KubuntuFeistyKde4Plan

Revision 5 as of 2006-11-07 07:17:16

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Summary

Preparing Kubuntu for KDE 4.

Rationale

By packaging KDE 4 now we can work out packaging bugs and problems ahead of time.

Use cases

  • Bobby the developer wants to make sure his kde4 application will work flawlessly when kde4 is officially released. She installs a current version of ubuntu/kubuntu and installs the kde4 packages. By following a simple guide the developer sets up a kde4 environment. She will want to be able to run her normal kde3 apps while in this environment.

Chuck the power user is curious and wants to run kde4 before it's officially supported. However most kde3 apps are not ported yet so he wants to run kde3 apps inside the kde4 environment.

Scope

Putting KDE4 in fiesty for developers and early adopters to ensure it works reliably and is ready to become the default as soon as KDE 4 is released.

Design

Users need to be able to run KDE 3 apps inside a KDE 4 environment. We can not insist on only KDE 4 apps inside a KDE 4 environment because some users will want to run apps that have not been ported yet.

Feisty Implementation

While KDE 3 is still default we will package any upstream pre-releases of KDE 4 programmes as long as they compile and are mostly stable to run. We will use .kde4 instead of .kde for the settings directory to ensure the users's KDE 3 settings are not lost when using KDE 4. This should be automatically created when the KDE 4 environment is first run. Only application settings will be copied, soe.g. no cache or emails but it should migrate bookmarks.

All packages will be prefixed with kde4-, so KOffice 2 will be kde4-koffice. The packages will install to /usr/lib/kde4 as currently in Edgy. These packages will be in universe.

Currently it is impossible to install KDE 3 and KDE 4 in the same place. We would like to install both to /usr when KDE 4 is released. To ensure this is possible we will work with upstream to ensure libexec support is implemented which will put system binaries used by kdelibs (e.g. kded, kbuildsycoca, klaunch, kdeinit) in /usr/lib/kde4/libexec not /usr/bin. This will stop them clashing with the same files from KDE 3.

We will package the KDE 4 Oxygen icon theme for Kubuntu. We will implement the icon naming specification for KDE 4. This requires listing the desired icons in KDE 4, naming them in a manor consistent with the icon naming scheme naming style. KDE 4 will be converted to the new names and the Tango icon tools should be extended to include the complete icon naming spec creating symlinks to the old names which will allow the icons to be used in KDE 3 applications too, giving a consistent look and feel to a mixed KDE 3/4 desktop.

Some applications developed within Kubuntu or heavily contributed to by Kubuntu developers will need to be ported to KDE 4. These are:

  • kwin-style-crystal window decoration, query with upstream the progress on this
  • ksplah-moodin login splash. Query the maintainer, but since this is a fork of a Linspire project it may not get ported for a while, so likely we will need to port it ourselves, or drop it.
  • katapult. Maintainer (a Kubuntu developer) has some plans to port to KDE 4 but no timetable set.
  • guidance. Maintainer (Kubuntu developers) plan to port as soon as KDE 4 Python bindings available

When KDE 4 is Released

When KDE 4 is released (post feisty) we will make a remastered Kubuntu CD with KDE 4 (and KOffice 2). Depending on the timing with the next Kubuntu release we will start replacing KDE 3 packages with KDE 4 packages. The packages will be changed to install in /usr and have the kde4- prefix on the binary package name removed. .kde will be used for settings and any .kde4 directory will not be used or migrated. Oxygen icons will be used for KDE 3 and KDE 4 applications using the symlink method noted above.

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