Getting Started/Build/KDE4
| Tutorial Series | Getting Started |
| Previous | Anonymous SVN Quickstart Guide |
| What's Next | Starting a KDE4 Environment and Applications |
| Further Reading | Instructions for Mac OS X The KDE From Subversion Build Tool Increased Productivity in KDE4 with Scripts |
Abstract
This tutorial shows one way to get KDE from trunk running. It consolidates info from several places, e.g. the official KDE developer pages. The official pages may be updated without this page being updated too, so check there if you have problems.
Create a user account for KDE4 development
Option 1: Command Line
useradd kde-devel
mkdir /home/kde-devel
passwd kde-devel
chown kde-devel:kde-devel /home/kde-devel 2>/dev/null || \
chown kde-devel:users /home/kde-devel
Option 2: Using KControl
Instead of using the commands above, you can also use the User module in the KDE Control Center if you already have KDE3 installed.
Switching to the New User
Switch to the user kde-devel: (the dash also changes to the new home directory)
su - kde-devel
The rest of this tutorial assumes you are running as the kde-devel user.
The kde-devel user's shell
On some systems a new user is configured by default to use /bin/sh. If this is not the case on your system, you can skip this section. Using /bin/sh can be very inconvenient to work with and you may want to change it to /bin/bash or another shell.
Option 1: As the kde-devel user
If you don't have root privileges and your system supports the changing of your own shell with the chsh application, then you could try to change your shell to /bin/bash by using chsh -s /bin/bash your-kde-devel-username.
Option 2: As the root user
If your system comes with the usermod application you can run the following command as root: usermod -s /bin/bash.
Another option is to use the vipw application as root to safely edit your /etc/passwd. Locate 'kde-devel' in the the file. Change '/bin/sh' at the end of the line to read '/bin/bash', save your changes and exit.
The new shell will be started automatically when you log in as the kde-devel user again.
Prepare for software setup
Please look also in Getting Started/Increased Productivity in KDE4 with Scripts.
Copy the ~/.bashrc from your normal user account to the new kde-devel account. Next, copy and paste the contents of .bashrc into ~kde-devel/.bashrc.
This will provide access to commands such as cmakekde that are used in this tutorial as well as ensure that the proper paths are in place for Qt, KDE and CMake binaries.
Now either login again as the kde-devel user or activate the settings with:
source ~/.bashrc
Set up D-Bus
Skip this if you have D-Bus >=0.93 installed.
The Recipe
wget http://dbus.freedesktop.org/releases/dbus/dbus-1.0.2.tar.gz
tar xvfz dbus-1.0.2.tar.gz
cd dbus-1.0.2/
./configure --disable-qt --disable-qt3 --prefix=$DBUSDIR \
--localstatedir=/var && make && make install
dbus-uuidgen --ensure
What's Happening
D-Bus source code is downloaded from freedesktop.org (line 1) and unpacked (line 2). After going into the newly created D-Bus directory (line 3), the build is set up using the supplied configure script (lines 4-5). Finally, using dbus-uuidgen D-Bus is set to start automatically when the desktop session starts (line 6).
Set up CMake
Skip this if you have CMake >=2.4.5 installed.
The default prefix is /usr/local, make sure /usr/local/bin is in your $PATH.
cd ..
wget http://www.cmake.org/files/v2.4/cmake-2.4.5.tar.gz
tar zxf cmake-2.4.5.tar.gz
mkdir cmake-build
cd cmake-build
../cmake-2.4.5/bootstrap
make
sudo make install
Set up Qt
cd ..
svn checkout svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/qt-copy
cd ~/qt-copy && ./apply_patches && \
./configure -qt-gif -no-exceptions -debug -fast \
-prefix $QTDIR -qdbus && make && make install
Set up kdelibs
If you use the aforementioned .bashrc this is were those new functions come in handy:
cs
mkdir KDE && cd KDE
svn checkout svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdelibs
cd kdelibs
cb
cmakekde
Additional KDE-specific CMake modules
There are additional CMake modules in kdelibs/cmake/modules/ that are necessary for building KDE4 applications. These will be installed for you when kdelibs itself is installed.
Troubleshooting
If you have problems compiling kdelibs, first make sure the following commands can be executed: gcc, g++, pkg-config.
If the problems persist, try the make-option --keep-going
Set up kdepimlibs
Before kdebase you need to install kdepimlibs
cs KDE
svn checkout svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdepimlibs
cd kdepimlibs
cmakekde
Set up kdebase
You may need kdebase for some kioslaves.
cs KDE
svn checkout svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdebase
cd kdebase
cmakekde
Troubleshooting
If you have troubles compiling kdebase:
- Make sure you have the libxss headers installed. (Usually you got undefined references on xscreensaver objects if you haven't those headers)
- which meinproc has to deliver /home/kde-devel/kde/bin/meinproc
- if cmakekde cannot find the path of kdepimlibs, edit the file /home/kde-devel/kdebase-build/CMakeCache.txt and manually set KDEPIMLIBS_INCLUDE_DIR:PATH=/home/kde-devel/kdepimlibs-build
- if you get an error saying "Please set the following variables: X11_XTest_LIB (ADVANCED)", install the devel package of Xtst. On some systems, this is packaged separately from xext and called x11proto-xext-dev or libxtst-dev. You may also need to remove the CMakeCache.txt file in the build dir after installing the package.
- the same for "X11_Xinerama_LIB (ADVANCED)" where you will need the devel package for xinerama.
Generating local API documentation
Although the API documentation for KDE is available online at api.kde.org, it is sometimes useful to have it on your own disk, for example when you want to use KDevelop for browsing the documentation or when you are not able to be online all the time.
Be aware that generating the API documentation can take several hours and takes almost half a gigabyte of diskspace. The generation is handled by a script in kdelibs/doc/api, you need doxygen to be able to run it.
To build the API documentation for kdelibs, type the following:
cd
mkdir apidox
cd apidox
../kdelibs/doc/api/doxygen.sh ../kdelibs/
Success!
You are now ready to start building other svn modules in the same fashion as you built kdebase, running and testing KDE4 or writing your own patches and applications.
See the Starting a KDE4 Environment and Applications tutorial for how to start working on your new KDE4 installation.