Setting the Configuration Data

To use Kdesvn-build, you should have a file in your home directory called .kdesvn-buildrc, which sets the general options and sets the modules you would like to download and build.

Note

It is possible to use different configuration files for Kdesvn-build, which is described in Chapter 4, The Format of .kdesvn-buildrc. If you need to use multiple configurations, please see that section. Here, we will assume the configuration is stored in ~/.kdesvn-buildrc.

The easiest way to proceed is to use the kdesvn-buildrc-sample file as a template, changing global options to match your wants, and also change the list of modules you want to build.

The default settings should actually already be appropriate to perform a KDE build. Some settings that you may wish to alter include:

binpath, to change the list of directories that will be searched for commands. This is exactly the same as the PATH variable in the shell.
use-stable-kde to change the default version to build of KDE modules. By default Kdesvn-build will build the trunk version of KDE (currently KDE 4). If you want to build the latest stable release of KDE instead of using your distribution packages (right now the KDE 3.5 branch is stable) you would set this option to true.
kdedir, which changes the destination directory that KDE is installed to. This defaults to ~/kde, which is a single-user installation.
qtdir, which controls the path to the installation of Qt™ to use. The defaults to using the qt-copy module from the KDE Subversion repository (~/kdesvn/build/qt-copy).
For Qt versions that support installation, this also controls where to install qt-copy.
svn-server, which selects what URL to download the sources from. This is useful if you are a developer with a KDE Subversion account.

After the global section is a list of modules to build, bracketed by module ... end module lines. Check if the listed modules are in fact the modules you want to build. The default options from the kdesvn-buildrc-sample file should be enough to get a fairly complete KDE installation. Save the result as .kdesvn-buildrc in your home folder.

If you wish to fine tune your .kdesvn-buildrc, consult Chapter 4, The Format of .kdesvn-buildrc for detailed information about all configuration options.