[Digikam-users] Re: Compiling Issues (my version of the wheel)

[Mark Greenwood]

On Sunday 19 Dec 2010 17:06:08 Hevï Guy wrote:
> Thank-you everybody, for not taking too much offense at my rant. I can
> see where "Newbie Fatigue" can get quite frustrating for those of you
> who find this to be a second nature piece of cake. Yes, it will probably
> do us good to experience similar wounds as the experts had when they
> jumped through the same flaming barbed wire hoops . The problem for many
> of us Newbs is that because we don't come from the same Computer World,
> our wounds can be quite fatal since we don't even know which hoops to
> jump through. If we're lucky enough we can continue to scour the
> internet, pickling up bits and pieces of instructions, here and there.
> Unfortunately, many times, the information is conflicting and we end up
> in a pit somewhere, unable to climb out and left calling for help.
> 
> My problem during my most-recent journey was finding all of the right
> dependencies. The instructions on the digiKam site were not very clear
> on this. Yes, links to other relevant pages and text files were there,
> but there wasn't a single source where all of this information was then
> aggregated for final consumption. This left me guessing at what I had to
> do next. Even if some of the dependencies that I uncovered were correct
> versions, I had no idea where to install them. I think that rather than
> relating all of the steps along the often-tortuous path that we've taken
> before finally falling into the pit, it would be so much easier if,
> right from the start, we had a concise "master map" to follow. Then, if
> we do something stupid, it would probably be much less frustrating (!)
> for those volunteers who have successfully navigated these pitfalls to
> pull us through the rest of the way.
> 
> I think that I've finally found such a detailed map:
> http://www.digikam.org/drupal/download/SvnAlongStable (thank you very
> much, Mike Hansen!). Since this is Ubuntu-specific rather than the
> Fedora instructions graciously provided earlier by Christian (thanks
> again Christian!), I should be able follow it a little easier. I'll go
> along, step-by-step, and see where it takes me. Hopefully I won't have
> to bother you all again. 
> 
> * I now understand that a big part of the problem is Ubuntu's glacial
> pace at providing updated packages. I also understand that this is why
> it's necessary to "roll one's own" from a number of individual sources.
> What I don't understand is why everybody is forced to do this, thus
> reinventing the wheel. Why, along with the source files, isn't there an
> option to simply download and install a single tarball with everything
> already included? Yeah, it's a weanie desire not to want to slog through
> the quagmire that the initial inventor traversed but, it sure would make
> life much simpler ;-)

Some hints for Ubuntu users:

sudo apt-get build-dep digikam  (installs all dependencies for building digikam)

apt-get source digikam    (gets the source code for the ubuntu digikam package - easiest thing to do if all you want to do is rebuild it against a new library)
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b  (builds the .deb package from the source you just retrieved)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:philip5/extra
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade      (sets up a repository with, amongst other things, the latest and greatest digikam and kipi-plugins)

All found via Google. Happy holidays ;-)

Mark

> 
> Happy Holidays! 
>