Question for fellow retro-computers : building kdelibs4 without nepomuk?

[Duncan]

René J.V. Bertin posted on Wed, 22 May 2024 12:42:48 +0200 as excerpted:

> A number of people are looking into getting the MacPorts KDE4 ports to
> build again, using the current versions of the various dependencies. KF5
> never made it into the official ports tree for various reasons (and it's
> definitely not going to happen now) but the KDE4 ports used to work
> pretty well, so the effort isn't devoid of interest.
> 
> The current blocker is with Soprano: onto2vocabularyclass segfaults in
> Raptor v2.0.16 (but not 2.0.15). Of course we could figure out what
> changed between those Raptor versions and if the problem is a regression
> or an "official" API change in that library (any pointers would be
> appreciated). But from what I can tell Soprano is only used as a basis
> for Nepomuk, which itself has been superseded by Baloo since 4.13 .
> 
> This is all old history by now, but does anyone remember if anything
> breaks when the required dependencies for building Nepomuk aren't
> available (Soprano's Raptor and Redland backends)? The KDElibs build
> system (CMake files) is set up properly for this case but has 1 comment
> in it suggesting that libnepomuk is not actually optional even though
> apparently nothing uses it anymore - except the KDElibs-internal file
> metadata thingy. But there's an external `kfilemetadata` so I'm not
> clear on which of the two does what.

While my time focus is anything /but/ retro (live-git KF6/Plasma/apps) I 
/did/ carry the kde4 era gentoo/kde no-semantic-desktop patches locally 
for awhile, during the period gentoo/kde wasn't supporting it, so I've 
some domain experience (soprano/nepomuk/redland/raptor/etc are definitely 
familiar terms from that era!) and can certainly sympathize, even if I can 
be of limited help due to fading memory.

As I recall, for most of kde4, even with semantic-desktop disabled (to the 
degree possible), while the backends (raptor/redland/etc) weren't required 
in that case, the frontend libs were still mandatory build-time and run-
time required.

Unfortunately I do not recall whether it was soprano or nepomuk or both 
that were still required (or which depended on which), but at least one of 
the two was, and the back ends were not.

But that was for most of kde4.  Toward the end as you mentioned they 
switched to baloo, but IIRC by that time gentoo/kde had regained its no-
semantic-desktop support and I no longer had to carry the patches myself, 
so I was no longer following the detail as closely, and unfortunately I 
don't remember for sure if I was able to actually remove nepomuk/soprano 
or not.  I believe I remember being pleased that I /could/ remove them, 
and I *think* that was still the late kde4 era (thus being even more 
pleasantly surprised as I would have expected it only with kde5), but it's 
possible that was only as I was able to remove the last kde4 stuff from my 
gradually-kde5-migrated system.

I wish I could be of more help but /maybe/ that's /some/ help, and it's 
not for lack of commiseration, for sure!

Meanwhile, it's not what you asked, but KF6 and the apps (now called KDE 
Gear) continue the emphasis on modularity and "use what you want", 
doubling down on the trend began with KF5.  While Mac's not my thing (like 
MS too proprietary) I've seen references to it in the git logs, etc, so I 
believe at least some of the apps are available stand-alone on AppleOS 
just as they are on MSWindows and GoogleAndroid.  And these days for 
supported products there's even prepackaged binary CI artifacts, 
eliminating the often significant on secondary platforms hassle of 
building it yourself.  So if you haven't you might look into current 
status, as I think at least some apps are available.

Tho I suppose the CI would be current-targeted and if you're on Intel-Mac 
hardware, for instance, as I'm guessing you might be with your retro 
interest, you're likely out of luck.  Still, given the *much* stronger 
emphasis on modularity and portability now, if you were starting cold at 
least, I'd guess 6.x would be easier than 4.x.  But as you said, there's 
preexisting kde4 work, so you're not starting cold with it. YMMV...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman