Getting Started/Build/KDE4.x

Getting_Started/Build/KDE4.x

Objectives

You first need to decide if you want to keep your current KDE-3.5.x installation till you feel that KDE-4.x.y meets your needs for actual day to day use of your computer. Yet, you want to be able to change over with a minimum of work when the time comes to make the switch.

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/ directory. By default, Troll Tech installs Qt in: /usr/local/Trolltech/Qt-4/. It is best to install KDE-4.x.y in its own directory so that the directory can be deleted if some large problem occurs. I will be using /usr/local/KDE-4/ but you can call it whatever you want.

If you are currently running KDE-3, we can keep configurations straight by using a separate user account for accessing KDE-4.x.y. This user account will contain your configurations of KDE-4.x.y 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

Linux from Scratch or to build from source.

(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/local/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-COPY

QT_PLUGIN_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib/kde4/plugins:$QT_PLUGIN_PATH

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

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!!!

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/local/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.

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!

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 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

I have done this and will write this up soon.