Beta software on backports PPA?

[Clay Weber]

On Saturday, August 14, 2010 10:51:13 am Óscar Fuentes wrote:
> I'm using 10.04 and had the backports PPA enabled. This caused the
> installation of KDE 4.5, which uses Qt 4.7 (in beta phase)
> 
> There are lots of breakage after the upgrade.

What problems did you find? In terms of Qt that is.


> My questions are:
> 
> 1. Is it okay to push beta versions of essential components through the
> backports PPA?

The PPA's cannot be considered essential repositories.

The Kubuntu Backports ppa is literally a set of packages backported from the 
development version - Maverick 10.10 in this case. It looks in this case to be 
exctly that, which includes the Qt 4.7 beta this time around. iirc Mandriva 
and Fedora's 4.5 includes Qt 4.7 as well at this time.

I would suggest asking this question in kubuntu-devel, but if you want the 
better tested software, you should stick to the official repos, including 
Ubuntu's official Backports (the so-called 'unsupported updates' in 
KPAckagekit's software configuration

> 2. What's the rationale for using a beta version of Qt instead of the
> stable one which, AFAIK, is far more stable and tested with KDE 4.5?

See above, my guess is that Qt 4.7 will be in Maverick. Again, ask this in 
kubuntu-devel for a better answer


> 3. Is it possible to downgrade to KDE 4.4.x without major surgery?

There is a tool created by the Ubuntu xorg hackers called ppa-purge, some info 
on how to get and use it can be found here:
http://bigbrovar.aoizora.org/index.php/2010/01/10/how-to-safely-remove-ppa-
repository-from-ubuntu/

I have used this myself a few times playing with xorg drivers (successfully), 
and only once to try 'downgrading'  KDE. I had some issues I think involved 
missing packages after the removal, but I cannot remember exactly what I had 
to do as it was some time ago. So perhaps minor to serious surgery could be 
expected.

Clay