Fedora 22 updates for KDE Plasma 5.4.3 and KDE Frameworks 5.16.0

[Fredy Neeser]

Hi list,

The Fedora 22 update to Plasma 5.4.3 this past weekend was rather painful.
After fully applying the F22 updates from 'stable' on Nov. 13/14, with KDE
updates including

   plasma-workspace 5.4.3-1.fc22.x86_64, kwin* 5.4.3-1.fc22

(some of these arrived on Nov. 13, some others on Nov. 14),  I had an
unusable desktop
  - Wallpaper, widgets and KDE panel missing
  - A few windows appear but are not responsive
  - kdeactivitymanagerd crashes almost at every login

 with tons of crashes (highly repeatable) in
    kf5-kded
    kf5-kactivities
    plasma-workspace

First I wanted to revert the Plasma updates, but  'dnf downgrade' did not
allow me to revert to the previous version, only to a much older version --
Any idea why downgrade does not work?  - Has the previous Plasma version
disappeared?  Can this be fixed?

Then I found some discrepancies between Plasma package versions that are in
"stable" for F23 but still in "updates-testing" for F22, namely:
    kf5-kded, kf5* (stable: 5.15.0-1.fc22.x86_64; updates-testing:
5.16.0-1.fc22.x86_64)
    kf5-kactivities (stable: 5.15.0-1.fc22.x86_64; updates-testing:
5.16.0-1.fc22.x86_64)
    plasma-workspace* (stable: 5.4.3-1.fc22.x86_64 ; updates-testing:
5.4.3-2.fc22)

After locating the Plasma 5.4.3 announcement
     https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.4.3.php

the solution was obvious:

  # dnf --enablerepo=updates-testing update plasma-workspace
  # dnf --enablerepo=updates-testing update kf5*

Apparently, muon is needed for fixing some things in apper (see above
announcement), but muon was missing entirely on my system (which was
upgraded earlier from Fedora 20 -> 22).
  # dnf install muon

At this point, Plasma 5.4.3 (including my external monitor) worked
reasonably well with a new user account, but not with my existing user
account.  So, I decided to clean up my existing user account as follows:

Logout from KDE, open a VT and backup config as follows:
  $ cd
  $ mkdir kde-old-config
  $ mv .config ~/kde-old-config
  $ mv .local ~/kde-old-config
  $ mv .kde ~/kde-old-config

At this point, Plasma 5.4.3 is stable for my existing user account (at
least as stable as 5.3.2  ...).


My main question is whether the "KDE update experience" for users of Fedora
22 "stable" can be improved in the future.  Are there any dependencies
missing between Plasma 5 and KDE Frameworks 5 releases?

Thanks,

______________________________________________________

Fredy Neeser, Ph. D.
Research Staff Member
Cloud & Computing Infrastructure

IBM Zurich Research Laboratory
CH-8803 Rueschlikon, Switzerland

[Sudhir Khanger]

On Monday 16 Nov 2015 2:08:05 PM Fredy Neeser wrote:
>  Logout from KDE, open a VT and backup config as follows:
>    $ cd
>    $ mkdir kde-old-config
>    $ mv .config ~/kde-old-config
>    $ mv .local ~/kde-old-config
>    $ mv .kde ~/kde-old-config
>  
>  At this point, Plasma 5.4.3 is stable for my existing user account (at
>  least as stable as 5.3.2  ...). 
Isn't that like losing settings of all of your programs aka a new account 
anyways?

-- 
Regards,
Sudhir Khanger,
sudhirkhanger.com.

[Fredy Neeser]

>  From: Sudhir Khanger <ml(a)sudhirkhanger.com&gt;
>  To: KDE on Fedora discussion <kde(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  Date: 16.11.2015 16:42
>  Subject: Re: Fedora 22 updates for KDE Plasma 5.4.3 and KDE Frameworks 
5.16.0
>  Sent by: kde-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>
>  On Monday 16 Nov 2015 2:08:05 PM Fredy Neeser wrote:
>  > Logout from KDE, open a VT and backup config as follows:
>  >   $ cd
>  >   $ mkdir kde-old-config
>  >   $ mv .config ~/kde-old-config
>  >   $ mv .local ~/kde-old-config
>  >   $ mv .kde ~/kde-old-config
>  >
>  > At this point, Plasma 5.4.3 is stable for my existing user account (at
>  > least as stable as 5.3.2  ...).
>
>  Isn't that like losing settings of all of your programs aka a new account 
>  anyways? 
True, I had to restore my desktop (widgets) as well as some KDE
application settings  :-(

However, there doesn't really seem to be a clean upgrade procedure
for the KDE settings in .config, .local and .kde, and with the update
to Plasma 5.4.3, KDE got so confused that it wouldn't work properly
with my old KDE settings.
(Not sure if there are any attempts to move KDE application settings
 to a more robust database approach).

Given that my existing user account was from F20 times and updated to F22,
it was easier to clean up the settings and restore them on an as-needed
basis from ~/kde-old-config, rather than trying to "fix" the accumulated
history in the 3 folders ...

This way I can rule out that KDE apps are crashing because of
obsolete / misleading application settings.

I hope such drastic cleaning won't be needed after future Plasma 5 updates.

Best regards,
Fredy Neeser
IBM Zurich Research


>  Regards,
>  Sudhir Khanger,
>  sudhirkhanger.com.

[Reindl Harald]

Am 16.11.2015 um 17:08 schrieb Fredy Neeser:
> > From: Sudhir Khanger <ml(a)sudhirkhanger.com&gt;
> > On Monday 16 Nov 2015 2:08:05 PM Fredy Neeser wrote:
> >> Logout from KDE, open a VT and backup config as follows:
> >>    $ cd
> >>    $ mkdir kde-old-config
> >>    $ mv .config ~/kde-old-config
> >>    $ mv .local ~/kde-old-config
> >>    $ mv .kde ~/kde-old-config
> >>
> >> At this point, Plasma 5.4.3 is stable for my existing user account (at
> >> least as stable as 5.3.2  ...).
> >
> > Isn't that like losing settings of all of your programs aka a new account
>
>  True, I had to restore my desktop (widgets) as well as some KDE
>  application settings  :-(
>
>  However, there doesn't really seem to be a clean upgrade procedure
>  for the KDE settings in .config, .local and .kde, and with the update
>  to Plasma 5.4.3, KDE got so confused that it wouldn't work properly
>  with my old KDE settings.
>  (Not sure if there are any attempts to move KDE application settings
>  to a more robust database approach).
>
>  Given that my existing user account was from F20 times and updated to F22,
>  it was easier to clean up the settings and restore them on an as-needed
>  basis from ~/kde-old-config, rather than trying to "fix" the accumulated
>  history in the 3 folders ... 
no idea what exactly your problem was / is but F20 updated to F22 is 
nothing - my current userhome is from F9 and runs Plasma 5.4.3 / KF 
5.16.0 on F23 without purge all

widgets and some application settings got lost anyways by the switch to 
KDE5 but i don't see a reason to purge everything when before larger 
updates a backup of the userhome and in doubt "dnf downgrade" would work 
for a restore

[Sudhir Khanger]

On Monday 16 Nov 2015 5:14:11 PM Reindl Harald wrote:
>  widgets and some application settings got lost anyways by the switch
> to 
>  KDE5 but i don't see a reason to purge everything when before larger 
>  updates a backup of the userhome and in doubt "dnf downgrade" would work 
>  for a restore 
I think I should use something like dnf local plugin which keeps a local copy 
of all rpms. That way undo/rollback will always work.

-- 
Regards,
Sudhir Khanger,
sudhirkhanger.com.

[Tom Back]

Thanks to Fredy's insights I got my system working.

After doing a backup I:

    -- installed muon
    -- upgraded to F23

Everything now works.  I still get the ritualistic krunner crash upon
login, but that's been tradition for me since the beginning ofplasma 5.

Thanks.



On 11/16/2015 02:08 PM, Fredy Neeser wrote:
>  Then I found some discrepancies between Plasma package versions that
> are in
>  "stable" for F23 but still in "updates-testing" for F22, namely:
>      kf5-kded, kf5* (stable: 5.15.0-1.fc22.x86_64; updates-testing:
>  5.16.0-1.fc22.x86_64)
>      kf5-kactivities (stable: 5.15.0-1.fc22.x86_64; updates-testing:
>  5.16.0-1.fc22.x86_64)
>      plasma-workspace* (stable: 5.4.3-1.fc22.x86_64 ; updates-testing:
>  5.4.3-2.fc22) 
>  the solution was obvious:
>
>    # dnf --enablerepo=updates-testing update plasma-workspace
>    # dnf --enablerepo=updates-testing update kf5*
>
>  Apparently, muon is needed for fixing some things in apper (see above
>  announcement), but muon was missing entirely on my system (which was
>  upgraded earlier from Fedora 20 -> 22).
>    # dnf install muon

[Rex Dieter]

Fredy Neeser wrote:

>  
>  Hi list,
>  
>  The Fedora 22 update to Plasma 5.4.3 this past weekend was rather painful. 
I think we tracked down most of the problems to some plasma-5.4.3 packages 
inadvertantly depending on qt-5.5.1, which is still currently in f22 
updates-testing repo.

Several testers (including myself) confirmed that problems with missing 
symbols, like
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1282261
and plasmashell not starting properly are resolved by installing qt-5.5.1 
packages from:
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2015-3c671e20a3

We're hoping others can help confirm that, and provide positive 
feedback/karma there to expedite this going to stable updates.


Sorry for the trouble introduced here, we are taking steps to help ensure 
something like that doesn't happen again.

-- Rex

[Fredy Neeser]

>  From: Rex Dieter <rdieter(a)math.unl.edu&gt;
>  Fredy Neeser wrote:
>
>  >
>  > Hi list,
>  >
>  > The Fedora 22 update to Plasma 5.4.3 this past weekend was rather 
painful.
>  I think we tracked down most of the problems to some plasma-5.4.3 
packages
>  inadvertantly depending on qt-5.5.1, which is still currently in f22
>  updates-testing repo.
>
>  Several testers (including myself) confirmed that problems with missing
>  symbols, like
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1282261
>  and plasmashell not starting properly are resolved by installing qt-5.5.1 
>  packages from:
>  https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2015-3c671e20a3 
Thanks for tracking down this issue.  I had noted that "Suspend" was
missing
after applying the Plasma 5.4.3 updates (as well as KDE Frameworks 5.16.0);
moreover, kscreen forgot the Display Configuration (for my dual monitor
setup)
at every logout, and the keyboard layout selector was missing as well.
Also kmix behaved strangely at some point.

>  We're hoping others can help confirm that, and provide positive
>  feedback/karma there to expedite this going to stable updates. 
Indeed, the issues listed above are now resolved after updating to
qt-5.5.1 from updates-testing:
- Missing symbol issue is gone
- kded & powerdevil run fine
  - Suspend & Clipboard functionality is now working
- kscreen no longer "forgets" the Display Configuration at logout

I updated all qt5 packages listed on the above bodhi page.  Note that some
of these were *missing* on my F22 (which was upgraded earlier from F20),
so I also installed

    python-qt5 and its dependencies
    qt5-qtdoc
    qt5-qtwayland
    qt5-qtimageformats
    qt5-qtquick1
    qt5-qttranslations

at this point, to be on the safe side.

==> Does anyone know if these packages provide essential/required
    functionality for Plasma 5? --
    If so, the upgrade procedure from Fedoras < F22 may need fixing.


Summary of my testing with kernel 4.1.3-201.fc22.x86_64
-------------------------------------------------------
Plasma 5.4.3 is now much more stable, external monitor with nouveau
is working as well, and login is really fast for me!
(I'll retest with kernel 4.2.5 later.)

For completeness, here's the Plasma 5.4.3 announcement (worth reading)
     https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.4.3.php


Other KDE/Plasma packages installed from updates-testing
--------------------------------------------------------
For the above testing, note that (as mentioned in a previous post)
I also installed these updates to get a usable desktop:

  # dnf --enablerepo=updates-testing update plasma-workspace
  # dnf --enablerepo=updates-testing update kf5*
  # dnf install muon

'muon' was also missing on my upgraded F22 system, not sure
how important it is for Apper (I haven't noticed any difference
in apper so far), probably unimportant for Plasma 5.4.3 ...

For other users out there, please note that I also performed a
clean sweep of ~/.config/, ~/.local  and ~/.kde
(if you do that, please keep a backup), because I had noted that
Plasma 5.4.3 worked much better with a new user account.
However, I cannot point to any specific culprits in my
previous KDE configuration.


>  Sorry for the trouble introduced here, we are taking steps to help
> ensure 
>  something like that doesn't happen again. 
No problem, I'm glad it works much better now.

Out of curiosity, which are the current mechanisms to prevent
Qt 5, Plasma 5, KF5 and KDE from getting out of sync?

Do these mechanisms require minor fixes (missing dependencies),
or what kind of steps do you have in mind?

Thanks again,
- Fredy

[Rex Dieter]

Fredy Neeser wrote:

>  I updated all qt5 packages listed on the above bodhi page.  Note that
> some
>  of these were *missing* on my F22 (which was upgraded earlier from F20),
>  so I also installed
>  
>      python-qt5 and its dependencies
>      qt5-qtdoc
>      qt5-qtwayland
>      qt5-qtimageformats
>      qt5-qtquick1
>      qt5-qttranslations
>  
>  at this point, to be on the safe side.
>  
>  ==> Does anyone know if these packages provide essential/required
>      functionality for Plasma 5? -- 
No

>  'muon' was also missing on my upgraded F22 system, not sure
>  how important it is for Apper  
It isn't important.


>  Out of curiosity, which are the current mechanisms to prevent
>  Qt 5, Plasma 5, KF5 and KDE from getting out of sync? 
Dependencies at the package level.

>  Do these mechanisms require minor fixes (missing dependencies),
>  or what kind of steps do you have in mind? 
Haven't decided yet exact, but probably one way is adding more strategically 
placed versioned dependencies to enforce Qt5 and KF5 versions across the 
stack of kf5 and plasma5 packages.

For example, if package plasma-foo is built against qt5-x.y.z, then enforce 
a runtime dependency like:
Requires: qt5 >= x.y.x

-- Rex

[Brad Hubbard]

Most recent qt and kf5 update fixed my vpn problem and maybe a couple of others.

I urge others to "hang in there" because these bugs are getting knocked over
and
there are always some workarounds you can employ.

I was having to run "sudo /usr/bin/kde5-nm-connection-editor" to be able to
connect so obviously some user auth issue but fixed now, thanks.

Cheers,
Brad

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rex Dieter" <rdieter(a)math.unl.edu&gt;
> To: kde(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> Sent: Wednesday, 18 November, 2015 3:34:12 AM
> Subject: Re: Fedora 22 updates for KDE Plasma 5.4.3 and KDE Frameworks 5.16.0
> 
> Fredy Neeser wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Hi list,
> > 
> > The Fedora 22 update to Plasma 5.4.3 this past weekend was rather painful.
> 
> I think we tracked down most of the problems to some plasma-5.4.3 packages
> inadvertantly depending on qt-5.5.1, which is still currently in f22
> updates-testing repo.
> 
> Several testers (including myself) confirmed that problems with missing
> symbols, like
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1282261
> and plasmashell not starting properly are resolved by installing qt-5.5.1
> packages from:
> https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2015-3c671e20a3
> 
> We're hoping others can help confirm that, and provide positive
> feedback/karma there to expedite this going to stable updates.
> 
> 
> Sorry for the trouble introduced here, we are taking steps to help ensure
> something like that doesn't happen again.
> 
> -- Rex
> 
> _______________________________________________
> kde mailing list
> kde(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/kde
> New to KDE4? - get help from http://userbase.kde.org

[Ed Greshko]

On 11/19/2015 07:56 AM, Brad Hubbard wrote:
>  Most recent qt and kf5 update fixed my vpn problem and maybe a couple
> of others. 
Good to know.  I plan on doing this update later today or tomorrow.
>  I urge others to "hang in there" because these bugs are getting knocked over
> and
>  there are always some workarounds you can employ. 
Yeah, I'm sticking with Plasma/KDE5 with all of the warts.  This can't improve if
folks
walk away.


-- 
In reality, some people should stick to running Windows and others should stay away from
computers altogether.

[Ed Greshko]

On 11/19/15 08:55, Ed Greshko wrote:
>  I plan on doing this update later today or tomorrow. 
I bit the bullet and updated.  Unfortunately it was not without substantial pain.  I
could
login, but the desktop would freeze almost immediately. 

Resorted to saving all my configuration information, then deleting, and starting to
rebuild my environment.    Going to take some time and I'll probably miss a few
things
along the way.  :-(

-- 
In reality, some people should stick to running Windows and others should stay away from
computers altogether.

[Rex Dieter]

Ed Greshko wrote:

>  
>  
>  
>  On 11/19/15 08:55, Ed Greshko wrote:
> > I plan on doing this update later today or tomorrow.
>  
>  I bit the bullet and updated.  Unfortunately it was not without
>  substantial pain.  I could login, but the desktop would freeze almost
>  immediately. 
To be sure, did you get qt5 5.5.1 as advised elsewhere in this thread?

-- Rex

[Ed Greshko]

On 11/19/15 22:41, Rex Dieter wrote:
>  Ed Greshko wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On 11/19/15 08:55, Ed Greshko wrote:
> >> I plan on doing this update later today or tomorrow.
> > I bit the bullet and updated.  Unfortunately it was not without
> > substantial pain.  I could login, but the desktop would freeze almost
> > immediately.
>  To be sure, did you get qt5 5.5.1 as advised elsewhere in this thread?
>  
Yes, I surely did.  :-(


-- 
In reality, some people should stick to running Windows and others should stay away from
computers altogether.