KDE 3.3.2 packages now available in experimental
Hello all,
[Sorry for the crossposting, please follow-up to debian-kde only.]
KDE 3.3.2 in experimental
=========================
As you may have noticed, many KDE 3.3.2 modules have been uploaded
to experimental during the last few days. These packages include
numerous fixes to old and recent bugs, plus the new upstream codebase,
so we encourage you to test them and give us some feedback.
Anyway, remember that they are in the experimental distribution,
which means they may have serious new problems. If you find a bug,
please do report it, but be sure to tag the report as pertaining to
the experimental packages. Also, take into account that this coming
week is the Holiday Season, so response times may be poor.
As upgrading to experimental may be cumbersone, we've set up an
alternate repository in Alioth. Just add this to your sources.list
file:
deb http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/kde-3.3.2 ./
Those are the very same packages as the ones in experimental (*), but
here a simple apt-get update && apt-get upgrade will work. However,
as Alioth is a little overloaded these days, we kindly ask that you
install from your usual mirror if you can.
(*) Except for kde-i18n, which is not in experimental, and was
fetched from http://people.debian.org/~noel/kde-i18n. kdepim,
while has been uploaded to the archive, is not in the mirrors yet
since it needs NEW processing; packages were fetched from this
temporary archive: http://people.debian.org/~schepler/kdepim.
Why experimental instead of unstable
------------------------------------
These 3.3.2 packages have been uploaded to experimental, rather than
unstable for various reasons:
- First and most importantly, so as not to interfere with the KDE 3.3.1
transition to Sarge, which is pending. See below for details.
Using unstable would have thrown away all the effort that has
been put in having KDE 3.3.1 ready to enter Sarge.
- Also, as a lot of extra changes, apart from upgrading to
3.3.2, have been included, the possibility that these packages
contain new bugs is high. We've been using them for a week
now, and seem to work fine, but one never can tell...
- Lastly, the two people behind many of the changes are not Debian
Developers and have had (until now) little experience preparing
full releases of core KDE packages, further increasing the
possibility of breakage.
THE TRANSITION TO SARGE
=======================
Other than the latest release update [1], there has been no official
statement by any of the KDE people about the issue. So here goes:
"Yes, Sarge is expected to ship with KDE 3.3".
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2004/12/msg00006.html
Some weeks ago, the Release Managers expressed their concerns about
the transition to the members of the KDE Packaging Team, and then a
proposal that tried to address them was issued. After some fruitful
discussion, it was finally accepted. We sincerely thank the Release
Team for their excellent work, their consideration, and their
patience.
Why the transition hasn't happened yet
--------------------------------------
Although KDE is in pretty good shape and mostly ready to enter
Sarge, the transition is blocked by another transition involving
gcc-3.4, glibc and some other packages. This happens with some
frequency in testing (one transition blocking another one, e.g. the
libtiff transition not so long ago), and it's just a matter of time
until it gets solved. The people involved in the gcc-3.4/glibc issue
are working on it at the moment.
So, will Sarge have KDE 3.3.1 or 3.3.2
--------------------------------------
That's a question that only time can answer. Although KDE 3.3.2 is
certainly (as always) an improvement over 3.3.1, we really just can't
upload 3.3.2 to sid until 3.3.1 is in Sarge, since that would mean
to risk having the transition not happen at all!
So, the plan is:
1. Get KDE 3.3.1 into sarge
2. Upload KDE 3.3.2 to sid *if* the experimental packages have not
shown any major bugs *and* all the people involved in KDE
packaging agree it's time to do so.
After that, and once KDE is in shape again (built on all
architectures, no Release Critical bugs, etc.), it will be a
decision in the hands of the Release Managers.
CALL FOR HELP
=============
We'd also like to take this opportunity to ask for help from users
in continuing to improve KDE in Debian. The KDE packages are
enormous, and take a great deal of time to maintain properly. One
particular task where users could be of great assistance is the
writing of proper package descriptions. Few KDE packages have more
than a bit of marketing boilerplate at the moment. Please help us by
writing good, useful descriptions, made available in severity minor
bugs against the relevant package. You may find this debian-kde
thread [2] of some interest.
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/2004/11/msg00093.html
If you're feeling really ambitious, manpages would also be very
welcome for packages currently lacking.
PEOPLE
======
KDE 3.3.2 packaging credits:
- kde-i18n packages were prepared by Noèl Köthe.
- kdepim and kdegames packages were prepared by Daniel Schepler.
- arts, kdelibs, kdebase, kdegraphics, kdemultimedia, kdenetwork,
kdeadmin, kdeaccesibility and kdeutils packages were prepared by
Christopher Martin and Adeodato Simó.
Also a big thanks to:
- Daniel Schepler, who sponsored all the experimental uploads done
by Adeodato and Christopher.
- Riku Voipio, who has been very active in getting KDE 3.3.1 in
shape and ready for Sarge.
- Chris Cheney, who (needless to say) has done the enormous task
of maintaining many of the packages for a long time, and who
shall be active again soon.
Enjoy!
-- Christopher Martin, Adeodato Simó
--
Adeodato Simó
EM: asp16 [ykwim] alu.ua.es | PK: DA6AE621
Listening to: Martirio - Mañana de carnaval
Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay.
Love isn't love 'til you give it away.
-- Oscar Hammerstein II
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