Installation

The following document details how to install libdesktop-agnostic.

Debian/Ubuntu

For Ubuntu users, there is a PPA with semi-regular releases:

If you wish to build from source, the preferred method is to use the Debian packaging method:

  1. Install the build-time prerequisites. They are listed in debian/control, under the Build-Depends entry.
  2. Run debuild binary.
  3. Install the built packages with sudo dpkg -i. The packages should be in the parent directory of the source directory.

Gentoo

For Gentoo users, an SCM version is available at the desktop-effects overlay. You can add it by installing layman and running the following commands (with administrative privileges):

layman -a desktop-effects
echo ** x11-libs/libdesktop-agnostic >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
emerge libdesktop-agnostic

There are several USE flags for libdesktop-agnostic. Please consult the metadata.xml file in the directly where the libdesktop-agnostic-9999.ebuild is located for flag descriptions.

Prerequisites

Build-only

  • Python 2.4 or later (requires the development files, for the Python bindings)
  • GObject Introspection 0.6.3 or later (requires the development files, to properly detect the correct version)
  • Vala 0.7.10
  • intltool

Build/Runtime (required)

  • GLib 2.12 or later
  • GTK 2.12 or later

For the Python bindings:

  • PyGObject 2.12 or later
  • PyGTK 2.12 or later

The following VFS library:

  • GIO 2.16 or later

Build/Runtime (optional)

  • GConf (Needs GLib 2.14 or later, for GRegex support)
  • GNOME Desktop

Building the Package

libdesktop-agnostic uses Waf as its build system. It is bundled with the package. From the toplevel directory, run ./waf --help to see all of the options available for the various commands. A regular user will just need to run the following:

./waf configure --config-backends=[cfg] --vfs-backends=[vfs] --desktop-entry-backends=[de]
./waf
./waf install

The preceding commands check the system for dependencies, build the library and test programs, and install the library to the default location (/usr/local).

The placeholders (specified by the [bracketed] identifiers) should be replaced by a comma-separated list of backends. A list of valid backends follows:

Config

  • gconf (recommended)
  • keyfile (uses GLib’s GKeyFile, which is a .ini-like format)
  • memory (useful for testing applications)
  • null (only useful for people developing libdesktop-agnostic)

VFS

  • gio (recommended)

Desktop Entry

  • glib (recommended)
  • gnome

Packaging Notes

Packagers should package binary modules separately.

A configuration file (desktop-agnostic.ini) is installed in $SYSCONFDIR/xdg/libdesktop-agnostic. $SYSCONFDIR is usually /etc. The default modules are the first modules listed in the respective backend flags passed to ./waf configure.