KDE 3.5 rc1 для Debian.

3.5 RC1 PACKAGES
================

The Debian Qt/KDE team has been hard at work, and would like to announce the
availability of packages for KDE 3.5 Release Candidate 1. These packages
have not been uploaded to the archive, not even experimental, but are
available from the pkg-kde alioth repository. They are still rough and
experimental, so don't use them unless you're willing to risk a broken
desktop. You can access the packages by adding the following lines to your
sources.list:

deb http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/kde-3.5-rc1 ./
deb-src http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/kde-3.5-rc1 ./

Again, these packages are NOT fully tested; you should NOT use them unless
you are willing to shoulder considerable risk, as not only is the packaging
as fresh as wet paint, but this isn't even a final KDE release, and is
therefore buggier than usual.

I'd like to note that in addition to the usual team of packagers, Josh
Metzler contributed a great deal of quality work to the packaging of
several modules. Thanks!

HELP US HELP YOU
================

In making these packages available, we're giving users an opportunity to
help us prepare better packages for KDE 3.5.0. Since these packages are not
in the archive, you should not file official bugs concerning them. We ask
instead that problems be reported, in detailed messages, to
debian-qt-kde@lists.debian.org (ask for a CC if you're not subscribed). Use
your judgment. Bugs that are fairly minor, and that are clearly not
packaging problems, should be directed to bugs.kde.org instead. Only
packaging problems, or really serious upstream issues that we really ought
to be aware of, should be reported to us at this stage. If in doubt, tell
us.

Also, many KDE programs are still missing manpages. If you'd like to help
the team, please write a page or two and send it in. You can also help by
going through the Bug Tracking System, and closing your old bugs that are
no longer relevant, or just cleaning up issues that you know are fixed.

NOT ALL MODULES AVAILABLE YET
=============================

All fully group-maintained KDE modules are available. The remaining modules
are not yet ready, but no significant issues have yet been found running,
say, kmail from 3.4.2 with kdelibs 3.5-rc1. But beware that
incompatibilities are a possibility. This is the sort of thing we'd be
interested in learning about. We don't have a timeline on the availability
of the remaining modules; please don't harass the maintainers of those
modules, as they are certainly aware of the situation and will make
progress as their time permits.

OPTIMIZATIONS
=============

The much sought performance-enhancing feature of GCC visibility
(-fvisibility) is NOT enabled, nor is likely to be enabled for a long time.
Bugs in GCC - bugs that may not be fixed until GCC 4.2.0, sadly - are
causing too many problems. Indeed, visibility support is no longer enabled
by default in KDE, as of a few days ago. There are a few distributions that
may persist in enabling this feature, but they are using toolchains that
are heavily patched.

THE ROAD AHEAD
==============

Unfortunately, a necessary change to Debian's GCC configuration [1], that
was just uploaded, breaks binary compatibility for many C++ libraries and
the applications that use them, forcing them to be renamed, as in, for
instance, libfoo7c2 --> libfoo7c2a. KDE is affected by this change. Once
the updated toolchain is in place for all architectures, and all libraries
that arts and kdelibs build-depend on are also transitioned (could be a
while...), then we will upload a transitioned KDE 3.4.3 to Sid (unstable).
KDE 3.5.0 will likely then move into experimental. Only once KDE 3.4.3 has
moved into Etch (testing), will KDE 3.5 be uploaded to unstable, however.

Of course, this plan is tentative, and will be adapted to circumstance,
consultations with the Release Team, etc. But this should give you some
idea of the road ahead for KDE packaging in Debian.

Enjoy the packages!

Christopher Martin
(on behalf of the Debian Qt/KDE Team)