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|\ISS https://k1sslinux.org

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KISS-kde - A KISS repository for the Plasma Desktop

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KISS-kde

This is currently a work in progress. Feel free to help out!

KDE is a full-featured desktop environment for Linux! It uses the Qt framework to generate a simple, featureful, and gorgeous desktop.

This is very much in alpha. If you have a contribution, feel free to share it. Requests like this should follow the KISS style guide as closely as possible, but I'm not too much of a stickler.

Current Milestones

Here are all of the things that can be worked on.

• Cleanup repository structure

• Make patches to remove extraneous dependencies

  • elogind - /usr/bin/realpath --relative-to
  • libblockdev - /usr/bin/mktemp --tmpdir
  • udisks2 - /usr/bin/ln -r
  • breeze-icons - /usr/bin/grep --quiet

• Properly configure docbook generation

  • Currently, docbook-xsl doesn't actually do anything, I don't think.
  • This has been avoided because we just dropped the requirement.

• Get the core working

  • Generate build files
  • Make sure the core builds
  • Ensure KDE launches

• Find a sane default collection, plasma-desktop

  • KDE Framework
  • Plasma

• Configure pam in a meaningful way

• Remove JS backend from polkit

  • This project will rely on forward-porting the work done here
  • This allows us to drop mozjs
  • The current milestone is to get rid of innetgr from our patches.
  • Once innetgr is no longer required, we can drop our musl fork.

• Enable a login-manager and greeter

  • elogind
  • sddm
  • seatd to replace elogind
  • greetd + greeter to replace sddm
  • Bundle a default theme (breeze)

• Expand plasma-desktop for a 'comprehensive' extension

  • breeze
  • breeze-icons
  • systemsettings
  • kinfocenter
  • bluez
  • networkmanager
  • pulseaudio
  • udisks2
  • vaultcrypt

• Package some KDE apps

  • ark
  • calligra
  • dolphin
  • dragon
  • elisa - immediately crashes
  • falkon
  • filelight - segfault on launch
  • gwenview
  • kaffeine
  • kate
  • kdenlive
  • kdevelop
  • kget
  • kgpg
  • kmail
  • konqueror
  • konversation
  • konsole
  • krita
  • ktorrent
  • kwalletmanager
  • kwave
  • latte-dock
  • okular
  • spectacle
  • yakuake

• Test wayland support

  • plasma 5.20.0
  • fork xorg-server to add xwayland support
  • sucessfully launch a kwin_wayland session

• Ensure everything works!

  • Sessions can start from startx
  • Sessions can start from sddm
  • Applications launch
  • Menus work
  • Themes work
  • Settings work
  • [~] Users can log back in from a lock (super+l) - works without pam
  • Bluetooth - can't test
  • Power management -untested
  • Disk/hardware management -untested

• Create tarball

• Live USB

  • initramfs
    • tinyramfs
    • dracut
    • allyesconfig kernel /s
  • ncurses-style installer?

This list will be expanded, contracted, and refined as necessary. Feel free to assist.

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KISS-kde with respect to KISS

Documentation

I have opted not to include internationalization or docs. This was done in three parts:

1. Hobble ki18n by removing the gettext dependency

   • Without learning C, I will not be able to drop the ki18n dependency.

2. Delete all translation files located in po from packages which 'require' them.

3. Remove the kdoctools dependency from packages which 'require' it.

If you would like to have languages besides english available:

* Package `gettext`

* Remove the patch for `ki18n`

* Remove `rm -rf po` from each build script that has it

Additionally, there are packages which I had to go further to remove gettext and intltool from. It shouldn't be too hard to find them on your own (the patches are sanely named, remove-gettext.patch and remove-intltool.patch). Fix up the build files as required!

if you would like to have documentation:

* git revert --no-commit df2c33d^..e6f0a36

Community

Large portions of this repository are forked packages from the official repository modified as needed. Many of the packages in extra/ are from the community repository, though not necessarily different (maintenance is volatile in community).

Usage of this repository assumes that the official repository and the community repository are also in-use, but otherwise rely on no external packages.

dbus

The dreaded(?) question.

The trouble with evading dbus is not with building KDE.

It's with launching it.

If you attempt to startx startplasma-x11, you will probably be met with an error message about dbus. KDE tries very hard to have a running dbus session to latch onto. So much so that it shits itself if one isn't running. It'll print an error if you try to just launch plasma, it'll hang at a black screen if you attempt to launch kwin via xinit, etc.

Which would seem to make dbus a hard dependency for KDE.

plasma-desktop et al build fine with libdbus-stub. The hard part would probably be getting dbus-launch to execute meaningfully with a stub library. Unless we can find a way around this, dbus is required. I have no real problems with this. If you take umbridge with this hard fact, perhaps reflect on why you want KDE in the first place?

polkit, PAM, logind

You'll notice in many distros that there are many versions of, for instance, polkit swimming around. I don't want to maintain a bunch of polkit versions for different login managers and greeters. In fact, I want as minimal maintenance as possible. But I also want to maximize choice. There's no good reason to assume a user wants pam over shadow. There's no good reason to assume anything about what the user wants! But this minimalism should decrease friction as much as possible. I don't want to punish users for wanting to install these programs. I definitely don't want to force them to do the reading I did either!

For the user who is disinterested or unconcerned with pam, polkit, elogind, etc., they are required to do nothing. Not only is this in line with KISS' goals as a project, but it also doesn't require users to do large amounts of research to do what should be routine maintenance or security management. If a user wants to install polkit or, maximally, elogind, only a few packages must be built prior to building plasma-desktop.

The process for first-time users and current ones should be the same:

# ensure shadow is not installed
$ KISS_FORCE=1 kiss r shadow

# install the auth backend
$ kiss b pam && kiss i pam

# install polkit
$ kiss b polkit polkit-qt5 && kiss i polkit polkit-qt5

# use coreutils realpath
$ kiss b coreutils && kiss i coreutils
$ kiss a coreutils /usr/bin/realpath

# install elogind
$ kiss b elogind && kiss i elogind

# rebuild polkit
$ kiss b polkit && kiss i polkit

Rebuild kauth and kscreenlocker if you already had them installed.

qt

The engine that make it go!

qt5*, specifically qt5-webengine, take a very long time to build (thanks, chromium). As a result, I have included along with this repository a KISS tarball of the fully built packages for the three parts of the qt5 suite that take more than twenty minutes to build. These are compiled assuming you've satisfied the dependencies of this repository. Built with everyone's favorite GNU C compiler, with CFLAGS=-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -Os -pipe. If you want a 'seamless' build, merely plop these archives in ${XDG_CACHE_DIR:-$HOME/.cache}/kiss/bin.

xorg vs wayland

The eternal debate.

Starting with the release of plasma 5.20.0, wayland will be the presumptive default for KDE. I'm unsure to what extent they plan to leave xorg available, As it stands, few parts require xorg. Indeed, you can build almost every package in this repository without any xorg libraries at all! Unfortunately, GLX is required. GLX is provided by mesa, and will only be built if the X11 platform is built. This brings in the largest number of dependencies. Next to this, plasma-desktop requires xorg-server, and there are a few xorg libraries required by a couple of packages.

Wayland is an exciting project, and having been using it on my own personal KISS box, I can recommend it heartily over xorg in general - it seems to have matured as a protocol, there is still incredibly active development work (as opposed to critical-bug-fixing-only for xorg), and the performance is quite stellar. Additionally, kwinft is a fork of kwin which purports to better support wayland. It is a more bleading-edge, development focused 'branch' of kwin. Bound to be bugs that crop up. Presumably, kwinft is strictly better than kwin.

Currently, it's your choice which you choose! If you opt to use kwinft, simply fork plasma-desktop and plasma-workspace, and comment kwin from their depends file and uncomment kwinft. then simply build plasma-desktop. If you have already installed kwin fear not! Do the comment switcheroo as before, force-uninstall kwin, reinstall plasma-{desktop,workspace} (which should pull-in everything required for kwinft), and then simply kill your KDE session if you're in one, and restart the session! If you run into bugs, please make sure they're not kwinft related - burn down the developer's door for those.

Prerequisites

1. This all (currently) assumes a working xorg-server.

2. You will need dbus. Because of this, you'll have to rebuild qt5.

3. You will need eudev or libudev-zero. Because of this, you'll need to rebuild xorg-server, {xf86-input-}libinput, dhcpcd, maybe more.

These rebuilds are obviously not required if you already had the relevant programs built against dbus, eudev, etc. To determine which packages are built against dbus or eudev merely run kiss-revdepends {dbus,eudev}.

If you opt to use elogind (required for sddm), you will need the following:

4. Choose between shadow or pam, and install your choice.

5. Install polkit.

6. cgroups I leave it up to you to test your own kernel configs.

7. You will require exactly realpath from coreutils.

coreutils is a build time requirement, so you are free to remove it with no ill-effects afterwards.

Getting Started

Now that we have all of that nonsense out of the way, let's get to it!

We start with the assumption that you just installed KISS, following the installation guide exactly, which means you have libudev-zero or eudev, a working xorg that knows about eudev, some input drivers, and fonts. Although this repo does include some nice fonts, so either way you're covered.

Ensure you do not have qt5* installed.

NOTE: I have taken the liberty of uploading a KISS package for qt5, qt5-webengine, and qt5-declarative. Assuming your system is roughly similar to mine (built from a blank KISS-chroot), you can simply install these xz archives instead of building them. qt5-webengine is NOT required, just convenient.

plasma-desktop includes the basic requirements to launch a KDE session and use plasma. In order to minimize the system footprint as much as possible, things like fonts or starting applications are not included. You may wish to install hack or noto-fonts, along with systemsettings and kinfocenter. Additionally, breeze-icons will give you a default set of icons.

If you want a more 'full-featured' KDE environment, you can install useful extras. This list includes things such as bluedevil and bluez. udisks2 is also here! Additionally, plasma-workspace-wallpapers includes many additional wallpapers for your pleasure.

NOTE: bluez and other things are more are less untested; ymmv. If you discover issues, please raise them! If you discover solutions, please PR them!

To get a 'minimal' KDE (final product on a fresh install will be just north of 150 packages), simply install plasma-desktop. How convenient! Here's how you do it:

NOTE: It doesn't matter where you keep these repos (or any KISS repos, for that matter). I keep mine in $HOME/git. For now, assume I've done git clone in $HOME.

$ git clone https://github.com/dilyn-corner/KISS-kde # pls

# Add relevant repository paths

$ export KISS_PATH="$HOME/KISS-kde/extra:$KISS_PATH"
$ export KISS_PATH="$HOME/KISS-kde/plasma:$KISS_PATH"
$ export KISS_PATH="$HOME/KISS-kde/frameworks:$KISS_PATH"

# If you don't already have it,

# replace `libudev-zero` with `eudev` if you prefer

$ kiss b dbus libudev-zero && kiss i dbus libudev-zero

# If you just did the previous or don't have xorg,

$ kiss b xorg-server libinput xf86-input-libinput
# Add others as necessary

# If you've opted to use e.g. elogind, you'll need
# to do the following!

# Choose shadow or pam to use with polkit
$ kiss b shadow && kiss i shadow
$ kiss b polkit && kiss b polkit

# Thanks to the alternatives system, we can just pluck out
# the few binaries we need from `coreutils`.

$ kiss b coreutils && kiss i coreutils
# For elogind
$ kiss a coreutils
/usr/bin/realpath
# For libblockdev & udisks
$ kiss a coreutils /usr/bin/mktemp
$ kiss a coreutils /usr/bin/ln

$ kiss b elogind && kiss i elogind

# We're finally ready!

$ kiss b plasma-desktop

~~~ SEVERAL HOURS LATER ~~~

$ kiss i plasma-desktop

# Start the eudev and dbus services for convenience
# This is ultimately not necessary
$ ln -sv /etc/sv/dbus  /var/service
$ ln -sv /etc/sv/udevd /var/service

$ sv up dbus
$ sv up udevd

# Install a font of your choosing.
# noto-fonts and hack are in KISS-kde/extra. noto is massive.
# hack is very small and good.
# Any TTF font should work though.

# You might want to make a runtime directory or KDE will
# make one for you. This is required for a wayland session.
# Put these lines in somewhere like $HOME/.profile

$ export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR:-/tmp/$(id -u)-runtime}"
$ [ -d "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" ] || {
    mkdir -p   "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR"
    chmod 0700 "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" }

# Two options:
# 1. Use 'startx' to launch KDE
# 2. Use a login manager

# For startx:

$ pkill X
$ echo "exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session startplasma-x11" >> ~/.xinitrc
# Replace 'x11' with 'wayland' in the previous command to launch a wayland session

$ startx

# For sddm:

$ kiss b sddm && kiss i sddm

# Enable the required services. FoR sEcUrItY

$ ln -sv /etc/sv/polkitd /var/service
$ ln -sv /etc/sv/elogind /var/service
$ ln -sv /etc/sv/sddm    /ver/service

$ sv up polkitd
$ sv up elogind
$ sv up sddm    # should launch sddm

ALTERNATIVELY you can install KISS with KDE already built and ready to go! It's basically just a KISS tarball. It is built with musl and GCC using:

C(XX)FLAGS=-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -pipe -Os

The first release is built from a fresh KISS tarball. All future releases will merely be published after performing updates on this original tarball. Installing works almost identically to the usual instructions. To install from the first October 2020 release,

$ ver=2020.10-1
$ wget https://github.com/dilyn-corner/KISS-kde/releases/download/$ver.tar.xz
# Mount your relevant root partition to wherever. In this case, I choose /mnt
$ tar xf kiss-kde-$ver.tar.xz -C /mnt
$ ./mnt/bin/kiss-chroot /mnt

# Follow the KISS install guide.

$ exit
$ reboot

# Boot into your freshly installed KISS # Login (user: root; pass: toor)
$ startx

# You should be greeted with KDE.

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How you can help

I need testers! People who just use the desktop to navigate through digital space and time. Does an application segfault? Does something simply fail to launch? I need to know! Do you run into build-time errors? Run-time? What are they! I have already run into a few, I've identified fixes for many and am working on solutions to others. But in the end, I am a simple person with simple needs. I cannot guarantee that everything works because I don't plan on using everything available. So jump in! Make a package! Fix bugs! Be my fren! But most importantly...

Enjoy!