Please note that none of the kde-i18n localization packages are in sid yet.

however, smxi is ready for english users who don't need kde-i18n packages.

<update> kde-i18n-.. are changed now automatically to kde-l10n-... by smxi and reinstalled</update>

To do the test upgrade to kde 4, start smxi with -! 2: that's smxi -! 2
the spaces are required.

Right after it says: starting pre du fixes, it will launch the kde 3 to 4 conversion if you have kwin 3.x or kdm 3.x installed. And only if. This makes smxi work for all future kde 3-> 4 conversion, including on Lenny-> squeeze and Testing when it comes.

The procedure: by using some parsing of dkpg output, smxi creates a list of kde packages to reinstall. It will show you this list, and also all data used will be logged to /var/log/smxi.log so you can double check it.

Then it will remove all of kde, everything, and then reinstall kde 4 core then loop through your packages and try to reinstall each, one by one.

You'll need to confirm each, watch especially for kde 4 packages getting removed by something, if you see that, please tell me the package name and I'll add it to the blacklist.

When it's done it will show you a brief thing on kaboom and how to proceed.

This is so far tested and worked fine, although it took many tests to get it stable.

Please provide feedback if you decide to use this method.
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<update>smxi now will detect and update the KDE language packs, which have changed name from kde-i18n-<...) to kde-l10n-<...>

This makes all core aspects handled now for all users.

Still requires: smxi -! 2
to trigger KDE 3 to 4 conversion for now in smxi, but by Thursday this will probably be changed.
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I've been holding off on this one until I warn my significant annoyance that it is happening. It is her surf and email machine and she will require some retraining.

I have run smxi on two more or less sidux boxes that were running KDE 4.2.1 from experimental and the conversion to the unstable version of KDE 4.2.2 went without a hitch. Kaboom on start-up worked fine.

The only slight problem I encountered was that one machine was using Komba and that quit working so I tried Smb4K and that didn't work either as the 0.9.4-1 version currently in Debian does not function with the current Samba in sid.

An address for a repository with a current smb4k 0.10.2 deb binary provided by Alexander Reinholdt was found on the Smb4K web site.

All is good, I can mess with Windows boxes easily again.

I'll report back when I build up the nerve to convert that KDE3 box.

Thanks,

UncleVom
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I ran the update, everything went fine. Only thing I did after was to go back to init 3 and apt-get install kde4, which brought in everything kde4. I probably didn't need everything but I have plenty of space and all that so I went for it. Everything installed smoothly and without incident.

Thanks, h2. I wouldn't dare do some of this stuff without smxi.
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Update: the kde-l10n packages are now in Debian Sid proper, that was the last step to putting this all fully live, no testing mode required, so I'll put it live in a few minutes.
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fine tuning of kde package reinstall now, removing packages that are not in Sid, adding new package replacements to stuff that is in sid with new kde 4 names.
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I know this is early days, but are you going to have the package install/desktop choice as kde4?

For antiX, for example, some may have a kde3.5-kde4 upgrade that the script now takes care of. Others may want to install kde4 as a 'new' desktop environment, while others may want kde3.5 as they are not using the sid repos.
I'm sure Debian 'pure' users face the same 'dilemma" at least for a while.

So I'm really asking if it is possible/feasible (or even a good idea) for an antiX user with fluxbox/icewm running stable/testing to install kde4 via smxi script?

Thanks once again.

anticapitalista
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There will be no kde4/kde3 option, what there will be is dynamic detection of packages, and if kde4 packages are present, they will be used, if not, then the kde3 packages will be used, if present.

It already does this to some degree, but i haven't finished it completely in terms of the kde packages.

<update>
Now that I have the actual package lists, I updated the package install to handle kde4/kde3 package groups automatically.

If your system's apt shows kde4-minimal present, it will switch over to use kde 4 packages, and if it doesn't, it will use the kde3 stuff.

This should work fine for future proofing it too, and doesn't require any manual selections.

If you have sid, and in a week or two, testing sources, you WILL be installing kde4, period, no options. There are already far fewer kde 3.5 packages in sid than there were yesterday, they removed a bunch of them, so that's about it for kde 3.5 unless you want to stay with Lenny.

And kde 4.x is not very impressive, to put it mildly, except for some eye candy stuff that's functionally worthless, I see little to recommend it to be honest, at least not yet, but I'll give it some time, I'm not switching any of my own desktops to it though, i see nothing it offers that is anything I want.
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Thanks for the feedback h2.

I certainly will not install kde4, but I know some antiX users (especially those using the base version) who will/want to do so and if they already have kde3.5 and want to keep it, then they should use the stable repo I guess is what you are saying.

(Will kde4 be in Testing so soon? AArrgghh!)

Oh don't forget h2 that you have the kde option in smxi under the install packages section.
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I am using the Debian-Testing XFCE4 distro with SMXI installed. I have the APT-GET Debian-Testing and the Debian-Stable repositories selected, but not Debian-Unstable or SIDUX.

I have some KDE3 packages that I've added into XFCE4 to provide added features, such as korganizer, kthesaurus, kdeprint, and so forth.

When KDE4 reaches the Debian-Testing repository, will SMXI automagically upgrade these existing KDE3 versions to KDE4?

Conversely, if I pin these KDE3 packages in the "/etc/apt/preferences" file to hold them at their current KDE3 versions, can I continue to use these as KDE3 indefinitely into the future?
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