From kde-core-devel  Mon Jun 13 06:24:00 2005
From: Ralf Habacker <ralf.habacker () freenet ! de>
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 06:24:00 +0000
To: kde-core-devel
Subject: Re: Build system for KDE4
Message-Id: <200506130824.11524.ralf.habacker () freenet ! de>
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=111864379926978

Am Montag, 13. Juni 2005 06:25 schrieb Chris Lee:
> We had a discussion in #kde-devel earlier about what KDE's
> requirements for a build system are. What are the current
> problems we have with autoconf/automake/libtool? What features do
> they provide that we really care about? How hard would it be to
> replace any/all of them with things that suck less?
> 
> I took notes of the discussion. They're below; I'd like to get
> more feedback on this.
> 
> (One of the first points that I'm sure someone will make is
> "auto* is cross-platform! We need to support KDE on platforms
> that aren't Linux!" etc. Look, we realize this. However, auto*
> provides lots of problems for us on platforms we do care about,
> including MacOS X and Windows. (Ask RangerRick or js about them
> on IRC, or email them.)
> 
> Just because we're using auto* and friends doesn't mean that our
> code works; as a matter of fact, RangerRick noted that so far,
> all of his issues with the Mac port of the work-in-progress KDE4
> have been build issues, and none of them have been code-related yet.
> 
> This is clearly a problem and since KDE4 is an aggressive new
> major release, we should solve it in the KDE4 timeframe. We don't
> want to have to wait until KDE5 for a build system that doesn't
> suck, do we?
> 
> Without further ado, the notes from the discussion.
> 
> Must support:
>  - generating binaries (duh)
>  - generating shared libs (on all ELF platforms + MacOS X; Windows?)
>  - icon installation
>  - uic, moc, KConfigXT, etc
>  - GCC visibility
>  - automatic dependency resolution
>  - manual hints for dependency resolution
>  - flex/bison
>  - non-recursive (flat) builds
>  - --enable-final
>  - builddir != srcdir
>  - simple to the point of being learnable within 5 minutes
>  - kdeinit support (?)
>  - multiple build targets (libfoo, libbar, libbaz) in one file
>  - --compile-slots, like in unsermake
>  - pkg-config support
>  - support rpath sanely
>  - ability to link & run uninstalled binaries
>  - easily integrated into KDevelop
>  - 'admin' needs to be shipped in KDE instead of in src of each app
>    (if we keep the 'admin' dir, that is)
> 
> Would be nice, but not necessary:
>  - having a standard and distributed build system and test suite
>  - ability to build from svn:/trunk/KDE
> 
> Thoughts?

kde is based on QT. QT have qmake, which already supports many platforms. 
There are some extensions required, but as far as I know qmake, there are 
many things already solved. 
Because the autotools are not working very good on native windows Jaruslav 
Staniek already uses qmake for compiling kde. 

>  - generating binaries (duh)
qmake:yes
>  - generating shared libs (on all ELF platforms + MacOS X; Windows?)
qmake:yes
>  - icon installation
qmake:yes
>  - uic, moc, 
qmake:yes
	>  KConfigXT, etc 
qmake:unknown 
>  - GCC visibility
? 
>  - automatic dependency resolution
qmake:yes
>  - manual hints for dependency resolution
 ? 
>  - flex/bison
qmake:yes
>  - non-recursive (flat) builds
qmake:yes
>  - --enable-final
qmake:probably no 
>  - builddir != srcdir
qmake:yes
>  - simple to the point of being learnable within 5 minutes
qmake:yes
>  - kdeinit support (?)
qmake:no (yet,has to be implemented) 
>  - multiple build targets (libfoo, libbar, libbaz) in one file
qmake: no (yet,has to be implemented)
>  - --compile-slots, like in unsermake
qmake: yes uses make 
>  - pkg-config support
qmake: yes
>  - support rpath sanely
qmake: yes
>  - ability to link & run uninstalled binaries
qmake: yes (using libtool)
>  - easily integrated into KDevelop
qmake:yes
>  - 'admin' needs to be shipped in KDE instead of in src of each app
>    (if we keep the 'admin' dir, that is)
> 
> Would be nice, but not necessary:
>  - having a standard and distributed build system and test suite
>  - ability to build from svn:/trunk/KDE

May be good to have a feature/tool/todo matrix to get an overview. 

Regards
 
-- 
Ralf Habacker