Archive:Getting Started/Build/Qt

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Getting_Started/Build/Qt

Building KDE4 From Source/Qt

Tutorial Series	Getting Started
Previous	Getting_Started/Build/Requirements
What's Next	Getting_Started/Build/KdeSupport
Further Reading	n/a

Introduction

This page details the build requirements for Qt and some related packages. For most of these requirements it is preferable to use your distribution supplied packages, however in some case you will need to build some requirements yourself and this page will also explain how to do so.

The 'Stable' column shows the required version for the current Stable branch while the 'Master' column shows the required version for the current development version (aka 'trunk'). On most distributions you will also need to install the matching -devel packages for some of the software, this is indicated in the Devel column of the table.

makeobj

Requirements as at 2011-03-02, Stable Branch currently KDE Release 4.6, Master currently targeting KDE Release 4.7.

Requirement	Stable	Master	Devel?	Details
makeobj	r1215872	r1215872	No

Makeobj is a script to assist make. It is a part of the kdesdk module but is needed to build all KDE modules. If you have kdesdk installed on your system then this version should be sufficient, but r1215872 is recommended when working with Git.

To install it download via WebSVN and install into your path somewhere, preferably ~/.bin. Once you have built kdesdk from source you should then remove this copy.

Qt

Requirements as at 2011-03-02, Stable Branch currently KDE Release 4.6, Master currently targeting KDE Release 4.7.

Requirement	Stable	Master	Devel?	Details
Qt	>= 4.7.0	>= 4.7.0	Yes

Qt is the toolkit that all KDE is built upon. Most distributions package a recent enough Qt to build KDE, although you may need to add an extra repository to do so. Building Qt can take a long time, so packages are preferred for a quick start.

At some stage, KDE master may switch to relying on a development version of Qt, or may require patches to Qt for bug-fixes that have not yet been released by Qt. In this case you may need to build your own copy of Qt to build KDE against and it is recommended that you use the KDE clone qt-kde when this happens. You can choose to overwrite your system Qt install when doing so but this is not recommended. You are advised to set your build environment $QTDIR install directory to a local folder different to $KDEDIR to allow easy switching between Qt versions.

Please see the qt-kde project page for further details. It is recommended to read README.qt-kde file for the necessary Qt configure options as well as currently known issues.

Note that you need to install Qt and Phonon from Qt and then later to install Phonon KDE from git at the same location. This will ensure you get sound in Qt-based applications as well as in KDE ones.

Easy Recipe

The Easy Recipe relies on you setting up your environment according to the KDE recommendations. This will give you many shortcuts to save on typing. See the [[../Environment|Build Environment]] section to do this.

Ensure you setup your environment $QTDIR to point to somewhere suitable.

cd <your source directory>
git clone kde:qt-kde
./configure [configure options from README.kde-qt replacing <installdir> with $QTDIR]
nice make -j2 # for faster compiles use -j(X+1)' where X is your number of processor cores
make install

Full Recipe

The Full Recipe is provided for those who wish to control their build environment or to see the full steps required and who don't mind lots of typing.

cd <your source directory>
git clone git://anongit.kde.org/qt-kde
cd qt-kde
./configure [configure options from README.kde-qt
nice make -j2 # for faster compiles use -j(X+1)' where X is your number of processor cores
make install

Troubleshooting

If ./configure produces errors about missing headers, run the following command before trying again: QTDIR=`pwd` bin/syncqt

Make sure which qmake delivers something out of $QTDIR, e.g. /home/kde-devel/qt-kde/bin/qmake

If you get "error: X11/Xlib.h: No such file or directory", install the devel package of xorg (the actual name may vary between operating systems, for example it is xorg-dev on Ubuntu based systems such as Kubuntu).

If you get an error in the configure step about missing defines, check the value of $QMAKESPEC. Some distributions set this to point directly to the system-installed Qt. If unset QMAKESPEC solves the problem, you probably want to add it to the ~/.bashrc script.

If you get an error ".pch/debug-shared/QtCore", this is because Qt-4.3 enables precompiled headers if your gcc supports it, but for some reason it doesn't work for you. If you use distcc, configure qt with -no-pch. If you use icecream, update to the latest icecream from svn trunk.

Try running any Qt program, like assistant.

Generating local API documentation

It's nice to have the Qt documentation locally for nice integration with KDevelop, and doing this is really quite easy (also shown in README.kde-qt):

cd $KDE_SRC/qt-kde
make docs
./config.status
make install

Note that it is necessary to do this only once, even if you rebuild Qt later.

DBusMenu-Qt

Requirements as at 2011-03-02, Stable Branch currently KDE Release 4.6, Master currently targeting KDE Release 4.7.

Requirement	Stable	Master	Devel?	Details
DBusMenu-Qt			Yes

DBusMenu-Qt is a library providing a Qt implementation of the DBusMenu spec. Your distribution packages should be sufficient for this package.

Please see the DBusMenu-Qt home page for more deatils.

You need json to build the tests.

Easy Recipe

This recipe assumes you have set up the recommended KDE scripts, environment variables, and git configuration.

cd <your source root directory>
git clone git://gitorious.org/dbusmenu/dbusmenu-qt.git
cd dbusmenu-qt
cmakekde

Full Recipe

This recipe assumes you are not using the recommended scripts and have properly set up your own environment.

cd <your source root directory>
git clone git://gitorious.org/dbusmenu/dbusmenu-qt.git
cd <your build root directory, or the module source dir>
mkdir <your module build dir>
cd <your module build dir>
cmake <path to your module source dir>
      \ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$KDEDIR 
      \ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull
nice make -j2 # for faster compiles use -j(X+1)' where X is your number of processor cores
make install

Next Step

Once all requirements have been installed it is time to install [[../KdeSupport|kdesupport]]