KDE neon

[vinnywright]

so tonight I added the neon repo ,,, to 16.04,,,,,,,,,,,,

kinfocenter reports this ............................



kde-spectacle got removed during the 331 package upgrade do to dependency probs

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 kde-spectacle : Depends: libkf5screen-bin
                 Depends: libkf5screen6 (>= 5.1.1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

but so far everything seems ok ,,,,,,,,well had to install ksnapshot for the screenshot ,,,, add it to the menu(kickoff) by hand and reassign the shortcut key ..........well I guess I could have used "import" but that would need and open terminal as well

I used the stable branch ,,,,,,,,the new grub screen and plymouth splash are weird ,,,grub is harder to edit , the cursor turns into one big line underscoring the text .

back with more as we see it.

VINNY

[Snowhog]

Basically the same experience I had.

I think that the only significant difference 'at the moment' between KDE neon 15.04 and 16.04 is the kernel. There are likely other subtle differences in some of the underlying packages, but as you pointed out, there isn't much visually different between KDE neon running on 15.04 and KDE neon running on 16.04.

[GreyGeek]

Encouraged by Snowhogs efforts I attempted an upgrade of my guest OS Neon 15.04, following his suggestions. About 1,385 packages were modified in some way, with additions or deletions.
The process died attempting to install Kubuntu-desktop with an error msg saying the kde-spectacle could not be installed because libkf5screen-bin and libkf5screen7 and libkf5screen6 could not be installed because of pgk hell. It also gave an "autoremove" suggestion.



I tried the recommended "dpkg --configure -a" and "apt-get -f install" but both returned unresolvable errors. I opened Muon and checked the repositories. They were pointing to 16.04. I added the Ubuntu 16.04 repository, and then did another update & upgrade, but got the same errors. I did the autoremove and then repeated the fix commands. Now they returned nothing. So, I rebooted. During the boot an error about not being able to find plymouth was printed but the boot continued. I got the login page and proceeded to do so. A desktop came, but it looked exactly like my previous one. I checked KInfo and it said I was running 16.04 with the same version of Plasma5 that was running before. Muon threw a crash notice when I closed it, but when I reopened it and checked to see what version of libkf5screen were installed I saw that libkf5screen7 was installed by libkf5screen6 was not.

[kubicle]

Much appreciated. Made the corrections and this solved the problem, which was also preventing package cleanup.

The package is also fixed in the repos now.

[NoWorries]

Yes, I am fully aware of the risk associated with the ppa's that I have chosen. I am only doing this on a system that I am prepared to risk, ie its my sacrificial desktop. I should point out that the references that I gave for the ppa's that I selected, have the caveats that you mention. So if anyone plans to take my approach, they can go to the references and make their own decision.

The approach that I have taken is to test the status of software development progress. It is also handy to see what is being developed. For example, I was thinking that muon was being abandoned and I was heartened to see it at version 5.5.0.

I have also noticed that a new version of kscreen is being developed. I have for some time now been frustrated with my stock standard version of xenial frequently changing my default panel to the external monitor. I then have to shift it back. Also the nvidia driver only works properly when the external monitor is on the right and I want it on the left. I think this problem is related to the previous "feature". I have not filed a bug report on this and am waiting to see if this problem is fixed as I solve it my deleting the kscreen directory.

[kubicle]

1. You should be very careful with staging and landing ppas (especially staging), these are meant for developers and testers, respectively, and are not meant to be used on production systems.
So a level of breakage is to be expected (of course this is also possible with Neon and ci-unstable so perhaps you are ok with that, just make sure you understand what each ppa is for).

2. There are no backports ppas available for the devel release (currently xenial), "backporting" is packaging newer versions of software for older releases of *buntu, this is not necessary in devel versions as newer software goes directly to the main repos.

3. KDE Neon should not be confused with the "old" project neon ppa in launchpad, KDE Neon's repos are not ppas hosted on launchpad, they are hosted on KDE servers (http://archive.neon.kde.org/)

[NoWorries]

I have just re-enabled my sources list but in my haste I didn't check that it was set to xenial. Anyhow, I now have a system that doesn't boot.

Edit:
I did have xenial set but the option was unstable which I have now set to stable. Still fails to come up with a login screen, just a black screen.

I now have my system up and running without having to do a re-installation. This is now what Info Center shows.



To get this result I added the following ppa's

[B]ppa:kubuntu-ci/unstable
ppa:kubuntu-ppa/ppa-landing[/B]
[B]ppa:kubuntu-ppa/staging-plasma[/B]

I got these from here and here. As you can see I am taking a risk by getting the latest. So far so good and I enjoy getting all the updates each day.

I did try the ppa's for neon and backports but I got the 404 error, ie

E: The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports-landing/ubuntu xenial Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
E: The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/project-neon/ppa/ubuntu xenial Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
Reading package lists... Done

For the muon package manager lovers, I am pleased to report that it is now at version 5.5.0 and it can be exited in the normal way that is used for other applications. The default panel has new icons. For adding widgets there is a spanner, and for the network manage an adjacent up and down arrow. All these make a pleasing change. The login-in screen is also nicely revamped.

Overall the changes are very eye catching and I like the new look. Well done developers!!!!!!!

[Snowhog]

Much appreciated. Made the corrections and this solved the problem, which was also preventing package cleanup.

[kubicle]

The problem is with update-alternatives and the cited item, which in fact doesn't exist.

That's a bug in packaging/post install script, the package installs the breeze plymouth themes in /usr/share/plymouth/themes/, but the post installation script uses /lib/plymouth/themes/ for the update-alternatives commands.

You can either:
1. purge the package for now, and wait for it to be fixed, or
2. fix the paths in /var/lib/dpkg/info/plymouth-theme-breeze.postinst:

configure)
update-alternatives \
--install /usr/share/plymouth/themes/default.plymouth default.plymouth \
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/breeze/breeze.plymouth 160 \
--slave /usr/share/plymouth/themes/default.grub default.plymouth.grub \
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/breeze/breeze.grub || error "Failed to update-alternatives"
update-alternatives \
--install /usr/share/plymouth/themes/text.plymouth text.plymouth \
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/breeze-text/breeze-text.plymouth 160 \
|| error "Failed to update-alternatives text.plymouth"

And then run "sudo dpkg --configure -a"

EDIT: You might also want to change the paths in the pre removal script (/var/lib/dpkg/info/plymouth-theme-breeze.prerm), so that the alternatives are correctly removed if you wish to uninstall the package at some point

[Snowhog]

Now running KDE neon on 16.04. Simple enough, just ran sudo do-release-upgrade -d then after it completed, uncommented the neon repository entry in sources.list and updated/dist-upgraded. Runs fine.

Added:

There is one minor issue that doesn't seem to affect my system, but that I'd like to resolve if possible.

When running sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, the following appears at the end:

Setting up plymouth-theme-breeze (5.6.0+git20160405.1330+16.04-0) ...
update-alternatives: error: alternative path /lib/plymouth/themes/breeze/breeze.plymouth doesn't exist
E: Failed to update-alternatives
dpkg: error processing package plymouth-theme-breeze (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
plymouth-theme-breeze
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

The problem is with update-alternatives and the cited item, which in fact doesn't exist.

[dequire]

I think I will permanently be switching to Neon - User Edition once: 1) Xenial has a point release or two, and 2) AMD releases a working AMDGPU driver that works better than the now depreciated flgrx driver. Both should happen over the summer or early fall. Looking forward to it!

[kubicle]

Okay. So, given that I was running KDE neon on top of a Wily installation (per their instructions), would I change all instances of wily to xenial in sources.list, or just the entries for http://archive.neon.kde.org.uk/?

If you are using kubuntu wily, you should continue using the kde neon wily repos. The kde neon xenial repos are for kubuntu xenial, and you can switch to them once you upgrade/install kubuntu xenial.

Note that these kde neon repos are still the devel pouches (git-stable and git-unstable)...user repos with just stable kde releases will open some time after kubuntu xenial's release.
(as already mentioned by NickStone)

[NoWorries]

Okay. So, given that I was running KDE neon on top of a Wily installation (per their instructions), would I change all instances of wily to xenial in sources.list, or just the entries for http://archive.neon.kde.org.uk/?

I have just re-enabled my sources list but in my haste I didn't check that it was set to xenial. Anyhow, I now have a system that doesn't boot.

Edit:
I did have xenial set but the option was unstable which I have now set to stable. Still fails to come up with a login screen, just a black screen.

[Snowhog]

I would imagine it's just switching the repos from "wily" to "xenial" and then "sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade".
Haven't actually tested the upgrade, though, as I never had their "wily" repos active. (waited for the xenial repos to come available)

Okay. So, given that I was running KDE neon on top of a Wily installation (per their instructions), would I change all instances of wily to xenial in sources.list, or just the entries for http://archive.neon.kde.org.uk/?

I would imagine it's just switching the repos from "wily" to "xenial" and then "sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade".
Haven't actually tested the upgrade, though, as I never had their "wily" repos active. (waited for the xenial repos to come available)

According to their web site

A choice of four archives of packages built from either stable releases of KDE Software, beta releases, stable Git branches or unstable Git branches. Currently only Git unstable or Git stable is available.

These instructions are for the developer builds. We plan to offer stable builds soon, but be aware these package may cause breakage.

If you cannot upgrade you must be on the user edition not developer edition.