Getting Started/Build/Windows/Cross-Compiling

Warning

This section needs improvements: Please help us to

cleanup confusing sections and fix sections which contain a todo

cross compiling is still unstable

Tip

Note: This page is about KDE 4. It isn't applicable for KDE 3 development.

Basic tools

MinGw

Install mingw for linux

On debian the packages are called mingw32, mingw32-binutils, mingw32-runtime, you need to install mingw32 with gcc/g++ 3 and not 4 since that doesn't work with kdelibs, debian testing/unstable has gcc 4 so i've installed mingw32 package from ubuntu repository.

On gentoo, you need to do the following: "emerge crossdev; crossdev mingw32".

Qt4 Kdesupport and dependencies

You can install these dependencies(aspell, boost, dbus, qca etc..) from windows with the kdewin installer or manually download them from sourceforge mirrors

Qt4 and KDE4 for linux

You also need to have Qt4 and KDE4 already installed on linux, to use moc/uic/kde4automoc etc...

Cmake

To cross compile KDE you need CMake >= 2.5, you can get the last version from CVS

• Create two files Toolchain-mingw32.cmake and mingw32-kdelibs.cmake with this contents and place them somewhere i.e. in your home

Toolchain-mingw32.cmake

set(KDE_PREFIX    /windows/kde4)
set(KDE4_SRC_DIR  /home/kdeuser/kde/src)

# the name of the target operating system
SET(CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME Windows)

# which compilers to use for C and C++
SET(CMAKE_C_COMPILER i586-mingw32msvc-gcc)
SET(CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER i586-mingw32msvc-g++)

# here is the target environment located
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH  /usr/i586-mingw32msvc ${KDE_PREFIX} )

# adjust the default behaviour of the FIND_XXX() commands:
# search headers and libraries in the target environment, search
# programs in the host environment
set(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_PROGRAM NEVER)
set(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_LIBRARY ONLY)
set(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_INCLUDE ONLY)

# FindQt4.cmake querys qmake to get information, this doesn't work when crosscompiling
set(QT_BINARY_DIR   ${KDE4_SRC_DIR}/qt-copy/bin)
set(QT_LIBRARY_DIR  ${KDE_PREFIX}/lib)
set(QT_QTCORE_LIBRARY   ${KDE_PREFIX}/lib/libQtCore4.a)
set(QT_QTCORE_INCLUDE_DIR ${KDE_PREFIX}/include/QtCore)
set(QT_MKSPECS_DIR  ${KDE_PREFIX}/mkspecs)
set(QT_MOC_EXECUTABLE  ${QT_BINARY_DIR}/moc)
set(QT_QMAKE_EXECUTABLE  ${QT_BINARY_DIR}/qmake)
set(QT_UIC_EXECUTABLE  ${QT_BINARY_DIR}/uic)

mingw32-kdelibs.cmake

set(KDE_PREFIX    /windows/kde4)
set(KDE4_BIN_DIR    /home/kdeuser/kde/bin)

# this one is used by FindKDE4.cmake to load FindKDE4Internal.cmake:
set(KDE4_DATA_DIR    ${KDE_PREFIX}/share/apps CACHE PATH "points to the apps directory of installed kdelibs")

# not sure about this one:
set(KDEWIN_DIR ${KDE_PREFIX} CACHE PATH "what is it ?")

# disable some things:
set(WITH_AVAHI OFF   CACHE BOOL "Disabled")
set(WITH_DNSSD OFF   CACHE BOOL "Disabled")
set(WITH_ENCHANT OFF CACHE BOOL "Disabled")
set(WITH_FAM OFF     CACHE BOOL "Disabled")
set(WITH_GSSAPI OFF  CACHE BOOL "Disabled")
set(WITH_HSPELL OFF  CACHE BOOL "Disabled")
set(WITH_OpenEXR OFF CACHE BOOL "Disabled")

# use the binaries from native KDE4
set(KDE4_KCFGC_EXECUTABLE ${KDE4_BIN_DIR}/kconfig_compiler CACHE PATH "")
set(KDE4_AUTOMOC_EXECUTABLE ${KDE4_BIN_DIR}/kde4automoc CACHE PATH "")
set(KDE4_MEINPROC_EXECUTABLE ${KDE4_BIN_DIR}/meinproc4 CACHE PATH "")

adjust the values according to your setup

Build kdelibs

svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdelibs
cd kdelibs
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=~/Toolchain-mingw32.cmake ..

• you have to make a link to your kde4automoc and kconfig_compiler for linux in the bin directory

ln -s /path/to/kde4automoc bin/
ln -s /path/to/kconfig_compiler bin/

• since linux is case sensitive you have to make symbolic links for some headers

cd /windows/kde4/include
ln -s soprano Soprano

• You will get an error in klauncher.moc about slotKDEInitData so go into kinit and do something like this(you need wine)

rm *.moc
../bin/kde4automoc.exe /home/kdeuser/kde/src/KDE/kdelibs/build/kinit/klauncher_automoc.cpp /home/kdeuser/kde/src/KDE/kdelibs/kinit /home/kdeuser/kde/src/KDE/kdelibs/build/kinit /windows/kde4/bin/moc.exe

and then do make as usual

• Another error in kdewidgets because wine doesn't find some dll to run makekdewidgets.exe so either run the linux version manually like this

makekdewidgets -o /home/kdeuser/kde/src/KDE/kdelibs/build/kdewidgets/kdewidgets.cpp /home/kdeuser/kde/src/KDE/kdelibs/kdewidgets/kde.widgets

or symlink those missing library in your wine system32 folder(i haven't tested it but it should work)

Build kdepimlibs

This is easy :)

svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdepimlibs
cd kdepimlibs
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=~/Toolchain-mingw32.cmake -C ~/mingw32-kdelibs.cmake  ..
make
make install

Build kdebase

This is easy :)

svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdebase
cd kdebase
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=~/Toolchain-mingw32.cmake -C ~/mingw32-kdelibs.cmake ..
make
make install

Icecream

One of the joys of cross-compiling is the possibility to use an icecream cluster to speed up compilation.

For Debian Etch, you can get an icecream environment from here:

ftp://ftp.kdab.com/gpg4win/devtools/debian-etch-mingw32-icecream-env.tar.gz

(If you want to create your own environment: icecc-create-env does a good job except that it packages the wrong as. /usr/bin/i586-mingw32msvc-as is needed)

The bin/ dir with symlinks from i586-mingw32msvc-* to /usr/bin/icecc:

ftp://ftp.kdab.com/gpg4win/devtools/icecc-mingw-bin.tar.bz2

Untar icecc-mingw-bin.tar.bz2 to icecc-mingw-bin

Then set the following environment variables:

export PATH=/path/to/icecc-mingw-bin/bin:$PATH
export ICECC_CC=i586-mingw32msvc-gcc
export ICECC_CXX=i586-mingw32msvc-g++
export ICECC_VERSION=i686:/path/to/debian-etch-mingw32-icecream-env.tar.gz,x86_64:/path/to/debian-etch-mingw32-icecream-env.tar.gz

(Re-)run cmake and have fun.