Switching from Gentoo - Update questions

[Martux]

Hi there!

I am a long-time Gentoo user and just bought this new laptop, a Samsunf SF510.
I don't want to go through the hassle of installing Gentoo on this machine, so I decided to give Mint9-KDE edition a try.
Well, what concerns me most right now:
How do I update crucial apps like KDE, QtCurve, Amarok to their latest versions? KDE-4.5.4 for example?
Is there a possibility to constantly update this box (like "rolling") as I am used it from Gentoo?
If not: Please answer this: How do I update to KDE 4.5.4?
Thanks in advance, I am here to stay as I installed Mint on several other machines and liked it more and more.

[ArcherSeven]

Mint's not like Gentoo and stays "stable" and, in some people's opinion, "out of date". It's not at all meant to be a rolling release, only the Debian edition is, and it's not gonna be very KDE friendly, so... sorry, but basically, afaik, you're out of luck. >.>

[eagleton]

How do I update to KDE 4.5.4?

It should arrive in the backports ppa sooner or later:
https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+arc ... lter=lucid

[Martux]

Hey!
Thanks for the replies. About Gentoo: I used the last 4 years the so called "unstable" branch and never had a major issue which I could not overcome. With KDE: their releases are all marked as recommended updates. If you read their changelogs, you'll see that they work hard on bug fixing. I don't see the point in going through bugs I overcame 1/2 year ago.

I am seriously considering to install Gentoo on that laptop. It's maybe a pain to install but when it runs there is nothing like it, esp. the "rolling releases".

Thanks anyways, I really like the approach of Linux Mint to make it very usable for new users but personally I miss opportunities for an easy update path, with makes fiddling around with mint even more complicated for me.

[TBABill]

If you just want an easy install with rolling release and KDE, try PCLinuxOS. It's the best of all worlds in that respect. They drop new KDE versions very quickly after release from the devs. It's as simple to use as Mint and feels faster on my hardware.