SonicDE SlackBuild for Slackware

SonicDE provides selected KDE/Plasma replacement packages for Slackware-current. It is not currently a standalone desktop package set. Keep the Slackware KDE packages that SonicDE does not replace.

Requirements

Use an up-to-date Slackware-current system with KDE installed. The main Slackware polkit package is also required:

slackpkg install kde
slackpkg install polkit

Do not remove KDE packages before installing SonicDE. Some SonicDE packages replace KDE packages, while others continue to use KDE, Qt6, Plasma, and integration packages from Slackware.

Download

The public SonicDE package area is:

https://slackware.nl/people/r1w1s1/

To download the complete release, install lftp and run:

mkdir -p sonicde-release
lftp -c "open https://slackware.nl; mirror --verbose --continue --parallel=4 /people/r1w1s1/ sonicde-release"

The mirror command downloads the directory contents; --continue allows an interrupted download to resume. The release currently supports manual package installation. slackpkg+ metadata such as PACKAGES.TXT will be added later.

Verify the downloaded release before installing it:

cd sonicde-release
gpg --import GPG-KEY
gpg --verify CHECKSUMS.md5.asc CHECKSUMS.md5
md5sum --check CHECKSUMS.md5

Build and install

cd sonicde
./sonicde_checkout.sh -c -f sonic
UPGRADE=yes SKIPBUILT=no EXITFAIL=yes ./sonicde.SlackBuild sonic

With UPGRADE=yes, packages listed in package-renames replace their matching KDE/Plasma packages automatically. Do not install replacement packages beside their original packages with plain installpkg.

The optional sonic-breeze package is not part of the default sonic module. Build it explicitly only when a user wants to use Breeze instead of the default Silver theme:

UPGRADE=yes SKIPBUILT=no EXITFAIL=yes ./sonicde.SlackBuild optional:sonic-breeze

After installation, restart the graphical session and validate the result:

./sonicde_validate_install.sh
./sonicde_remove_replaced.sh -n

Do not remove the remaining KDE set after installation. For Slackware-current updates, update Slackware first, then rebuild and reinstall SonicDE replacements.

Maintainers

Builds in a minimal chroot, dependency troubleshooting, package completeness, and distribution checks are documented in README.chroot.

Implementation notes are in SONICDE-NOTES.txt.