Getting Started/Build/KDE4.x

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Getting_Started/Build/KDE4.x


Objectives

You first need to decide if you want to keep your current KDE-3 installation till you feel that KDE-4 meets your needs for actual day to day use of your computer. Yet, you will be able to change over with a minimum of work when the time comes to make the switch. Even if you plan to immediately switch over to KDE-4, I still recommend that you use the method I describe since it will take some time to build all of KDE-4 as a background job even on a fast system and you will probably want to continue to use your system until the build and install is finished.

Method

The best way to accomplish this is to install the needed support libraries on your system in the usual manner. Convention is that these should be installed in the /usr/local/ or /usr directory. By default, Troll Tech installs Qt in: /usr/local/Trolltech/Qt-4/. It is best to install KDE-4.x.y (along with KDE specific libraries) in its own directory so that the directory can be deleted if some major problem occurs -- also useful if you are building from SVN as it is a good idea to make a fresh install occasionally since building from SVN only adds things; obsolete things are not removed. I will be using /usr/KDE-4/ but you can call it whatever you want. Or, you can install KDE-4.x.y in /opt/KDE-4 which is theoretically more correct.

Remember to add the: "lib" directories:

/usr/local/Trolltech/Qt-4/lib
/usr/KDE-4/lib

(or the directories you are using if different) to your: "/etc/ld.so.conf" file. These new libraries have different names so there should be no conflicts.

noframe
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While it is perfectly proper to install KDE-4 in its own directory, it appears that this causes some minor bugs when code presumes that KDE-4 is installed in /usr. If you have such problems, they are bugs and they should be reported.
Warning

If you are currently running KDE-3, we can keep configurations straight by using a separate user account for accessing KDE-4 (until you switch over to KDE-4). This user account will contain your configurations of KDE-4 and will have a script to set the environment variables (.bash_profile if using Linux). When you want to changeover to KDE-4, all that is needed is to change the configuration information.

Installation

Required packages from your distribution

(Till other distro instructions are added, you can probably determine the correct version to install by reading the LFS list of libraries)

Create the User Account

Use whatever method you wish to create a new user account. Mine is called: "KDE4". Then edit or create the user specific login script (.bash_profile for Linux). There is a lot that goes into this. Note that this presumes that USER was correctly set by the system login script.

------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------

XDG_DATA_HOME="$HOME/.local/share"
XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$HOME/.config"
export XDG_DATA_HOME XDG_CONFIG_HOME
KDEDIR=/usr/KDE-4
KDEHOME=$HOME/.kde4
KDETMP=/tmp/$USER-kde4
mkdir -p $KDETMP
KDEVARTMP=/var/tmp/$USER-kde4
mkdir -p $KDEVARTMP
KDEDIRS=$KDEDIR
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH
export KDEDIR KDEHOME KDETMP KDEVARTMP KDEDIRS PKG_CONFIG_PATH
QTDIR=/usr/local/Trolltech/Qt-<version>
QT_PLUGIN_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib/kde4/plugins
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$QTDIR/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH
export QTDIR QT_PLUGIN_PATH PKG_CONFIG_PATH
PATH=$QTDIR/bin:$KDEDIR/bin:$PATH
export PATH
MANPATH=$MANPATH:"$KDEDIR/share/man"
export MANPATH
XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=$KDEDIR/etc/xdg
XDG_DATA_DIRS=$KDEDIR/share
export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS XDG_DATA_DIRS
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$QTDIR/lib:$KDEDIR/lib
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------

Be sure to get the paths correct for your system!!! And, replace <version> with your Qt version.

This is in addition to other things that you need in the script which would probably go at the beginning -- this large block of junk is to be added at the end. The XDG directories might need to be modified for your system.

When creating the new account, remember that various service on the system are dependent on a user account being a member of various groups. So, open KUser and see which groups your regular user account is a member of and add the new account (KDE4) to those that are appropriate.

If you want access to data in another account, you need to add the new account (KDE4) to the private group of that other account. If you still have access issues, check the directory permissions. The private group for the other user must have the needed permissions.

Build

To build, you must be logged on as the new user account (KDE4). I suggest that you use a virtual console rather than trying to do this in a Konsole. You can 'su' for the whole thing or 'su -c' for each install.

Packages need to be installed with the correct prefixes for this to work:

If you are building Qt from source, configure it with with --prefix=/usr/local/Trolltech/Qt-4. If you installed it from a binary, determine the prefix and change: QTDIR in the script above.

KDE should use:

-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/KDE-4 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Release

when running cmake.

KDE Support should installed in the same directory as KDE.

Other packages should be installed with the default prefix (/usr/local) or in /usr -- which ever you prefer.

Then, you need to build:

KDELibs
KDEPIMLibs
KDEBase

first and in that order.

If you are installing KDEBindings, it should be built next (4th).

CMake

CMake normally uses a build directory. So follow these steps:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. <configure parameters>
make
make install

Don't forget the ".." after cmake!

If CMake has problems finding things it may help to set these two environment variables:

CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH
CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH

These have the same syntax as PATH -- a ":" delimited list of paths searched in order.

Configure

For this to work, you must properly configure D-Bus. The D-Bus services will be installed in "/usr/KDE-4/share/dbus-1/services". For D-Bus to find them, you must add that path to the: "/etc/dbus-1/session-local.conf" file: 

 <servicedir>/usr/KDE-4/share/dbus-1/services</servicedir>

Starting

You will have two "startkde" scripts on your system and you will probably need to make changes so that you use the correct one to start the version that you want. Specifically, the KDE 'desktop' file for KDM from KDE-3 probably has the full path to the KDE-3 "startkde" script so the different PATH will not make any difference.

Switching to KDE-4

First, the simple part. If you have a:

/etc/profile.d

directory as Linux should, you need to add these two files:

qt4.sh ------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------ 

# Qt-4 initialization script (sh)

QTDIR=/usr/local/Trolltech/Qt-<version>
QT_PLUGIN_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib/kde4/plugins
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$QTDIR/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH

export QT_PLUGIN_PATH PKG_CONFIG_PATH

PATH=$QTDIR/bin:$PATH
export PATH

------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------

Replace <version> with your Qt version.

kde-4.sh ------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------ 

# KDE-4 initialization script (sh)

KDEX="kde4"

KDEDIR="/usr/KDE-4"

KDEHOME=$HOME/.kde4
PATH="$KDEDIR/bin:$PATH"
KDEDIRS=$KDEDIR:/usr

export KDEDIR KDEHOME PATH KDEDIRS

if test -n "$MANPATH" ; then
  MANPATH=$MANPATH:"$KDEDIR/share/man"
else
  MANPATH="$KDEDIR/share/man"
fi

export MANPATH

KDETMP=/tmp/$USER-$KDEX
mkdir -p $KDETMP
KDEVARTMP=/var/tmp/$USER-$KDEX
mkdir -p $KDEVARTMP

export KDETMP KDEVARTMP

KDE4_XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/usr/KDE-4/etc/xdg
KDE4_XDG_DATA_DIRS=$KDEDIR/share

if test -n "$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS" ; then
  XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS:$KDE4_XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
else
  XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=$KDE4_XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
fi

if test -n "$XDG_DATA_DIRS" ; then
  XDG_DATA_DIRS=$XDG_DATA_DIRS:$KDE4_XDG_DATA_DIRS
else
  XDG_DATA_DIRS=$KDE4_XDG_DATA_DIRS
fi

export XDG_DATA_DIRS XDG_CONFIG_DIRS

------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------

If you don't have the: "profile.d" directory, you need to add this stuff to your "/etc/profile" script.

This eliminates the need for the large block of stuff in your: ".bash_profile" script.

Now, if you remove KDE-3, and reboot your system, all should be OK -- but it probably won't. Or, perhaps you don't want to remove KDE-3.

The: "profile.d" scripts are executed in alphabetical order, so you can modify the order by adding capitol letters to the beginning of the file names. For Example, you can name your KDE-4 script: "ACkde-4" to have it executed in the desired order.

What is important for this to work is for the PATH to be set correctly so that the directory: "/usr/KDE-4/bin" is before the: "bin" directory for KDE-3.

I have KDE-3 installed in: "/usr/kde-3" so I have a: "profile.d" script for it. This made disabling KDE-3 very simple. I just disabled that script. Note that you don't want to disable Qt-3 because you might have applications which use it.

However, if you have KDE-3 installed in: "/usr" you may have issues disabling it.

One major issue, if you leave KDE-3 installed and can not disable it is the menu. You probably don't want the KDE-3 stuff in your menu while running KDE-4. The KDE-3 menu 'desktop' files are in:

<kde-3 prefix>/share/applications/kde

so you can remove them from the menu by locking that directory -- set the permissions to 000.

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