Downloading/Keeping Certain KDE Applications, Removing Others

Konphine · 10-03-2011, 09:27 AM

Hello,

Using slackpkg I have installed kde-graphics which installs all KDE graphics programs. Unfortunately I have no need for all of them, and the only one I need is Gwenview so I can view animated .gif's that I create from GIMP (the others don't seem to be able to play animated .gif files).

However, if I uninstall kde-graphics, I'm uninstalling Gwenview as well as the others.

Is there a way I can keep just Gwenview (excluding the fact that I install Gwenview only from the official KDE website).

Also, which KDE package comes with their cursors, because I know they have a lot of cursors but I'm not exactly in the mood of installing all KDE packages and then removing them one by one to see which one lets me keep their cursors.

kikinovak · 10-03-2011, 10:05 AM

Hi,

Yes, it's possible, but the solution is not trivial. I've just built a personalized KDE (from 4.6.5 sources and Eric Hameleers' build scripts), leaving out all unneeded apps and building only the modules I need for everyday productivity.

Here are my build scripts, HOWTOS and configuration files:

Code:

$ svn co svn://svn.tuxfamily.org/svnroot/microlinux/slackware

Take a peek in the 13.37/source/kde-lite-* directories to get an idea.

Basically, every KDE module has a CMakeLists.txt file at the root of its source directory. What I do is simply edit this file and comment out every app I don't wish to build. For example, I have no use for Konqueror, so I disable it. I favour Pidgin over Kopete, so I'll do the same here. And so on. Of course, I don't build the thing manually. I make like half a dozen patches (for kdebase, kdegraphics, kdenetwork, kdemultimedia and some others) and then simply run the master build script for KDE, which will spew out a nicely stripped down desktop after a couple of hours.

You can spend a whole weekend over it the first time you do it, but the double advantage is you'll get to know KDE quite well, and it's done very quick for all subsequent updates. Of course, YMMV.

Edit : of course, you can take a simpler approach and just "hide" unneeded applications in the menu. To do this, take a peek in /usr/share/applications/kde4. For every entry you don't want, simply append this to the according *.desktop file:

Code:

NoDisplay=true

veeall · 10-03-2011, 03:32 PM

With pre-modulized kde i've been using modified stock slackbuild scripts to exclude any app that i don't need.

For kde multimedia i've added these lines, in BOLD:

Code:

cmake \
    $KDE_OPT_ARGS \
    -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS:STRING="$SLKCFLAGS" \
    -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS:STRING="$SLKCFLAGS" \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr \
    -DMAN_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/man \
    -DSYSCONF_INSTALL_DIR=/etc/kde \
    -DLIB_SUFFIX=${LIBDIRSUFFIX} \
    -DBUILD_juk=FALSE \
    -DBUILD_kscd=FALSE \
    -DBUILD_dragonplayer=FALSE \
    -DBUILD_kmix=FALSE \
    ..

That's basically excluding all apps, but k3b needs libraries in kdemultimedia to run.
I've recently installed kde 4.7.1 but didn't find a way how to recompile its packages with the new build system. Hopefully someone sheds light on that someday.