Wednesday, May 29, 2013

News from the 2013/05 Gentoo KDE team meeting

Last week we had our monthly Gentoo KDE team meeting; here are few details that are probably worth sharing.
  • So far we've provided the useflag "semantic-desktop" which in particular controls the nepomuk functionality. Some components of KDE require this functionality unconditionally, and if you try to build without it, bugs and build failures may occur. In addition, by now it is easily and reliably possible to disable e.g. the file indexer at runtime. So, we've decided that starting with KDE 4.11 we will remove the useflag and hard-enable the functionality and the required dependencies in the ebuilds. The changes are being done already in the KDE overlay in the live ebuilds (which build upstream git master and form the templates for the upcoming 4.11 releases).
  • After recent experiences the plan to drop kdepim-4.4 is off the table again. We will keep it in the portage tree as alternative version and try to support it until it finally breaks.
  • In the meantime we (well, mainly Chris Reffett) have started in the KDE overlay to package Plasma Active, the tablet Plasma workspace environment. Since Gentoo ARM support is already excellent, this may become a highly valuable addition. Unfortunately, it's not really ready yet for the main tree and general use, but packaging work will continue in the overlay- what we need most is testing and bug reporting!
Independent of the meeting, a stabilization request has already been filed for KDE 4.10.3;  thanks to the work of the kde stable testers, we can keep everyone uptodate. And as a final note, my laptop is back to kmail1... Cheers!

Edit, 13/6/2013: Johu has posted a blog entry on how to disable the semantic desktop functionality at runtime.

12 comments:

  1. The saddest news you could give me! :( The semantic-desktop USE flag is the one way I can get a stable, fast, and lightweight KDE. To me is half the reason I use Gentoo at all.

    Loosing it means i'll have to uninstall KDE, hack the ebuild by hand, or change distro... my, some choice!! :(

    Time to evaluate opensuse's KlyDE... sigh.

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  2. I agree with every word HackSaw says.
    @ Andreas - By 'some components' you mean Amarok, right? Even if you disable virtuoso at runtime, all the nepomuk crap and it's dependencies still uses valuable (to me, atleast) ram. Not to mention the additional time (lots, I run Atom) to compile a whole ton of software that I neither want nor use. The semantic-desktop flag is default on, so let the people who want to go through the effort of stripping KDE deal with the potential consequences. Do we not take this risk every time we modify a USE flag from maintainers default?

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    1. It also comes into play in packages dolphin, gwenview, and of course the entire kdepim suite.

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    2. Well, Kontact already forces "semantic-desktop" on kdepimlibs and kdelibs, so no need to remove the flag globally. If users are fine with no kdepim, why force them to install nepomuk?
      Same with Gwenview. It's a nice software, but hardly a core KDE component. If it really need semantic-desktop so bad, it could force the USE as a requirement, as kontact already does. People wanting a lightweight DE will use another image viewer.

      What's the problem exactly with Dolphin 4.11? 4.10 works perfectly with no nepomuk and the like...

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    3. @ Andreas - Dolphin and Gwenview both work fine without nepomuk, as all it does in those two apps is enable tagging and favorites. I never (or will ever) use either of these two features. Getting rid of them in Gentoo was a huge plus. Ahh, the ENTIRE kdepim suite. OF COURSE. Again, I (and likely many others) don't use this software. At all. Ever. So why are you (royally; the gentoo kde team) going full Shuttleworth and basically forcing me to run a whole bunch of software I don't want? And don't try and claim technical reasons, because that's bullshit. After I did a bit of research, it turns out someone already tried this before, and it ended up getting reverted. It was a bad idea the first time, and it's a bad idea now.

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    4. I disabled 'Nepomuk Semantic Desktop' in systemsettings and not one related process is running after restart.

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    5. @ genstorm - Not directly, no, but dependent processes like akonadi are.
      @ everyone - I decided it might be wise to rebuild +semantic-desktop globally, to see for myself what would actually happen. After 8 hours of compiling (Atom N270) the answer is about 10 additional megs of ram at idle and about 2 extra seconds to boot. There is no performance penalty to load gwenview or dolphin. kdelibs took an additional 10 minutes to compile (2h 15 vs 2h 5); the flag system wide should not increase my compile times by more than a percentage point or two. Given that the hit is extremely minimal: I do apologise for getting prematurely butthurt, and I welcome our new semantic overlords.

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    6. I do not own an atom machine, but if your concerns about nepomuk are due to slow performances experienced beofore kde-4.10, I highly suggest to give it a second chance, things have changed quite a lot lately...

      This may be enlighting:
      http://www.muktware.com/5417/semantic-desktop-akonadi-and-nepomuk

      my 2 cents

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  3. Please keep "-semantic-desktop". If it is not possible can you at least make migration guide on how to turn off all the functionality for good?

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    Replies
    1. We will at least make some blog post how to disable it at runtime before this enters the main tree, sure.

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  4. Hope you get all those hidden spots like events in every clock (will automatically start akonadi) :)

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  5. Boo, hiss! I asked Larry the Cow and he said he is strongly in support of keeping the semantic-desktop useflag.

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