KDE Plasma 5.26.x Stability Inquiry

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I don’t think there’s any point in ignoring the plasma package group when you’re already on 5.26.2, because 5.26.3 is just around the corner. The advice to ignore those packages was for those on 5.24.6 who didn’t want to upgrade to 5.25.5.

There is however — at least for now still — the option of switching to Plasma 5.24.7, which is the current LTS version. Assuming that the reader of this post is already on Plasma 5.26.x now, here’s how to do it… :arrow_down:

First, make a complete backup of your system — don’t skip this step!

Next, get the file plasma-5.24.7-LTS.zip from the link below :arrow_down: — you only need that one file.

Open up a terminal window and elevate your privileges to root… :arrow_down:

su -

… or, for those of you who’ve disabled the root account, … :arrow_down:

sudo su -

Next, as root, issue these following commands… :arrow_down:

mkdir /var/cache/pacman/plasma-lts
cd /var/cache/pacman/plasma-lts
mv /home/your-username-here/Downloads/plasma-5.24.7-LTS.zip ./
unzip plasma-5.24.7-LTS.zip
repo-add plasma-lts.db.tar.xz *.zst
rm -f plasma-5.24.7-LTS.zip
cp /etc/pacman.conf /etc/pacman.conf.bak

Next, you’re going to have to edit /etc/pacman.conf. You can do this by way of a console-based editor like nano, vim, emacs or whichever one you prefer — I’m assuming you know how to save a file and exit the editor — or, considering that you’re already working in Plasma now, you can use Kate. You don’t need to be root for that, given that Kate is polkit-aware and will prompt you for a password when trying to save a file in a directory that’s only writable to the root account.

So… :arrow_down:

nano /etc/pacman.conf

… or just open the file in Kate as your regular user account.

Now, look for the section where the repos are being defined, and add your own local repo between the [core] section and the [extra] section… :arrow_down:

[core]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[plasma-lts]                                # ← this is the new section to add
Server=file:///var/cache/pacman/plasma-lts  # ← this is the new section to add
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll                # ← this is the new section to add

[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[community]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Save the file — if you’re not familiar with nano, press Ctrl+O followed by Enter and then exit the editor with Ctrl+X.

Next, log out of Plasma completely — you have to be looking at the SDDM login screen — and switch to a tty with Ctrl+Alt+F2. Log in as yourself and issue the following command to update your system while also allowing the downgrade of Plasma from 5.26.x to 5.24.x LTS… :arrow_down:

sudo pacman -Syuu

After this step, it is not strictly necessary to reboot, but it might be a good idea nevertheless. :arrow_down:

sudo systemctl reboot

Upon the reboot, you should now be logging into Plasma 5.24.7. However, bear in mind that this will probably lead to issues in the very foreseeable future due to updates to qt5 and/or frameworks, unless someone is willing to take it upon themselves to rebuild all of the Plasma 5.24.7 packages against these newer qt5 and frameworks packages and make them available to the community, and to follow suite if/when KDE releases another LTS update, which would then be Plasma 5.24.8.

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