Re: [gentoo-user] Re: depclean wants to wipe out KDE3

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 20 December 2008 11:53:05 Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> > You can start by giving the relevant information, like what exactly
> > related to kde is in world?. Chances are you only have KDE there, and
> > emerge will probably want to nuke all but the latest SLOT. Common
> > problems with KDE:
> >
> > Put 'kdeprefix' in USE and rebuild
> > Put KDE:3.5 in world and recheck.
> >
> > This last one often needs to be redone recursively to get everything in
> > world that needs to be there. I've heard that autounmask helps with this
>
> kdeprefix has nothing to do with KDE3.  It's not needed.  It's only
> needed to have many KDE4 versions at the same time.

That's not true. 
With USE=-kdeprefix, KDE4 is installed into /usr/
With USE=kdeprefix, KDE4 is installed into /usr/kde/4.x

The net result, when co-installed with kde-3.x, is that your various *PATH 
variables will always have 3 before 4 or vice-versa. Which is a major pita 
trying to get 3 and 4 to co-exist. Try it sometime, and watch KDE-4 try to 
read KDE-3's config and data files. Or have KDE-4 launch konqueror-4 and 
always get it right every time.

There's only one sane way to install KDE on gentoo - always use SLOTs, always 
put every version in it's own directory in /usr/kde/, always add the relevant 
directories to PATH | LDPATH | etc at start-up. The other option is to have 
one, and only one, kde version at any time.

> I'll try the KDE:3.5 thingy.  I wonder though why the heck I have to do
> this.  KDE4 should have been put in its own tree.

Well that's your opinion, you are entitled to it. The KDE devs don't agree 
though, and their three of a kind trumps your two pairs. If you are going to 
assert that KDE-4 SHOULD be in it's own tree, then you are going to have to 
present a sane argument for why, and for why the existing decision is 
incorrect. Just saying something "should be" doesn't cut the mustard in this 
case.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com