[Aurora] How to install Force Blur and Rounded corners desktop effects?

Bluefin and Aurora
1

Hi,

I’ve recently been trying to switch my setup over to Ublue Aurora. KDE configs were surprisingly easy to port over with konsave but there’s two desktop effect plugins I’m not sure how to install.

Namely, I want to use Force Blur and Rounded Corners. The effects aren’t available in the KDE store, unfortunately.

Manually compiling either package from source won’t work as they try both to install under /usr. I’ve tried using distrobox to compile, but the packages get installed in the distrobox guest system’s /usr folder.

I’ve also tried installing the Copr package for Force Blur but the installation fails due to dependencies. Meanwhile, Rounded Corners has no Copr repo.

> sudo rpm-ostree install kwin-effects-forceblur
Checking out tree 6b6d651... done
Enabled rpm-md repositories: copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:lukenukem:asus-linux updates fedora copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:hikariknight:looking-glass-kvmfr copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:errornointernet:mergerfs copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:errornointernet:mergerfs copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:yohane-shiro:kwin-effects-forceblur updates-archive
Importing rpm-md... done
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:lukenukem:asus-linux' (cached); generated: 2024-08-31T09:45:14Z solvables: 5
rpm-md repo 'updates' (cached); generated: 2024-09-13T01:44:38Z solvables: 26430
rpm-md repo 'fedora' (cached); generated: 2024-04-14T18:51:11Z solvables: 74881
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:hikariknight:looking-glass-kvmfr' (cached); generated: 2024-08-21T09:46:29Z solvables: 5
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:errornointernet:mergerfs' (cached); generated: 2024-05-27T08:33:29Z solvables: 2
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:errornointernet:mergerfs' (cached); generated: 2024-05-27T08:33:29Z solvables: 2
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:yohane-shiro:kwin-effects-forceblur' (cached); generated: 2024-09-02T10:06:16Z solvables: 2
rpm-md repo 'updates-archive' (cached); generated: 2024-09-13T02:31:26Z solvables: 39640
Resolving dependencies... done
error: Could not depsolve transaction; 1 problem detected:
 Problem: package kwin-effects-forceblur-1.3.1-2.fc40.x86_64 from copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:yohane-shiro:kwin-effects-forceblur requires kf6-kio, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.5.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.5.0-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.5.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.5.0-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.0.0-5.fc40.x86_64 from fedora requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.0.0-5.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.1.0-2.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.1.0-2.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.2.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.2.0-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.3.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.3.0-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.4.1-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.4.1-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.0.0-5.fc40.x86_64 from fedora and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.1.0-2.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.2.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.3.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.4.1-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - conflicting requests

It looks like Ublue Aurora comes with a version of kf6-kio that’s different from the one the forceblur package expects. Here is the version that seems to be installed on the system:

> rpm -qa | grep kf6-kio-core
kf6-kio-core-libs-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64
kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64

What are my options here? Do I have any shot of installing these two desktop effects under Ublue Aurora?

2

I would guess based on the UBlue docs for KDE theming that you need to change the install directory from /usr to ~/.local, using the option shown on your Github page: -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/.local

Double-check the output files/folders which are created from the build, and make sure they line up with the folders in the docs above.

1 Like
3

I can’t successfully build the Force Blur effect, unfortunately.

It has a few dependencies that need to be installed on Fedora-based distros. From the repo Readme:

sudo dnf install git cmake extra-cmake-modules gcc-g++ kf6-kwindowsystem-devel plasma-workspace-devel libplasma-devel qt6-qtbase-private-devel qt6-qtbase-devel cmake kwin-devel extra-cmake-modules kwin-devel kf6-knotifications-devel kf6-kio-devel kf6-kcrash-devel kf6-ki18n-devel kf6-kguiaddons-devel libepoxy-devel kf6-kglobalaccel-devel kf6-kcmutils-devel kf6-kconfigwidgets-devel kf6-kdeclarative-devel kdecoration-devel kf6-kglobalaccel kf6-kdeclarative libplasma kf6-kio qt6-qtbase kf6-kguiaddons kf6-ki18n wayland-devel

If i try to run rpm-ostree install on those packages (after removing the packages Ublue already ships with), I get the same package conflicts as the ones mentioned in my original post. They seem related to Plasma’s KF6/kio package.

If i ignore the errors and I simply skip installing the conflicting packages, I get an error when trying to build the effect:

> cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/.local
Installing in /home/my_user/.local. Run /var/home/my_user/Documents/kwin-effects-forceblur/build/prefix.sh to set the environment for kwin_better_blur.
-- Could NOT find KF6KIO (missing: KF6KIO_DIR)
-- Could NOT find KF6KIO: found neither KF6KIOConfig.cmake nor kf6kio-config.cmake 
CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:230 (message):
  Could NOT find KF6 (missing: KIO) (found suitable version "6.5.0", minimum
  required is "5.240.0")
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  /usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:600 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
  /usr/share/ECM/find-modules/FindKF6.cmake:93 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
  CMakeLists.txt:42 (find_package)


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

And that’s just for Force Blur. For Rounded Corners there seems to be no option to change the output directory.

Also, I posted an issue on the Force Blur repo, and the repo author mentioned this:

~/.local/share/kwin/effects is for scripted effects only, compiled effects are loaded from directories specified in the QT_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable.

It might be the case that trying to compile the effect under ~/.local is doomed to fail from the start.