Compiling stuff

[Brian Densmore]

Jonathon,

> Brian, since you seem to have gone through the process of 
> upgrading KDE by
> compiling your own binaries, you seem a logical person to ask:
> 
> How do you know what you need to install in order to be able 
> to compile
> something?
> 
> When I set up my Mandrake workstation(s), I de-selected all of the
> Development tools because I am NOT a developer or coder.
> 
> I originally did pretty much the same in the less-advanced 
> install programs
> for an early RedHat distribution, and was completely turned 
> off of trying to
> compile software because every time I tried it was an unding string of
> unresolved dependencies, and I could never figure out how to 
> install ENOUGH
> to be able to compile anything.  Since then, I've been shackled to RPM
> installations.
> 

First on KDE)
  No I installed KDE 2.2.1 via mandrake rpms. But I did it with the
command line version and I had to eventually force it. I missed a
necessary package somewhere, or there is another custom package
somewhere I need to pull down and compile. I get write lock errors on my
rpm DB. But everything works and installs,  but not from the GUI. I also
uninstalled a bunch of crap. I downloaded and compiled the iptables
program and libraries only. Upgrading the kernel broke that. In fact
just recompiling the existing kernel breaks that (grrr)!
I couldn't install the ximian version because of dependency problems.
What I was going to try next was to pull down the KDE source and all the
necessary programs they list (check KDE's site under the sources
download section), and compile it. If you have fear of doing that let me
know and I'll try it myself.

(Much as I hate to mess with a working system, my wife is starting to
get quite "frustrated" with my "tinkering") ;')

Secondly, you shouldn't have deselected the development stuff. It was
selected for a reason. I couldn't tell you everything you need without a
bit of research. But here goes (someone correct me if I miss anything):

kernel headers, 
gcc, [compiler]
bin86, [real mode assembler] (and possibly another assembler)
glibc or libc(older), [c libraries]
ld,[binutils binary utilities]
ldd, [linker]
libg++, [more libraries]
ps, [procps]
procinfo,
make,
sh or bash,
csh or tcsh,
and any required software the website states is needed for the program
you want to compile, which may have it's dependencies , which ... . 

I haven't found any program/script that will find those (except maybe
dep.pl - haven't tried it), although I know rpm and apt-get have a way
of doing it.
That's another thing linux needs really bad, is a dependency tree
builder. It wouldn't be too hard to write a script to do that with an
internet connection. You would just have to query a package via the
internet and recursively query that result.

By the way I tried that blind install thing. didn't fix my problem. You
should look for development packages to install. Mandrake does a bunch
of customization (grrr..).

Lastly) You should be able to compile and run the ximian code if you
meet all the dependencies. I couldn't get to install though. I tried
that route also. Gnome's website says to uninstall gnome first and
reinstall if you used a packaged version.

Brian