KDE Frameworks 5.4 Officially Released

[Luke_Wolf]

Does this make it a good time to jump to KDEF 5?
Or should we still wait on?

I remember jumping to KDE 4.0, and I do not want to get the same experience with 5, that's why I'm still waiting...

Unless you're a developer of an application you literally can't jump onto KDE Frameworks 5, but if you were a developer now would be the time to be transitioning over to using it.

[geearf]

Unless you're a developer of an application you literally can't jump onto KDE Frameworks 5, but if you were a developer now would be the time to be transitioning over to using it.

I meant as a user, using KDEF 5 apps.

[Luke_Wolf]

I meant as a user, using KDEF 5 apps.

As a user, that's literally not up to you other than in choosing to run the latest KDE applications release or not. the next KDE Applications release will be a mix of KF5 and KDELib 4 apps, and then the next one after that is supposed to be mostly KF5 based apps, there really isn't an either or situation for you to choose from.

[geearf]

But there is, I can stick to only KDE4 apps, or mix 4 and 5 (though I'd say I'd like to jump to 5 when I don't need much from 4 anymore)

[Luke_Wolf]

But there is, I can stick to only KDE4 apps, or mix 4 and 5 (though I'd say I'd like to jump to 5 when I don't need much from 4 anymore)

If you're running KDE Application Releases no you can't. Sure with some repo magic... you can force the issue, but that's not how the releases are set up to work

This is how it's set up:
KDE SC 4.14 (The Current Release): KDELibs 4.x Release
KDE Applications 14.12: Mixed KDELibs 4.x and KF5 Release
KDE Applications ~15.6 (whatever 14.12.next() is): Intended to be a purely KF5 Release

Note that this has nothing to do with whether you're choosing to run KDE Plasma 5 or not, which I recommend you wait on till around 5.4

[geearf]

I didn't quite get what you meant by the first sentance.
My repos currently offer KDE4 and KDE5 apps separately (ie as different apps, not as upgrades), but I cannot install both work-spaces together as they conflict somehow :'/
Once the maintainers consider KDE5 apps as good enough, they'll drop their KDE4 versions.


As for the other, cool, I'll wait for that. Any special reason why 5.4 though?

[Luke_Wolf]

I didn't quite get what you meant by the first sentance.
My repos currently offer KDE4 and KDE5 apps separately (ie as different apps, not as upgrades), but I cannot install both work-spaces together as they conflict somehow :'/
Once the maintainers consider KDE5 apps as good enough, they'll drop their KDE4 versions.


As for the other, cool, I'll wait for that. Any special reason why 5.4 though?

Because that's about the time that it'll be feature complete vs the current state of Plasma 1. You can run it now but expect bugs and for plasmoids you use to have not been necessarily ported yet, and such. AFAIR some of the KCMs also still need to be ported, and there's other misc stuff that makes it really not ready yet for general consumption, but that's basically about the release version Kubuntu will be switching to it on.

[TheBlackCat]

But there is, I can stick to only KDE4 apps, or mix 4 and 5 (though I'd say I'd like to jump to 5 when I don't need much from 4 anymore)

No KDE applications have had official Frameworks 5 released yet. And there is no such thing as switching to "Frameworks 5", that is just a set of libraries applications can use (you can install them, but that would just be a waste of hard driver space until there is something that uses them installed). The only you could switch to right now is Plasma 5, which developers have explicitly stated is not ready for end-users yet.

[carewolf]

5.4 already!?!

Seems like only a few weeks since 5.0 was released and Plasma is already on 5.4!

I wasn't expecting KDE 6 for another 4/5 years or so but looks like we may see KDE 6 by summer at this rate!

To me it seems a bit too soon for Plasma to be at 5.4 before we even have stable(ish) K5 releases of dolphin, konsole etc.

KDE has become the Chrome of dot releases!

Yeah, I am not a fan of the monthly releases either. It makes the minor versions irrelevant and means that applications will have a HARD time defining any stable versions because nothing is ever stable or released for more than a few weeks at a time.

What works for Chromium, works for Chromium, stop trying to copy it places where it doesn't belong, especially in frameworks that unlike applications NEEDS to be stable for months to even get a single app developer to take it serious.

[TheBlackCat]

Yeah, I am not a fan of the monthly releases either. It makes the minor versions irrelevant and means that applications will have a HARD time defining any stable versions because nothing is ever stable or released for more than a few weeks at a time.

Frameworks has a binary compatibility guarantee. Applications written for an earlier version of a framework will work just fine, without even needing a recompile, on later versions. So developers can just pick the earliest version that has the features they need.