KDE packaging

Ralf Habacker ralf.habacker at freenet.de
Mon Dec 4 23:12:17 CET 2006


Christian Ehrlicher schrieb:
> Jarosław Staniek schrieb:
>   
>> Ralf Habacker said the following, On 2006-12-04 15:55:
>>
>>     
>>> I had been asked some time ago from an online news paper if there are
>>> already binary packages available and I had to negate this :-( 
>>>
>>> One reason for this is the early state of the port and other reasons
>>> which should have been discussed. So I like to start such a thread with 
>>> the hope that we can move a step more into that direction. From my
>>> knowledge the following packages are required:
>>>
>>> windbus
>>> kdewin32
>>> several packages from www.gnuwin32.org
>>> qt 4.2 with qdbus  (not official supported)
>>> kdelibs
>>> kdebase
>>> kde...
>>>
>>> Currently several packages are only available as source in svn or as
>>> zip-file, several as binary packages, but in all there are several
>>> download locations and several access methods (ftp,http,svn) .
>>>
>>> windbus
>>>     - currently in windbus svn, older source tarballs available
>>>     - contains required runtime libraries (libxml2.dll, libiconv.dll   
>>> mingw: mingw10.dll   msvc: ...)
>>>     - question: would it be possible to release msvc and mingw in one
>>> package ? Or is it required to release separates packages because by the
>>> different runtime libraries
>>>       
>> Maybe separate them in defferent directories (IIRC, we've also talked about 
>> having dlls in bin/ all the time and not in lib/?). So maybe we can have 
>> bin/msvc/ and bin/mingw/. There's no problem with plugins (modules) since 
>> these can be mixed in one kde4/lib/ directory - these are loaded with a proper 
>> prefix/suffix dependent on compiler's vendor.
>>
>>     
>>> kdewin32
>>>     - currently in kde svn
>>>     - different binary packages required - contains c++ code
>>>     - released with kdelibs ?
>>>
>>> gnuwin32
>>>     - binary package available
>>>     - mingw/msvc support in one package
>>>     - released with kdelibs ?
>>>
>>> qt 4.2 with qdbus 
>>>     - source in qtwin cvs, patches in windbus sf project
>>>     - different binary packages for mingw and msvc
>>>     - are any trademark issues to expect for making binary packages ?
>>>       
>> Linux distros do create binary packages too... there shold be no difference 
>> under win32...
>>
>>     
>>> kdelibs
>>>     - source in svn and as tar balls  http://developer.kde.org/source/
>>>     - different binary packages for mingw and msvc
>>>     - releases as one big library or should/could it be splitted into
>>> smaller pieces [1]?
>>>
>>> kdebase
>>>     - source in svn and as tar balls  http://developer.kde.org/source/
>>>     - different binary packages for mingw and msvc
>>>
>>> kde...
>>>     - source in svn and as tar balls  ht
>>>       
>
> tp://developer.kde.org/source/
>   
>>>     - different binary packages for mingw and msvc
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] package sizes for mingw (msvc may differ)
>>> recent kdelibs binaries without debug informations requires about 61 MB
>>> on disk - this would be the basic package  (kdelibs-bin)
>>> development header and import libraries for developing additional kde
>>> packages requires 42 MB on disk.  (kdelibs-devel)
>>> debug informations requires about 418 MBytes on disk  (kdelibs-devel too
>>> or kdelibs-debug)
>>>
>>> Providing more packages as binaries would make it easier for people to
>>> enter KDE4 user and developer experience on windows and would increase
>>> the number of people involved into this project as far as I can see.
>>>
>>> Are there any comments ?
>>>       
>> my comments, RFC:
>> - let's consider releasing a runtime package (a minimal set of libs and apps) 
>> and a development package. The latter can include the runtime;
>> - for both types of packages let's bundle the msvc and mingw versions together 
>> or do it at least with the runtimes; a user of the runtime should not be asked 
>> what compiler was used to build a given app;
>> - debug files can be an optional package (once kdelibs is stable, not 
>> required, as IIRC win32 devs are not used to have full debug info of all the 
>> "system" libs)
>> - since it's not a good idea of mixing link release and debug code (but we can 
>> distribute them in one package) can we assume developers will distribute 
>> release versions of the compilations? Are backtraces available if a user got a 
>> crash but lacks a development environment?
>> - the final question: since debug packages will be big anyway, maybe we should 
>> include the full source code of the libs/apps with debug packages? Thus we 
>> could decrease a number of packages.
>>
>> Let's continue noting down these tasks on the kdelibs.com wiki [1]. Ralf, if 
>> you don't mind I can put there the current (prototype) plan.
>>
>> [1] e.g. http://www.kdelibs.com/wiki/index.php/Packages
>>
>>     
> - should we really provide msvc8 packages? I've some problems with the
> stupid manifests...
>   
what kind of problems are there
> - qt -> we should ask trolltech, afaik they would include qdbus on
> windows when it's useable... do they?
>   
Thiago had said something about this, may be he can give more details
> - windbus should provided as mingw only package (so we just need
> mingw10.dll, maybe we can also remove this dependecy)
>   
good idea, it is obsolate. I have removed from cmake build system
> - kdewin should imho not released as an own package
>   
then the header should be installed in kdelibs/win32/mingw/  rsp. 
kdelibs/win32/msvc/ and the library in the usual place.
> - kdelibs as one package, maybe we should add 'd' suffix (Stephan Kulow
> tried it, but without success), don't know if it's possible to simply
> separate between mingw and msvc by using subdirs
>   
Not sure, if this is very good. If someone will only use kdelibs to run 
other applications it would be better to download a zip file containing 
61 MB as 500 MB. With mingw there is a way to compile/link kde with 
debug informations and place out the debug infos in a separate dbg file, 
which could be releases independent, may be as part of the development 
header.

> - we should not care about other kde packages, we should just write
> something like a guidline if someone wants to release a kde program on win32
>
>   




More information about the Kde-windows mailing list