Re: Using KDE3.5 and KDE4

[Ritesh Raj Sarraf <rrs@researchut.com>]

David Baron wrote:

> So ... after this lengthy shpiel, to use both kde versions, the startkde
> must change the profile, not just have that env to itself. Problem is not
> just theoretically there may be more than one user up. If I say only one
> user at a time, changing /etc/profile needs root and startkde runs as
> user. Would a local .profile in $HOME override the /etc/profile in a
> well-behaved manner and should I have startkde copy the appropriate
> version to $HOME/.profile? Or is there a better answer (and should not the
> installation take care of this :-))?
> 

You need something like this.

rrs@learner:~$ cat .bashrc
if [ $DESKTOP_SESSION == "kde4-svn" ]; then
    # KDE
    export KDE4DIR=/opt/kde4-devel
    export KDEDIR=$KDE4DIR/kde
    export KDEHOME=$HOME/.kde4-devel
    export KDETMP=/tmp/$USER-kde4
    mkdir -p $KDETMP
    export KDEVARTMP=/var/tmp/$USER-kde4
    export KDEDIRS=$KDEDIR
    export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH

    export QTDIR=$KDE4DIR/qt-copy
    export QT_PLUGINS_DIR=$KDEDIR/lib/kde4/plugins:$QT_PLUGINS_DIR
    export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$QTDIR/lib/pkgconfig::$PKG_CONFIG_PATH

    export PATH=$KDEDIR/bin:$QTDIR/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib:$QTDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

    unset XDG_DATA_DIRS # to avoid seeing kde3 files from /usr
    unset XDG_CONFIG_DIRS

    # This will make the debug output prettier
    export KDE_COLOR_DEBUG=1
    export QTEST_COLORED=1

    # Make
    # Tell many scripts how to switch from source dir to build dir:
    export OBJ_REPLACEMENT="s#$KDE_SRC#$KDE_BUILD#"
    # Use makeobj instead of make, to automatically switch to the build dir.
    # If you don't have makeobj, install the package named kdesdk-scripts or
    # kdesdk, or check out kdesdk/scripts from svn, or just don't set the
alias
    # yet.
    alias make=makeobj
fi

My case is just the opposite of yours. I still depend on KDE3. KDE4 is still
in the test phase for me.

Here's what the session file looks like.

rrs@learner:~$ cat /usr/share/xsessions/kde4-svn.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=XSession
Exec=/opt/kde4-devel/kde/bin/startkde
TryExec=/opt/kde4-devel/kde/bin/startkde
Name=KDE4-SVN
Name[hi]=????
Name[mn]=???
Name[ta]=K???? ?????
Name[xh]=iKDE
Name[xx]=xxKDExx
Comment=The K Desktop Environment. A powerful Open Source graphical desktop
environment
Comment[bs]=K Desktop Environment. Mo?an grafi?ki desktop otvorenog izvornog
koda

One thing to notice is this:
export KDEHOME=$HOME/.kde4-devel

I can't risk my .kde/ folder. So for now, everything KDE4, should go
into .kde4-devel

There's one problem still. Some of the KDE4 applications fail. I think the
following variable is not the only thing that suffices the requirement.
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib:$QTDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Even though this is set, I still need an ldconfig done to get all KDE4 apps
to work properly. So when switching back to kde3, I again need to run
ldconfig to disable the kde4 libraries. I'm not sure if there is any
simpler way to fix this.

Basically, when the session begins, DESKTOP_SESSION variable gets kde4-svn.
And that is what I base all my assumptions on.

HTH,
Ritesh
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