky: Totally worthless. "No need for update KDE", says who!?

Some fun facts for you, my friends:

1) explain the loss of popularity on Distrowatch. It happens for months now. And there are reasons for this
2) Mageia was announced as "the definitive distribution for Nvidia and KDE!" Where did it go from here!? Check the Nvidia bugs alone for release 4, please

What you are trying here is saying "nana, Mageia is good the way it is" and it simply isn't. You better take some opinions into consideration instead of bulldozing every thought you find offensive and/or "too advanced"

Sorry, maybe I'm just going to switch to Chakra...

[isadora]

Discussion in this topic is interesting, and could be constructive.
But please guys, temper your emotions.

[marja]

1) explain the loss of popularity on Distrowatch. It happens for months now. And there are reasons for this

You're very welcome to come help our QA team test updates and isos, lynx13
Even if the height we had reached before on DW can't be explained by how many people contributed to Mageia, it is certainly a fact that more people make the work lighter and help to have a better product.

2) Mageia was announced as "the definitive distribution for Nvidia and KDE!" Where did it go from here!? Check the Nvidia bugs alone for release 4, please

I don't remember we ever made such a claim, but if we did, then we were wrong: we already had severe NVidia bugs for Mageia 1

If you want Mageia to be better: please consider pulling up your sleeves and starting to work on the things that irritate you most: supply patches, learn to package, help QA team, anything that helps to solve what irritates you so much.

If you don't have time or motivation for that, then it might indeed be better to switch to another distro. In that case good luck, lynx13, and I hope you'll be more happy with it

[lynx13]

@marja: Really refreshing to read, thank you for your kindness! Finally...

I'm really interested in joining your QA team because this is what I do all day as a living. Due to that I'll not have as much time as I want, but I'll do my best to help.

So, for the claim, if you didn't make this up (officially), than this must have been an opinion of experts. Whoever they were maybe we'll never know, but one thing is for sure: This statement still is coming to my mind first when thinking about Mageia. And this is good, IMHO!
And when you say you had this bugs since release 1, well then you must have done a better job in hiding these problems in releases after 1. I didn't experience these issues in 2, maybe some in 3 but not that my system won't boot up anymore and stuff. This was nasty, but I already contributed everything I found to Bugzilla.

Let me sum it up: My motivation is there, definitely, and as I said I'm reporting everything I find and also donate money from time to time. And heck, Mageia is independent, some stones may be in the way, such is life (with or without Linux).

All I want is an option to update KDE by myself. Because let me tell you another fact: Since I started using this distribution I never ever experienced this much time between an initial release and an update of KDE. And this seems very strange, at least to me.

[ozky]

@ozky: Totally worthless. "No need for update KDE", says who!?

Me it can breake mageia in one second if you can't live with 4.11 find other distro like arch or kubuntu if you need allways newest kde,but remember don't complain us if it's buggy and you realize that it's good to have stable kde.

[lynx13]

@ozky: It isn't stable. I don't have the time right now to file bugs, maybe someone wants to add these:

1) system won't boot up when storage media is plugged in before starting up computer -> in my case 1TB external hard drive. Stuck at start screen
2) GTK and KDE won't work together, check newest(!) Firefox and Thunderbird releases and check icons in these applications. Boot several times, icons are sometimes there and sometimes not
3) Flash and/or YouTube in Firefox not working -> although this could also be a problem of Flash plugin, Flash in KDE, YouTube (unlikely), other
4) widgets on Desktop won't keep its user modified size after reboot -> in fact this is a bug I filed a report for in the past, this is very old, nothing happenend
5) sometimes it's not possible to shutdown the PC via the buttons in the task bar -> it isn't possible to use the buttons in menu bar either -> hardcore bug, no shutdown without console possible
6) Nvidia bugs affect KDE (or vice versa) -> some Blizzard games, although not officially supported, won't work when you start the game in full window mode -> workaround only via hacks in config files of games. Worked without a hassle up to release 4

There are more. Don't have the time and don't remember them right now, will post as soon as I encounter them again.

Also, I'm working together with other IT experts who share my opinion that 4.11.x is a _desaster_. We even experienced this independendtly, the other is a SuSE user.

Again, please, stop giving me advices about "finding another distro". I will. But this time, I'll try to show you what goes wrong. If you don't accept it or adapt these ideas, let it be and let time show you where you failed.

[ozky]

To me it's stable and i don't have any of those problems but i agree that you need newer kde to fix these bugs.
Try to update nvidia drivers and kde by enabling core updates testing and update your system to testing packages.

[marja]

@marja: Really refreshing to read, thank you for your kindness! Finally...

I'm really interested in joining your QA team because this is what I do all day as a living. Due to that I'll not have as much time as I want, but I'll do my best to help.

That would be absolutely great, I'm looking forward to seeing you in that team. Don't worry about having less time than you'd want: every test helps and most of us wish every day would last 48 hours

I suppose you already found this page https://wiki.mageia.org/en/QA_Team, didn't you?

So, for the claim, if you didn't make this up (officially), than this must have been an opinion of experts. Whoever they were maybe we'll never know, but one thing is for sure: This statement still is coming to my mind first when thinking about Mageia. And this is good, IMHO!
And when you say you had this bugs since release 1, well then you must have done a better job in hiding these problems in releases after 1. I didn't experience these issues in 2, maybe some in 3 but not that my system won't boot up anymore and stuff. This was nasty, but I already contributed everything I found to Bugzilla.

Thanks for having done that! Is there still activity on your report(s)? (Unfortunately, I'm too short on time nowadays to really follow the bugs mailing list)

Let me sum it up: My motivation is there, definitely, and as I said I'm reporting everything I find and also donate money from time to time. And heck, Mageia is independent, some stones may be in the way, such is life (with or without Linux).

All I want is an option to update KDE by myself. Because let me tell you another fact: Since I started using this distribution I never ever experienced this much time between an initial release and an update of KDE. And this seems very strange, at least to me.

I don't know enough to give an answer, sorry. I hope someone who knows more will explain.

[jiml8]

My personal experience with KDE and Mageia is that KDE in Mageia 2 was buggy enough where it impacted me that I almost moved off of it...and given the nature of my system, that is saying something. I didn't move because of the extreme difficulty of migrating my email history away from the (then useless) kmail2.

Mageia 3 was a huge improvement, though KDE still had some issues that irritated me. Mageia 4 has pretty much solved the issues with KDE that I DID have, and introduced a handful of new ones. The level of trouble I see these days is still considerably less than in earlier versions, and finally akonadi/nepomuk is becoming stable and kmail is working with not very many issues.

I have commented before on the stability of this system; I have, I think, crashed it a grand total of twice in about the last 16 months. It is hands-down the most stable platform I have ever worked on. As I write this, I have two guest Linux distros running in VMs, two FreeBSD distros, Windows 7 Pro, and Windows 2000. I have 2 physical LANs connected and one WAN. I have a total of 6 virtual LANs running. I am out of video memory (nvidia) and that is causing me some black-screen issues (and has me contemplating a new video card), but other than that the system is stable, solid, and almost completely trouble-free.

I have no problems running flash and youtube in firefox. In fact, I have a problem running flash in chromium; it crashes there.

This is a production environment; I make my living off of this computer. While I would love to see KDE updates to fix the issues that I know are there, I do NOT want to be bleeding-edge; I literally create the bleeding edge most of the time anyway with the work I do, and I want the platform on which I do that work to be rock-solid. Nothing is worse than debugging a problem, with the question always present: "is this a problem with my project? Or with my platform?" With Mageia, the platform does not cause me trouble.

I have given thought to joining one of the teams and contributing, but I can't easily afford the time so I have not done so. Instead, I help out on this forum, and when I report an issue I try to do it as clearly and as dispassionately as possible.

[lynx13]

@marja: As with the link, I didn't have it before, so I thank you for giving me it.

As with the Nvidia bugs, no activity there anymore, we had some workarounds for the nastiest of them, but from what we heard in the discussion especially new Linux users didn't know what to do when that happenend. And for me, I never use the Mageia drivers but update manually with those from the Nvidia website. So I'm not up to date for what's happening there.

What I'm doing when it's quiet is that I assume the problem vanished and/or was fixed and I keep meditating. Otherwise more users would complain and that wasn't the case. But as I described above, there are still sometimes issues and for me it's not always clear is it Nvidia or KDE, but I'll keep an eye on that in the future.

@jiml8: Your post is good and what you do with your machine is pretty heavy. I mean, I think I perfectly understand what you're trying to say and your text is a good example what a power user does with a Linux system! Especially the part where you say you make a living of it, respect!:geek:

And from what I read I think you know for sure when a system works stable and when not. But of course the way you use your machine differs from others, e.g. me.

What I don't understand, and that was often the case in this discussion, is what others view as "cutting edge". For me software is cutting edge when we speak about beta or nightly versions. There, errors may happen, which should be fixed, and others may help here too. When we speak about stable this shouldn't be the case, but the software isn't cutting edge when it's "just" stable. I mean, for me that's a difference, my opinion is I need what is stable, and if I have the time I'll check beta or nightly versions of a software and help here or just use it because it does its job well already.

Especially jiml8 made me thinking with his post. I mean, I also work heavy with my Linux machines, but don't rely on them to pay my rent. That would be great, but the perspective is different.

In the end, I still share the opinion that the newest stable(!) software is what makes Linux attractive to me. And if I don't even have the choice to update my machine by myself, well, it just doesn't feel right. I'm a KDE loyal and I never can wait what the newest releases will show me. I am always there to mod things here and there to get everything working after an update. It's one of the aspects I put the most effort in, this is me. What a pity Mageia doesn't share this view with me...

[doktor5000]

1) system won't boot up when storage media is plugged in before starting up computer -> in my case 1TB external hard drive. Stuck at start screen

How is that a KDE issue? Apart from that works just fine here. I've not seen any similar bug.

2) GTK and KDE won't work together, check newest(!) Firefox and Thunderbird releases and check icons in these applications. Boot several times, icons are sometimes there and sometimes not

Works just fine here - you may need to change GTK or KDE themes to see where that comes from.

3) Flash and/or YouTube in Firefox not working -> although this could also be a problem of Flash plugin, Flash in KDE, YouTube (unlikely), other

Works fine here

4) widgets on Desktop won't keep its user modified size after reboot -> in fact this is a bug I filed a report for in the past, this is very old, nothing happenend

Works fine here. Did you report that upstream at bugs.kde.org or in Mageia bugzilla?

5) sometimes it's not possible to shutdown the PC via the buttons in the task bar -> it isn't possible to use the buttons in menu bar either -> hardcore bug, no shutdown without console possible

There are forum threads about this.

6) Nvidia bugs affect KDE (or vice versa) -> some Blizzard games, although not officially supported, won't work when you start the game in full window mode -> workaround only via hacks in config files of games. Worked without a hassle up to release 4

How do you assume we fix nvidia bugs?

Overall, with just that listing, how do you assume that those issues will be solved, without further troubleshooting or even knowing the root cause for those issues?
If you want to try to tackle those issues, please create separate threads for each issue, after using the search function for similar topics.

[filip]

It's one of the aspects I put the most effort in, this is me. What a pity Mageia doesn't share this view with me...

It's nice that you're doing that and you're most welcome in QA team but please remember that no one here represent official stance from Mageia as entity. We're individuals forming a community which you're also part of.

[ozky]

Qa team always need more testers,so if somebody want better quality and faster updates in mageia join to qa team they need it.