[unimaxium]

I'm stumped. I've tried reinstalling everything I could think of (apart from the OS) and fiddling with everything I could think of but I can't get this to work. I'm trying to run KDE in X11 (installed by fink) but every time I try to run the "startkde" command I get a command not found error in X11. If I try to run it from the OSX terminal it will find the command but of course gives me errors since the terminal cannot run KDE. If I try to run it by "/sw/bin/startkde", X11 can find the command but gives me a bunch of other errors (my guess is that it cannot find other files). I've added and removed and fiddled with every line in .xinitrc I could find or think of and I still have no luck. It seems like X11 does not know to look in the /sw/bin directory for commands (I get command not found errors with other, simpler programs installed by fink as well). Can anyone help me make it so I can get KDE to run? Is there something I'm missing? Thanks!

[suthercd]

I of course do not know your setup, but here are some ideas that should help.

When X11 starts it references a file named xinitrc for setup parameters. You can view the contents of this file from the Terminal by entering this command

Code:
cat /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

You will need to make some changes to in X11's setup to start KDE smoothly. The files that are a part of the System and base OS X install are never modified. The have a file you can modify to change X11's setup, you will copy the xinitrc file to your home directory as an invisble file. When X11 starts, if it finds that file in your home directory it will reference that instead of the file in /etc/X11/xinit

Some background. When KDE launches it prints out a lot of information to your console/Terminal- this may be the errors you are referring to. Also KDE so far works best with its own window manager and you need to set that up.

Here are the steps from the Terminal:

Code:
cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc
cp ~/.xinitrc .xinitrc.orig

You need to edit this file. I suggest using a built in editor named pico. Enter:

Code:
pico ~/.xinitrc

Use the arrow keys to scroll down to the bottom of the text that is now in Terminal. You will comment out two lines and add 2 lines. Comment out 'xterm -geometry 78x25+50+50' by adding a # at the beginning of the line. Arrow keys to move the cursor under the x in xterm and press the # key. Comment out 'exec quartz-wm'.

Move the cursor to the line below # start the window mangers and enter export KDEWM=/sw/bin/kwin.

Below the line # exec quartz-wm enter quartz-wm --only-proxy &

Below that add the line /sw/bin/startkde >/tmp/kde.log 2>&1

Control-o will save the file and control-x will exit pico.

When you want to change back to the original config, comment out the lines you added and uncomment the 2 you commented out.

You made a backup of the orginal file with the second cp command, plus you have the original file untouched.

What you did was set up a variable KDEWM that will start the kwin wondow manager. You changed quartz-wm so that only the copy/paste abilities are active.

You piped all those comments at launch into a log file.

Any probs, just yell.

HTH
Craig

[Detrius]

One major problem is that you have not sourced the /sw/bin/init.sh file. My guess is that you are running Panther and changed the shell to tcsh by editing the Terminal's preferences. This only affectes the application Terminal. At all other command prompts, you are still defaulting to bash. If you have not edited your ~/.bashrc file, then you have no access to fink.

Two options here:
#1:

Open Netinfo Manager
scroll down to users
select your short user name
(click the lock in the lower left-hand corner to authenticate yourself)
in the bottom half of the window, find the property named "shell."
Change this from /bin/bash to /bin/tcsh
Quit the program (review unsaved, save changes, really update this copy).
Go back to X11 and type "fink list"
If this works, you have succeeded.

#2:

pico ~/.bashrc
add the line
source /sw/bin/init.sh
ctrl-O to save
ctrl-X to exit.
Go back to X11 and type "fink list"
If this works, you have succeeded.


The benefit of option #1 is that you get to keep tcsh as your shell. This affects all command-line logins, including ssh. The benefit of #2 is that it is easier to do and is harder to mess up.


BTW, suthercd's advise is something you probably also want to do, but if you fall into the category of what I have described (without following my directions), it still won't work.

[unimaxium]

OK thanks to Detrius's reply x11 knows to look in /sw/bin for commands, but when the startkde command is run, it gives me the same error that I was having before, and pops up a window that says "could not start kdeinit. check your installation." I'm still stumped. Any more tips?

[suthercd]

Good stuff in Detruis' reply. You do need to figure out if your NetInfo config has the bash or the tcsh as shell.

Detrius, if tcsh is the shell, shouldn't the line be

Code:
source /sw/bin/init.csh

?
Craig

[clam2000]

can we see what error it's giving, at this point it seems like you've fixed most of the common errors, and having the output would be helpful.

--will

[unimaxium]

Originally posted by suthercd:
You do need to figure out if your NetInfo config has the bash or the tcsh as shell.

I'm using bash

[unimaxium]

Here's the error I get when I try to start it with the .xinitrc file:



And here's what happens when I type "startkde" in the xterm window:

[SLam]

Originally posted by unimaxium:
Here's the error I get when I try to start it with the .xinitrc file:

And here's what happens when I type "startkde" in the xterm window:

I got the same problem. Are you using the binary distributions? qt3-shlibs from the binary distributions is out of date. Try installing qt3-shlibs from source:

Code:
sudo fink install qt3-shlibs

It might take a while (hours?) to compile.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by SLam:
I got the same problem. Are you using the binary distributions? qt3-shlibs from the binary distributions is out of date. Try installing qt3-shlibs from source:

Code:
sudo fink install qt3-shlibs

It might take a while (hours?) to compile.

Yes, that indeed solves the problem. BTW, compiling the qt3-shlibs should take between half an hour and an hour, approximately (I don't remember exactly, but that is the order of magnitude). One can also use FinkCommander, of course...

[unimaxium]

Cool. I'll start it compiling a little later and hopefully the source version will work. I should have thought of that as I noticed the binary was older than the source when i installed it. Oh well. But thanks a lot everyone for the help!

[unimaxium]

grrrrrr... I tried compiling it and it got an error about an hour or more into it and failed! I'll try again I guess, but can anyone help me figure out what's wrong?

/usr/bin/libtool: internal link edit command failed
make[1]: *** [../lib/libqt-mt.3.2.2.dylib] Error 1
make: *** [sub-src] Error 2
### execution of /var/tmp/tmp.2.g58YGZ failed, exit code 2
Failed: compiling qt3-3.2.2-11 failed

[unimaxium]

I tried it again and got the same error

[Sven G]

Originally posted by unimaxium:
grrrrrr... I tried compiling it and it got an error about an hour or more into it and failed! I'll try again I guess, but can anyone help me figure out what's wrong?

It seems that you have fetched an old, non-Panther-compatible version of qt3-shlibs: the latest one is 3.2.3-12 (which is the only Panther-compatible one, AFAIK). You could try to use FinkCommander to enable the unstable tree (in the Preferences) and retry, and maybe also remove the previous qt3-shlibs before replacing them with the new ones. BTW, my FinkCommander shows the new version of qt3-shlibs as available also in binary form (it wasn't before I compiled it: maybe it shows up also as binary because I have already compiled it?)...

[unimaxium]

thanks for the tip. I checked and qt3-shlibs looks like it was installed from binary at some point because version *-11 is the latest binary and that's what I had. I'm insalling the source now and I'll see if I can get KDE to compile again after that.

[unimaxium]

Well I tried compiling just qt3-shlibs and got the exact same error:

_FT_Seek_Stream
make[1]: *** [../lib/libqt-mt.3.2.2.dylib] Error 1
make: *** [sub-src] Error 2
### execution of /var/tmp/tmp.2.H1SvPr failed, exit code 2
Failed: compiling qt3-3.2.2-11 failed

[suthercd]

There is an excellent help and FAQ on fink's website. As fink 0.6.2 was released the libraries supporting kde such as qt3 libs were still being upgraded. The kde office apps are still unavailable in either the stable or unstable tree.

You will find quick and specific reponses to questions by subscribing to the fink-beginners mailing list. The list's archives contain much discussion about the topics in your questions. There is lots of help available.

Craig

[unimaxium]

Originally posted by suthercd:
There is an excellent help and FAQ on fink's website. As fink 0.6.2 was released the libraries supporting kde such as qt3 libs were still being upgraded. The kde office apps are still unavailable in either the stable or unstable tree.

You will find quick and specific reponses to questions by subscribing to the fink-beginners mailing list. The list's archives contain much discussion about the topics in your questions. There is lots of help available.

Craig

Thanks, I'll check those places out. I'm almost ready to give up with this if I don't find answers there, but if that's the case then I'll just wait until another update is made to try again

[unimaxium]

Yay! I removed and reinstalled fink again, installed qt3 from source before installing KDE, installed KDE ftom source (it look all of last night and a good chunk of today to compile), reinstalled X11 (the XDarwin installation that KDE installs seems to mess it up or something I think, followed the tips in the first post in this thread about .xinitrc, launched X11 and finally I have KDE running!!! I'm so happy now . Thank you all for yout help!

BTW: I'm writing this post form Konqueror right now

[suthercd]

Way to go!! Glad you hung in there and made it happen. Pretty satisfying when you see something you worked that hard on work for you.

Craig