[Kexi] "Install KOffice unstable from svn" page

[Martin Ellis]

On Sunday 30 October 2005 19:40, Karsten Schwager wrote:
> > Better to explain how to modify their KDEDIRS environment variable to
> > point to a location that just contains the built-from-SVN
> > installation.
>
> how do I modify my KDEDIRS environment, so that kexi that I built from
> SVN can find all services and mime types and works proberly?

Well, I do this in two different ways.

method 1.

The first way is for when I just want to test a KDE program, without any 
intention of keeping it around for any length of time.  As such, I'd normally 
install it to /tmp:

$ ./configure --enable-debug=full --prefix=/tmp/kexi
$ make
$ make install # don't need to be root here (helpful for testing new apps!)

In my .bashrc file I have the following lines:
========================
kde ()
{
    export KDEDIRS=$1:$KDEDIRS;
    export PATH=$1/bin:$PATH;
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$1/lib;
    kbuildsycoca 2>/dev/null
}
========================
(If you add these to your .bashrc file, you'll want to type 'exec bash' in any 
open terminals in order to pick up the changes)

This defines a shell function 'kde', that allows KDE apps in the given 
directory to be started from the current terminal.  So for the example above, 
I'd type:

$ kde /tmp/kexi
$ kexi

to start kexi, if it had been installed to /tmp/kexi.

This method doesn't work very well if you want to use the application very 
much - every time you want to run the program, you need to open up a new 
terminal, type "kde <install-path>" and then run the program from the 
terminal.
So for programs I use regularly, I use ...

method 2:

For programs that I use regularly, I install them somewhere under /opt.
So for building KOffice, I do:
$ # My user has full write access to /opt.  
$ # Replace /opt for $HOME if yours doesn't.
$ mkdir /opt/kde3
$ ./configure --enable-debug=full --prefix=/opt/kde3/koffice
$ make
$ make install

In my .profile file, I have the following lines:
======================
KDEDIRS=/opt/kde3:/usr
PATH=/opt/kde3/bin:$PATH
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/kde3/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export KDEDIRS PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH
======================
(If you add these to your .profile, you'll need to log out and log back in 
again for the rest of this method to work.)

KDE will normally detect the new application automatically, and it will 
normally appear in Kicker after about 30s or so.

Note: not all distros are set up to read .profile at login, so it might not 
work.  To check, you could add the line "date >> $HOME/logins" to .profile to 
test whether it is being run.   Your distribution vendor may be able to tell 
you how to get .profile to be sourced when you log in, or, more generally, 
how to set up environment variables that are 'global' to your X session.
If you have a .xsession file, then the above lines could go before 'startkde' 
in that file.

For more information, you might look at 
http://kdesvn-build.kde.org/documentation/shell-settings.php
but note that these instructions are really for a complete KDE build from SVN.

Cheers
Martin