Getting Started/Build/Windows/emerge: Difference between revisions

    From KDE TechBase
    (→‎What emerge does: more details)
    m (Fix command for sourcing kdeenv.ps1)
    (213 intermediate revisions by 25 users not shown)
    Line 1: Line 1:
    emerge is a tool to build the KDE sources and its third party requirements on MS Windows.
    ''emerge'' is a tool to build the KDE sources and its third-party requirements on MS Windows. It is the '''easy''' way to build KDE on MS Windows.


    It automates much of the downloading, patching and compiling described in [[../GCC_And_MinGW]]
    == Introduction ==
    Emerge is a tool that can build the different parts of KDE and its dependencies under Windows. We created this tool to automate and simplify the build process under Windows. We try to build all packages that we offer in the KDE installer with emerge. That has some advantages for us:
    === Easy for people to join us ===
    Before emerge it was quite some work to set a system up for development. There were some quirks, which were documented in some mailing lists, but you had to remember them or you ran into an already solved problem again, etc.
    Now to get a development machine you need a Windows computer, need to install Python and Git and do the emerge checkout. Then execute emerge to build what you want to build. This is easy for developers coming from Windows to KDE, and also for KDE developers coming to Windows.
    === Easy for us to do build ===
    With emerge you can build the whole software stack (low-level libs, Qt, kdelibs, things above that) with only one command. You can start that build, and some hours later you can check if it worked, or if something broke. So we can spot problems easier and earlier. We can also start with a "naked" Windows computer without any other installed software and bootstrap kde on it. That ensures, that no hidden dependencies on some pieces of software sneak in, because then the builds on a "naked" computer would break and show the problem.
    === Easy to collaborate ===
    We can test the same emerge build description for a package on different Windows versions/computers before we do binary releases. People can also add build descriptions for new packages to the Subversion repository.


    == Set up ==
    This emerge tool was inspired by the Gentoo emerge tool.
    emerge.bat invokes an emerge.py script written in Python, so you first need to [http://www.python.org/download/ install the Python language].


    The latest source code for Emerge and the rest of KDE is stored in a [http://subversion.tigris.org/ Subversion] repository.
    == Set up the environment ==
    === Root directory ===
    Create a directory if possible in your harddrive's root e.g. C:\kderoot or D:\kderoot (You will need this PATH later). This directory will contain the whole kde installation later. We will refer to it as KDEROOT.


    Check out the sources from the svn-directory of emerge into a new directory, which in this example we will call ''kderoot''.
    === Python interpreter ===
    If you have  [http://subversion.tigris.org/project_packages.html#windows Subversion command-line tool], you can accomplish this with the following command:
    <tt>emerge.bat</tt> invokes an <tt>emerge.py</tt> script written in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_%28programming_language%29 Python] programming language, so you first need to [http://www.python.org/download/ install the Python 3.4 Interpreter]. The ''python'' installation directory will be added to the PATH later by <tt>KDEROOT\etc\kdesettings.ini</tt>.
    <pre>svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/kdesupport/kdewin32/emerge</pre>


    Alternatively, you can checkout the sources using a program like [http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ TortoiseSVN].
    === Git client ===
    The latest source code for Windows ''emerge'' and a lot of the rest of KDE is stored in a repository created and managed using the [http://git-scm.com/ Git] version control tool. You need a git client for the first checkout of emerge. There are at least two applications:
    *a command line client, available at [http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list?can=3 subversion.apache.org], aimed at developers or power users accustomed with the command line,
    *a GUI program like [http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/ TortoiseGit], optional, useful for displaying differences between various versions of files in the repository in a graphical way.


    Be sure to use a copy of Subversion that was built on Windows so that checked-out files do not use UNIX line endingsIf you check out with UNIX line endings, the ''patch'' program will fail when attempting to apply a patch whose line endings don't match the system's.
    Emerge uses its own git client for checking out all KDE source code. You can find it in KDEROOT\dev-utils\git\bin. It will be used by emerge even if you have another git executable installed.
     
    === Getting the ''emerge'' tool ===
    The source code of the ''emerge'' tool and the recipes for creating KDE packages are located at <tt>git://anongit.kde.org/emerge.git</tt>, which is an URL based on the git-specific ''git'' protocol.
     
    You need to clone the source code from the ''emerge'' git repository into a new directory below your root directory (the root directory is normally called %KDEROOT% here) or get it inside a self extracting archive (not tested yet).
     
    ==== Check out using the 'git' command ====
     
    With the ''git'' command line tool, you can accomplish this with the following commands:
    :: <pre>cd KDEROOT</pre>
    *if you will only use anonymous (read-only) access to the KDE git repository:<pre>git clone git://anongit.kde.org/emerge.git</pre>
    *if the git and ssh ports are blocked, and only http is allowed, it is better to clone over the http port for getting (read-only) access to the KDE git repository:<pre>git clone http://anongit.kde.org/emerge.git</pre>
    *or, if you plan to use write access (commit) to the emerge repository using your existing account & OpenSSH private key: <pre>git clone [email protected]:emerge.git</pre>
     
    === Configure the ''emerge'' tool ===
    # Create the directory <tt>KDEROOT\etc</tt>.
    # Copy the file <tt>KDEROOT\emerge\kdesettings.ini</tt> as <tt>KDEROOT\etc\kdesettings.ini</tt> and change its contents according to your needs.
     
    Note 0: '''Read the comments in that file very carefully'''
     
    Note 1: '''Be sure that you neither have the msys/bin nor the cygwin/bin in your path. If so you have to definitely remove it from the path.'''
     
    Note 2 '''from a user: The applications gimp, inkscape and graphviz are also a problem. To make sure that there's nothing wrong I stripped my path to contain only what I needed to build.'''
     
    emerge has several branches which contain specific package versions. E.g. if you want to build the 4.13 branch of KDE (or one of the 4.13 releases) you should checkout the ''kde-4.13'' branch of emerge; in the ''master'' branch, you can find the KDE Frameweorks 5.
     
    To view all branches, use the following command:
    <pre>git branch -a</pre>
    To change the branch of emerge, do the following:
    <pre>cd emerge && git checkout kde-4.13</pre>
     
    === [Optional, Advanced] emerge-boost-config.jam ===
    Add a file emerge-boost-config.jam in the <tt>%KDEROOT%\etc</tt> directory to build boost in a specific way. The only current use case is for the following problem:
    If you build 32bit binaries with emerge on a 64bit system you need to link boost-python against a 32bit python library. In case your standard python installation is 64bit though, you can specify the python installation in the following way:
    <syntaxhighlight lang="text">
    # ---------------------
    # Python configuration.
    # ---------------------
     
    # Configure specific Python version.
    using python : 3.2 : C:\\Python32_x86 ;
    </syntaxhighlight>
    This way boost-python would be using the headers & libraries from C:\\Python32_x86 instead of the default one.
    Please remember that for mingw compilers you must regenerate the import library for the python dll (also for the mingw 64bit compiler):
    <syntaxhighlight lang="text">
    R:\> emerge pexports
    R:\> pexports C:\Python32_x86\python32.dll > C:\Python32_x86\libs\python32.def
    </syntaxhighlight>
    NOTE: In case you generate the import library for the 64bit compiler, add the following line to the file python32.def:
    <syntaxhighlight lang="text">
    Py_InitModule4 = Py_InitModule4_64
    </syntaxhighlight>
    For both compilers you should now run:
    <syntaxhighlight lang="text">
    dlltool -d C:\Python32_x86\libs\python32.def -l C:\Python32_x86\libs\libpython32.dll.a
    </syntaxhighlight>
    Now you should be able to do emerge -i boost-python-src without errors.
     
    == Using emerge ==
     
    To use emerge you need to start a Powershell window and point that to <tt>KDEROOT\emerge</tt>. For example:
     
    C:
      cd KDEROOT\emerge
     
    Then in the windows powershell you have to load the script with
     
    ". .\kdeenv.ps1"
     
    This tells emerge about your environment settings (e.g. paths). It will load your configuration from <tt>KDEROOT\etc\kdesettings.ini</tt>. It should not give any error messages, otherwise emerge will not work as expected. The output should look similar to this one (of course with your paths):
     
    PS C:\kderoot\emerge>.\kdeenv.ps1
    KDEROOT    : r:\
    KDECOMPILER : mingw-w64
    KDESVNDIR  : s:\
    KDEGITDIR  : q:\
    DOWNLOADDIR : t:\
    PYTHONPATH  : C:\python34
       
       
    Create the directory kderoot\etc.  Copy the file '''kderoot\emerge\kdesettings-environment.bat''' to '''kderoot\etc\kdesettings.bat''' and change it according to your needs. Then run it.
    PS C:\kderoot\emerge>
     
    ''Note: There is a short path option in kdesettings which you will need if you want to build Qt in a directory that has a pathlength of more then around 5 characters. This problem is due to limitations of the command line length and the Qt build system.''
     
    Next, if you have configured your kdesettings.ini to use svn+ssh for your subversion checkout, then you need to run:
     
    <syntaxhighlight lang="text">plink <your-svn-username>@svn.kde.org
    plink <your-kde-username>@git.kde.org</syntaxhighlight>
     
    This will prompt you to accept the fingerprint of the server, otherwise svn will hang forever when trying to download from the server.
     
    Now you should be able to use emerge. To get some help on usage:


    emerge --help


    === Compiling ===
    To get a list of available packages:
    emerge uses either the MinGW ("Minimalist GNU for Windows") GCC compiler and tools to build Qt and KDE from source code or on of the Microsoft Compilers (> Visual Studio 2003).
    emerge --print-installable


    Currently, there is no dependency on the compilers in any of the packages. So, unless you call '''emerge mingw''' manually, have the compiler installed and in your path or alter the environment configuration scripts to add your existing MinGW bin directory to the ''PATH'' variable, compiling anything will choke.  If you run '''emerge mingw''', you will not need to modify the environment configuration scripts to point to a custom location.
    To get a list of currently installed packages:
      emerge --print-installed


    If you see an error about ''cc1plus'' not being found, either add MinGW's ''\libexec\gcc\mingw32\3.4.5'' to your ''PATH'' variable or copy the contents of this directory to MinGW's ''bin'' directory. The prior is preferred.
    == Setting up a compiler ==
    Currently emerge supports both the MinGW and MS Visual C++ (msvc) compilers. We did not add dependencies for the compilers, so you have to make sure to install a compiler by yourself. There are three ways to set up a compiler for emerge.
    We assumed you have set KDECOMPILER variable properly in the <tt>KDEROOT\etc\kdesettings.ini</tt>.


    Everything applies to MS Visual Studio Compilers in a similar manner.
    In the following sections you can find information on how to install or reuse an existing compiler.


    == Running emerge ==
    === Install the MinGW compiler with emerge ===
    Let emerge install the MinGW compiler, as soon as emerge needs MinGW it will automatically fetch the correct version for you.


    Start a console window and run
    === Install MS Visual C++ ===
    C:\kderoot\etc\kdesettings
    Read [[../MS_Visual_Studio#The_Compiler|here]].


    Check your path (run: <tt>echo %PATH%</tt>), it should have python and various directories within kderoot in it.
    === Point to an existing MS Visual C++ installation ===
    You need to point emerge to an existing msvc installation. This is run automatically for you from kdeenv.bat if configured properly in kdesettings.ini. Check your kdesettings.ini file to know where to set it.


    You can get 'some' help if you run:
    == Installing the base system ==
    C:\kderoot\emerge\bin>emerge --help</pre>
    Once you have emerge and a compiler installed and working, try:


    Below the directory '''kderoot\emerge\portage''' are subdirectories for categories as subdirectories which contain the instructions for individual packages.
    You are now ready to start building KDE, it is recommended to do so progressively, relying on emerge to automatically resolve the required dependencies at each set step:
    The emerge script automatically handles package dependencies (except for the compiler, see [[#Compiling]]).


    To build every required package for e.g. '''kdebase''' enter '''emerge kdebase'''.
    * Enter <tt>emerge qt</tt>.  This will fetch and install Windows versions of numerous UNIX-like utilities and libraries, then checkout, compile and install Qt. This will take several hours.
    If you want to make a dry run, add the option '''-p''' to it.
    * Enter <tt>emerge frameworks</tt>.  This will checkout, compile and install the kde frameworks 5 modules.
    * Enter <tt>emerge kde-baseapps</tt>. This will checkout, compile and install kdebase-runtime, and kdebase-apps.


    Start with '''emerge qt''' and when that completes successfully, run '''emerge kdelibs'''.
    You will now have successfully installed a base KDE system and can now install other KDE modules as required.
     
    Note that this will install the development version of KDE (trunk in svn repositories, master in git repositories), if you wish to install a particular stable branch then you should change the branch of emerge to the specific branch of that release. '''NOTE:''' You should not mix kde packages from different branches.
     
    It is strongly recommended you do not choose to manually install any of the utilities and libraries yourself, as you may install the wrong version and cause installation failures.  Instead allow emerge to resolve the dependencies for you.
     
    Every time you want to update or install a package, you should first update your emerge checkout (simply run emerge --update emerge) to ensure you are using the latest package recipies.


    == What emerge does ==
    == What emerge does ==
    emerge will fetch Windows versions of numerous UNIX-like utilities and libraries from the Internet, putting them in '''kderoot\bin''', then get the Win32 support files, then Subversion, then Perl and the Qt libraries, etc.
    '''emerge ''packageName'' ''' performs the separate actions <tt>--fetch</tt>, <tt>--unpack</tt>, <tt>--compile</tt>, <tt>--install</tt>, and <tt>--qmerge</tt>.


    Then emerge compiles the Qt libraries, this takes hours.
    The <tt>--fetch</tt> action will retrieve either a binary or the source code for the package:


    '''emerge ''package'' ''' performs the separate actions <tt>--fetch</tt>, <tt>--unpack</tt>, <tt>--compile</tt>, <tt>--install</tt>, <tt>--manifest</tt>, and <tt>--qmerge</tt>.
    == ''emerge'' command line options and settings ==
    There are some options that can be used when building with ''emerge''.


    == Notes ==
    {| border="0" cellpadding="2"
    !Command line switch
    !Command line argument
    !
    !Description
    |-valign="top"
    |<tt>-v</tt>
    |<tt>EMERGE_VERBOSE</tt>
    |width="5%"|
    |This option sets the verbosity level. Currently the highest verbosity level is 3 (<tt>-v -v -v</tt>). A verbosity level of 0 should give no output and equals to <tt>-q</tt>. You can set <tt>EMERGE_VERBOSE=3</tt> instead in the environment of the commandline or within your <tt>kdesettings.ini</tt> file.
    |-valign="top"
    |<tt>--offline</tt>
    |
    |
    |This option suppresses the update step of the local tree - which needs some time. Be aware though that you have to have existing sources already if you want to use this option.
    |-valign="top"
    |<tt>-t</tt>
    |<tt>EMERGE_BUILDTESTS</tt>
    |
    |This option enables or disables KDE4 buildtests for KDE modules. Other packages will not change. Use <tt>EMERGE_BUILDTESTS=True</tt> or <tt>=False</tt>.
    |-valign="top"
    |<tt>--print-targets</tt>
    |
    |
    |This option will display all "targets" a certain package has. Normally targets are fixed releases or different branches. They are defined in the portage file.
    |-valign="top"
    |<tt>--target=TARGET</tt>
    |
    |
    |This sets a specific target for this package. If not added, the default target is used, which can be checked by looking at the output of '''--print-targets'''.
    |-valign="top"
    |<tt>-i</tt>
    |
    |
    |This option ignores that a package is already installed. It builds it completely new, but keeps the dependencies.
    |-valign="top"
    |<tt>--update</tt>
    |
    |
    |This option ignores that a package is already installed but doesn't cleanup an already existing build directory. Thus you will only rebuild files that have changed since the last build.
    |}


    emerge is mostly usable together with the kdewin-installer but we're currently still working on some packages which are packaged in a wrong way.
    == Hints ==
    It is not recommended to use another layout then '''installer''' for '''directory_layout''' in the '''kdesettings.bat''' anymore (see that file for more detailed information).
    === Updating packages ===
    *Once you have ''packagename'' built, type <syntaxhighlight lang="text">emerge --update packagename</syntaxhighlight> to update <tt>packagename</tt> from the Subversion and compile it without removing the build dir or <syntaxhighlight lang="text">emerge --update-all</syntaxhighlight> to update all packages that can be rebuild (they are rebuild with --update).


    emerge creates lots of files in '''\kderoot\tmp''' during build.
    === General setup ===
    After a package is successfully installed
    For Fine Tuning see here:
    (check '''\kderoot\etc\portage\installed'''), you can delete its temporary directory.
    [[Projects/KDE_on_Windows/Installation#Fine-tuning|Fine-tuning]]


    emerge is derived from the Gentoo portage system,
    ==Vista issues==
    that has documentation for the portage format and emerge program.
    *[[User:Jstaniek|jstaniek]] 12:02, 15 January 2008 (CET): UAC has infamous heuristics that make programs like patch.exe treat as installers and try to run them with admin rights (!). This heuristics can be tricked by renaming patch.exe to something like pch.exe ([http://nevali.net/2007/01/update-workaround-for-the-cygwin-uac-problem/ example]) but we did not want to add item to our infrastructure. Instead it is possibleto turn off the heuristics (see the screenshot [http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2007/02/running-vista-every-day.html here in the security blog calling the heuristics 'severe hole in the design of UAC']). If you happen to disable the UAC, as many annoyed users and devs do (msvc demands admin rights anyway!), patch.exe should already work for you as in older Windows. Alternatively you may want to disable UAC [http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-user-account-controluac-for-administrators-only/ for admins only], but this makes no sense if you are the only user of your machine and use only the admin account.
    * [http://ben.versionzero.org/wiki/Fixing_the_way_Vista_Auto-detects_Installers This wiki page] lists instructions on how to use program manifest to disable privilege elevation for a single binary and makes patch play nice with UAC.  This [https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=186712 should] eventually be integrated to emerge scripts.  


    [[Category:MS Windows]]
    [[Category:MS Windows]]

    Revision as of 11:06, 21 November 2014

    emerge is a tool to build the KDE sources and its third-party requirements on MS Windows. It is the easy way to build KDE on MS Windows.

    Introduction

    Emerge is a tool that can build the different parts of KDE and its dependencies under Windows. We created this tool to automate and simplify the build process under Windows. We try to build all packages that we offer in the KDE installer with emerge. That has some advantages for us:

    Easy for people to join us

    Before emerge it was quite some work to set a system up for development. There were some quirks, which were documented in some mailing lists, but you had to remember them or you ran into an already solved problem again, etc. Now to get a development machine you need a Windows computer, need to install Python and Git and do the emerge checkout. Then execute emerge to build what you want to build. This is easy for developers coming from Windows to KDE, and also for KDE developers coming to Windows.

    Easy for us to do build

    With emerge you can build the whole software stack (low-level libs, Qt, kdelibs, things above that) with only one command. You can start that build, and some hours later you can check if it worked, or if something broke. So we can spot problems easier and earlier. We can also start with a "naked" Windows computer without any other installed software and bootstrap kde on it. That ensures, that no hidden dependencies on some pieces of software sneak in, because then the builds on a "naked" computer would break and show the problem.

    Easy to collaborate

    We can test the same emerge build description for a package on different Windows versions/computers before we do binary releases. People can also add build descriptions for new packages to the Subversion repository.

    This emerge tool was inspired by the Gentoo emerge tool.

    Set up the environment

    Root directory

    Create a directory if possible in your harddrive's root e.g. C:\kderoot or D:\kderoot (You will need this PATH later). This directory will contain the whole kde installation later. We will refer to it as KDEROOT.

    Python interpreter

    emerge.bat invokes an emerge.py script written in Python programming language, so you first need to install the Python 3.4 Interpreter. The python installation directory will be added to the PATH later by KDEROOT\etc\kdesettings.ini.

    Git client

    The latest source code for Windows emerge and a lot of the rest of KDE is stored in a repository created and managed using the Git version control tool. You need a git client for the first checkout of emerge. There are at least two applications:

    • a command line client, available at subversion.apache.org, aimed at developers or power users accustomed with the command line,
    • a GUI program like TortoiseGit, optional, useful for displaying differences between various versions of files in the repository in a graphical way.

    Emerge uses its own git client for checking out all KDE source code. You can find it in KDEROOT\dev-utils\git\bin. It will be used by emerge even if you have another git executable installed.

    Getting the emerge tool

    The source code of the emerge tool and the recipes for creating KDE packages are located at git://anongit.kde.org/emerge.git, which is an URL based on the git-specific git protocol.

    You need to clone the source code from the emerge git repository into a new directory below your root directory (the root directory is normally called %KDEROOT% here) or get it inside a self extracting archive (not tested yet).

    Check out using the 'git' command

    With the git command line tool, you can accomplish this with the following commands:

    cd KDEROOT
    • if you will only use anonymous (read-only) access to the KDE git repository:
      git clone git://anongit.kde.org/emerge.git
    • if the git and ssh ports are blocked, and only http is allowed, it is better to clone over the http port for getting (read-only) access to the KDE git repository:
      git clone http://anongit.kde.org/emerge.git
    • or, if you plan to use write access (commit) to the emerge repository using your existing account & OpenSSH private key:
      git clone [email protected]:emerge.git

    Configure the emerge tool

    1. Create the directory KDEROOT\etc.
    2. Copy the file KDEROOT\emerge\kdesettings.ini as KDEROOT\etc\kdesettings.ini and change its contents according to your needs.

    Note 0: Read the comments in that file very carefully

    Note 1: Be sure that you neither have the msys/bin nor the cygwin/bin in your path. If so you have to definitely remove it from the path.

    Note 2 from a user: The applications gimp, inkscape and graphviz are also a problem. To make sure that there's nothing wrong I stripped my path to contain only what I needed to build.

    emerge has several branches which contain specific package versions. E.g. if you want to build the 4.13 branch of KDE (or one of the 4.13 releases) you should checkout the kde-4.13 branch of emerge; in the master branch, you can find the KDE Frameweorks 5.

    To view all branches, use the following command:
    
    git branch -a

    To change the branch of emerge, do the following:

    cd emerge && git checkout kde-4.13

    [Optional, Advanced] emerge-boost-config.jam

    Add a file emerge-boost-config.jam in the %KDEROOT%\etc directory to build boost in a specific way. The only current use case is for the following problem: If you build 32bit binaries with emerge on a 64bit system you need to link boost-python against a 32bit python library. In case your standard python installation is 64bit though, you can specify the python installation in the following way:

    # ---------------------
    # Python configuration.
    # ---------------------
    
    # Configure specific Python version.
    using python : 3.2 : C:\\Python32_x86 ;
    

    This way boost-python would be using the headers & libraries from C:\\Python32_x86 instead of the default one. Please remember that for mingw compilers you must regenerate the import library for the python dll (also for the mingw 64bit compiler):

    R:\> emerge pexports
    R:\> pexports C:\Python32_x86\python32.dll > C:\Python32_x86\libs\python32.def
    

    NOTE: In case you generate the import library for the 64bit compiler, add the following line to the file python32.def:

    Py_InitModule4 = Py_InitModule4_64
    

    For both compilers you should now run:

    dlltool -d C:\Python32_x86\libs\python32.def -l C:\Python32_x86\libs\libpython32.dll.a
    

    Now you should be able to do emerge -i boost-python-src without errors.

    Using emerge

    To use emerge you need to start a Powershell window and point that to KDEROOT\emerge. For example:

    C:
    cd KDEROOT\emerge
    

    Then in the windows powershell you have to load the script with

    ". .\kdeenv.ps1"
    

    This tells emerge about your environment settings (e.g. paths). It will load your configuration from KDEROOT\etc\kdesettings.ini. It should not give any error messages, otherwise emerge will not work as expected. The output should look similar to this one (of course with your paths):

    PS C:\kderoot\emerge>.\kdeenv.ps1
    KDEROOT     : r:\
    KDECOMPILER : mingw-w64
    KDESVNDIR   : s:\
    KDEGITDIR   : q:\
    DOWNLOADDIR : t:\
    PYTHONPATH  : C:\python34
    
    PS C:\kderoot\emerge>
    

    Note: There is a short path option in kdesettings which you will need if you want to build Qt in a directory that has a pathlength of more then around 5 characters. This problem is due to limitations of the command line length and the Qt build system.

    Next, if you have configured your kdesettings.ini to use svn+ssh for your subversion checkout, then you need to run:

    plink <your-svn-username>@svn.kde.org
    plink <your-kde-username>@git.kde.org
    

    This will prompt you to accept the fingerprint of the server, otherwise svn will hang forever when trying to download from the server.

    Now you should be able to use emerge. To get some help on usage:

    emerge --help
    

    To get a list of available packages:

    emerge --print-installable
    

    To get a list of currently installed packages:

    emerge --print-installed
    

    Setting up a compiler

    Currently emerge supports both the MinGW and MS Visual C++ (msvc) compilers. We did not add dependencies for the compilers, so you have to make sure to install a compiler by yourself. There are three ways to set up a compiler for emerge. We assumed you have set KDECOMPILER variable properly in the KDEROOT\etc\kdesettings.ini.

    In the following sections you can find information on how to install or reuse an existing compiler.

    Install the MinGW compiler with emerge

    Let emerge install the MinGW compiler, as soon as emerge needs MinGW it will automatically fetch the correct version for you.

    Install MS Visual C++

    Read here.

    Point to an existing MS Visual C++ installation

    You need to point emerge to an existing msvc installation. This is run automatically for you from kdeenv.bat if configured properly in kdesettings.ini. Check your kdesettings.ini file to know where to set it.

    Installing the base system

    Once you have emerge and a compiler installed and working, try:

    You are now ready to start building KDE, it is recommended to do so progressively, relying on emerge to automatically resolve the required dependencies at each set step:

    • Enter emerge qt. This will fetch and install Windows versions of numerous UNIX-like utilities and libraries, then checkout, compile and install Qt. This will take several hours.
    • Enter emerge frameworks. This will checkout, compile and install the kde frameworks 5 modules.
    • Enter emerge kde-baseapps. This will checkout, compile and install kdebase-runtime, and kdebase-apps.

    You will now have successfully installed a base KDE system and can now install other KDE modules as required.

    Note that this will install the development version of KDE (trunk in svn repositories, master in git repositories), if you wish to install a particular stable branch then you should change the branch of emerge to the specific branch of that release. NOTE: You should not mix kde packages from different branches.

    It is strongly recommended you do not choose to manually install any of the utilities and libraries yourself, as you may install the wrong version and cause installation failures. Instead allow emerge to resolve the dependencies for you.

    Every time you want to update or install a package, you should first update your emerge checkout (simply run emerge --update emerge) to ensure you are using the latest package recipies.

    What emerge does

    emerge packageName performs the separate actions --fetch, --unpack, --compile, --install, and --qmerge.

    The --fetch action will retrieve either a binary or the source code for the package:

    emerge command line options and settings

    There are some options that can be used when building with emerge.

    Command line switch Command line argument Description
    -v EMERGE_VERBOSE This option sets the verbosity level. Currently the highest verbosity level is 3 (-v -v -v). A verbosity level of 0 should give no output and equals to -q. You can set EMERGE_VERBOSE=3 instead in the environment of the commandline or within your kdesettings.ini file.
    --offline This option suppresses the update step of the local tree - which needs some time. Be aware though that you have to have existing sources already if you want to use this option.
    -t EMERGE_BUILDTESTS This option enables or disables KDE4 buildtests for KDE modules. Other packages will not change. Use EMERGE_BUILDTESTS=True or =False.
    --print-targets This option will display all "targets" a certain package has. Normally targets are fixed releases or different branches. They are defined in the portage file.
    --target=TARGET This sets a specific target for this package. If not added, the default target is used, which can be checked by looking at the output of --print-targets.
    -i This option ignores that a package is already installed. It builds it completely new, but keeps the dependencies.
    --update This option ignores that a package is already installed but doesn't cleanup an already existing build directory. Thus you will only rebuild files that have changed since the last build.

    Hints

    Updating packages

    • Once you have packagename built, type
      emerge --update packagename
      
      to update packagename from the Subversion and compile it without removing the build dir or
      emerge --update-all
      
      to update all packages that can be rebuild (they are rebuild with --update).

    General setup

    For Fine Tuning see here: Fine-tuning

    Vista issues

    • jstaniek 12:02, 15 January 2008 (CET): UAC has infamous heuristics that make programs like patch.exe treat as installers and try to run them with admin rights (!). This heuristics can be tricked by renaming patch.exe to something like pch.exe (example) but we did not want to add item to our infrastructure. Instead it is possibleto turn off the heuristics (see the screenshot here in the security blog calling the heuristics 'severe hole in the design of UAC'). If you happen to disable the UAC, as many annoyed users and devs do (msvc demands admin rights anyway!), patch.exe should already work for you as in older Windows. Alternatively you may want to disable UAC for admins only, but this makes no sense if you are the only user of your machine and use only the admin account.
    • This wiki page lists instructions on how to use program manifest to disable privilege elevation for a single binary and makes patch play nice with UAC. This should eventually be integrated to emerge scripts.