KDE/Plasma 5 upgrade

Plasma 5 is the next generation of KDE's desktop environment, based on Qt 5 and KDE Frameworks 5. Upgrading is fairly simple, although it cannot be coinstalled with Plasma 4 due to upstream design decisions.

Note that while Plasma 5 is in a good state, it is still under heavy upstream development and is missing some features present in KDE 4.

Profile
It is highly recommended to use the Plasma desktop profile as it sets a number of important options to ensure things run smoothly.

In order to choose the most suitable profile, first list what's available:

Then, select the right profile, substituting the appropriate profile number (which may vary between configurations):

make.conf
The plasma profile now takes care of the right settings for a full-blown KDE Plasma/Applications installation. In the foreseeable future, this entails both Qt4- as well as Qt5-based packages. It also handles possible use flag conflicts on a per-package basis. If you have any existing definitions of,   or   inside your make.conf file, make sure to remove them before you proceed, or you will run into needless conflicts. In case of, the recommendation is to either remove it as well, or disable it if you don't want to install the KDE DocBook anyway.

Check for these flags and if necessary alter the file using your favourite editor:

You should now also revise your entries in /etc/portage/package.use:

Of course you can adjust these flags afterwards again.

Apply the changes
Any packages affected by the profile change need to be rebuilt:

Overlay (optional)
Be warned that you are entering development grounds. The KDE Overlay provides a means to access more recent versions of KDE Plasma, Applications and Frameworks and can be accessed using layman:

Unmasking and keywording for stable users
For stable users, it also provides package.keywords lists to unmask not-yet-stabilised versions. Please note that this can often require unmasking additional dependencies that are out of scope of these lists.

In the following examples please adapt "/path/to/overlay/" with the actual path, this is probably: /var/lib/layman/.

Installation
The package provides the full Plasma 5 suite:

Alternatively, provides the basic desktop, leaving you free to install only the extra packages you require:

Display manager
SDDM (Simple Desktop Display Manager) is the recommended login manager and is pulled in automatically via by default. This is the preferred option. Alternatively, LightDM can be used and pulled in by setting  flag   for. Change the setting accordingly in. Also, be sure to read through the SDDM page if further issues appear.

KWallet
KWallet5 will have to open your wallet from KWallet4 and import all the data into a new wallet. For that purpose, needs to be present at least once in a session after upgrade, but can be removed after migration and when you are sure no legacy package is using it anymore:

SSH/GPG Agent startup/shutdown scripts
Configuration moved to for Plasma 5, you will need to copy your scripts from the old location.

Troubleshooting
The most common issue with upgrading is running into blockers. Unfortunately, some packages just can't be coinstalled so they'll need to be removed. Feel free to drop by #gentoo or #gentoo-kde for assistance with resolving any blockers.

Missing systray icons
Plasma <= 5.4 does not support xembed-based systray icons anymore, but uses the StatusNotifier specification for that. As not all applications have been ported to the new system, some workaround exist.

The workaround can be enabled by activating the  and GUI-specific  USE flags for.

Alternatively, the required packages can be installed manually:

Pidgin
requires. After install, find this plugin under Tools | Plugins. It is called "Ubuntu Indicator".

Skype
is a 32-bit binary, you need to enable  on.

Update: there is an application that allows to convert old xembed-based system tray icons to StatusNotifier icons, compatible with Plasma 5:. To install it, you have to setup KDE/Overlay.

This program is included in >=plasma-workspace-5.5, so you don't have to install it separately if you're using Plasma >= 5.5. Otherwise, you'll have to unmask/unkeyword it (add  to   and   files.

ck-list-sessions has wrong session information
Start plasma without exec or ck-launch-session. Using `dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session "/usr/bin/startkde"` was what I ended up using.

Missing shutdown, reboot, suspend and hibernate buttons when using OpenRC
Please ensure that and  (not ) are installed. Also ensure that your user belongs to the  group.

If you use, try instead.

sddm display issues
Check that your user (and  user) are in the   group.

sddm: KCM unable to change themes
Sddm needs a configuration file so that the KCM module can change themes. This file is not created during the sddm installation, so it needs to be created manually afterwards: