1. Mageia 5 (beta3) network install
Desktop Selection -> Custom
Package Group Selection -> Unselect All and then select only Plasma Desktop.
Let the installation finish and boot into SDDM and then into Plasma5 if everything went OK. Be warned that this is just a plain Plasma 5 desktop – no KDE Frameworks 5 (KF5) applications yet in Mageia. Except Konsole.
2. Add Plasma5 packages
Fortunately there are some Plasma 5 applications that are available but not yet installed and what extend the current setup (adding support for Plasma 5 default font, wallpapers preview, file associations setup, power management, qt4 applications icon support in system tray etc, see also bug 13883). Open Konsole and as root:
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urpmi --no-recommends kio-extras powerdevil kde-cli-tools ksysguard kmenuedit plasma5-baloo oxygen-fonts sni-qt
3. Add polkit
There's currently no way to launch applications that need authentication (Mageia control Centre (MCC) etc – Plasma 5 polkit is missing in Mageia (see also bug 14910). Workaround is to use Mate-polkit which is installed anyway. Open the following file:
/etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1.desktop
in your favourite editor and edit the last line to:
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OnlyShowIn=MATE;XFCE;OPENBOX;KDE;Old;
Log out and back in and start configuring your desktop with Plasma 5 Systemsettings application.
4. Network selection ability
Mageia's Net-Applet is not compatible with Plasma 5. To get the ability of switching network connections a workaround is to switch to networkmanager:
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urpmi --no-recommends plasma5-applet-nm
After the installation finishes:
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systemctl disable network.service
systemctl disable network-up.service
systemctl enable NetworkManager.service
systemctl enable NetworkManager-wait-online.service
systemctl enable ModemManager.service
* Modemmanager is needed if you have a mobile broadband hardware.
5. Pulseaudio support + mixer
Now it is time to reboot, but a good idea is to enable pulseaudio and sound volume control support also. As there is no Plasma 5 Kmix yet in Mageia, then we can use Pulse Audio Volume Control:
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urpmi --no-recommends pavucontrol
Reboot. Now you will see networkmanager applet in the system tray and you can connect to wifi networks, however there is no network traffic yet. Workaround is to configure one wireless network with MCC indicating that it is controlled by networkmanager. Then the networkmanager applet starts working OK. It is not possible to add a mobile broadband connection with the applet (seems to be a Mageia issue), but if you have a preconfigured one, the applet picks it up and you can use it.
6. File Manager
As we have (in Mageia) no Plasma 5 Dolphin yet, the only other file manager that integrates with Plasma 5 is pcmanfm-qt from the LXQt DE (with gvfs):
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urpmi --no-recommends pcmanfm-qt gvfs gvfs-archive gvfs-mtp gvfs-smb
7. Image viewer + snapshot
Also from LXQt DE – lximage-qt (or some other qt5 image viewer like phototonic or eyesight):
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urpmi --no-recommends lximage-qt
8. Other utilities & applications
Until there are no KF5 & Plasma 5 native utilities and applications in Mageia we have to "borrow". Preferably Qt5 ones like the abovementioned image viewers, transmission-qt5, qupzilla, cutegram etc. Qt4 applications like Skype, VLC etc can also put their icons in Plasma 5 system tray. As we have basic mate support installed anyway, then engrampa integrates well with pcmanfm-qt. Simply - use what you prefer...
9. Acknowledgements
The above could not be possible without the efforts of Mageia team! Special thanks to following team members: neoclust for Qt5, KF5 and Plasma 5; doctor5000 for LXQt; lmenut for sni-qt; sander85 for fixing many unsatisfied dependecies and many others.