Here's my 'tutorial' in installing and configuring KDE 3.0 on
Mandrake 8.2, which has worked very well over three installs today.
Getting KDE 3.x on 8.2 to work properly is tricky, but not impossible.
Hopefully, it will help you as well.
I'd love to hear some feedback.
CHAPTERS:
1. Setting up Software Manager (i.e. stop the cdrom swapping madness)
2. Get the Packages
3. Installing
4. After the RPMs - fixing the glitches
!!NOTES!!
When you see quotes around items, that means type it in, don't type the
quotes themselves unless otherwise directed.
You do NOT need to remove KDE2.x! As a matter of fact, I don't recommend
it in the least, since some older programs may require the KDE2.x
libraries, etc..
You should also already be able to use KDE 2.x just fine before starting
this document.
I'm not sure if it's just me, but Mandrake 8.2 didn't create a "nobody"
group, but it does have a "nobody" user. This creates problems for the
stock KDE3 rpms, which end up giving some things root group rights
instead. To
remedy this, first check your /etc/group file to see if it has nobody
listed by doing "cat /etc/group | grep nobody". If it does, then great. If
not, then do "groupadd nobody" You will then need to get the user number
for the nobody user, which is found in /etc/passwd. Get it by doing the
following command, "cat /etc/passwd | grep nobody" It should look
something like this:
nobody:x:65534:65534:Nobody:/home:/bin/sh
^^^^^
Basically, take that number, and using your favorite text editor open up
/etc/group and add the number at the end of the nobody group - it should
look something like
nobody:x:503:
to
nobody:x:503:65534:
1. SETTING UP THE SOFTWARE MANAGER
This is a simple setup to make your cd-swapping come to an end. It does
require, however, that you have enough disk space to spare for the three
cdroms ( most of us probably do if we're running Mandrake in the first
place ). This is NOT a neccessary step in the KDE 3 install process, but
makes life easy.
Create a folder somewhere called cdrom_images Create folders inside that
called cdrom1, cdrom2, cdrom3 Copy the entire contents of each cdrom into
the perspective folder above. Launch the software manager. Remove all
auto-created cdrom sources in the "Define Sources" area. Add all three new
cdrom directories (above) to the sources, choosing local and labeling each
one.
The net result of this is that installs will go much faster, and you won't
be doing the ridiculous cdrom-swap.
2. GET THE PACKAGES
I recommend you get the following packages - all of them. Save them into
their site-specific directories (i.e. /home/foo/tmp/kde3/ and
/home/foo/tmp/kde3_texstar/) I also recommend using a download manager
like 'Downloader for X' which you can get here:
http://www.rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=NT&submit=Search+...&system=&arch=
TexStar Packages:
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/contrib/texstar/Mandrake-8.2-i586/kde-3.0.0/
KDE Official Packages:
http://download.uk.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/3.0/Mandrake/8.2/RPMS/i586/
3. INSTALLING
You will need to first get into init 3 mode. Simply log out of any window
manager you are currently in, and press ctrl-alt=F1. This should get you
to a virtual terminal.
Log in as root.
Type "init 3"
You will now be in telinit 3 mode - which basically means no X.
Now, change to the KDE3 directory with all of the downloaded KDE3 rpms.
Type "urpmi --auto-select *.rpm" Basically the auto-select will allow
urpmi to get dependencies if they are needed (the poor-man's apt-get for
you debian fans). There is no way to solidly tell someone exactly what to
expect here, because some people install all KDE packages including
development, and others just install what they need to run the window
manager. Therefore, your mileage may vary. You may indeed find the
following:
ODBC is required for some reason
KDEDevelop will complain if it is installed. Remove it! TexStar is
working on a new rpm for this.
URPMI (unlike rpm) should resolve the ODBC issue, if you followed step #1
above. If it doesn't resolve the dependencies for already installed
packages, then try the following:
"rpm -qa | grep <<name of problem>>"
This will get you the package name. If the list is complete, then you can
do:
"rpm -qa | grep <<name of problem>> | xargs rpm -e --nodeps"
Basically this queries the rpm database, finds any packages you want, then
passes them back to rpm to remove without checking dependencies. Note that
this is the easy way of doing it. I usually always go through and remove
one by one just to insure I'm not hosing other stuff along the way. URPMI
is actually relatively intelligent. Unless you get a lot of issues, you
should be able to complete the installation with the first command above.
URPMI will automatically selecte other needed packages to complete the
installation for you.
If you haven't completely installed everything above, then don't continue.
If you have, then...
We need to install TexStar's very nice updates. These updates fix myriads
of issues, such as arts sound not working, etc. Change to the TexStar
directory.
type "rpm -Uvh *.rpm"
If you get issues, try
"urpmi --auto-select *.rpm"
I have basically a full install of KDE 2 and 3, and was able to pull this
off just fine. If that doesn't work, then try posting something on his
site: http://www.pclinuxonline.com
That should be it, but don't start up KDE3 yet!
4. AFTER THE INSTALL - FIXING THE GLITCHES First of all, KDE3 doesn't seem
to work well with old .kde directories: Log in as yourself.
Change to your directory.
Back up your old .kde folder by "tar -zcvf kdebackup.tar.gz .kde/ " and /
or rename it "mv .kde/ .kde_old" Now remove the folder "rm -rf .kde/"
Also remove "rm -rf .kderc"
Second, fix the kdm manager:
To get the system to use the KDM from KDE3, change the last line of
/etc/inittab file from the default of x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm
-nodaemon to
x:5:respawn:/opt/kde3/bin/kdm -nodaemon
Third, Update Menus:
Some people report that they can run "update-menus" with some success. Do
it if you wish. Note that Mandrake's current version of MenuDrake does NOT
work with KDE3!! So don't bother with it.... it will only frustrate you.
Ok - now you're ready to get into KDE3, but you're still not finished. As
root, type "init 5" to get back into X. You *should* be presented with a
familiar login screen.
Choose KDE and log in as a user. If all goes well,
you will get the "First Time" screen which you can fill out and go
forward. Hopefully, everything will load just fine. You should not get any
sound arts errors because you installed Texstar's packages. If you
continue to get the first-time screen every time you log in, there is a
fix for that you can find on http://www.pclinuxonline.com.
Now, the konsole icon on the bottom left will cause you an error every
time you exit it! The easiest way to remedy this is to simply remove it.
Changing it won't work.
You can re-add this simply by right-clicking on the toolbar and selecting
Add / Button / Terminals / Shell - and you're back in business.
Finally, you may want to salvage some of your settings from kmail, knode,
etc. I suggest you go into your .kde_bak folder and search for kmailrc
for kmail, etc. Take the file and place it in the .kde3 folder in the
same spot. For the most part, I've been able to do that kind of
replacement and still have everything work just fine. To find things like
that from within your .kde_bak folder do
"find . -iname '*kmail*' -print |more "
which will find all instances of anything with the word kmail and print
them to the terminal screen.
FIN!
Basically, after four hours or so of screwing around with it all today, that's
what worked very well for me. I have a pretty full Mandrake 8.2 install,
and figured this all out by reading the newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake,
comp.windows.x.kde, www.pclinuxonline.com as well as others - not
to mention quite a bit of trial and error.
I'll be glad to answer anything that I can, but I think that everyone's
experience might be a bit different than mine, but hopefully this will
help point you in the right direction to fix some of the bugs.
Cheers,
&J
reynolds_j#$ohn@yahoo.com
(del #$ to email)
