[PyKDE] Root vs. non-root builds

[Steve Simmons]

Jim Bublitz <jbublitz at nwinternet.com> wrote:

>Ahh - a chance to expound on the PyKDE build system!
>(Sorry guys, but the more I type the less I smoke and I'm trying to
>quit)

Hey, go for it.

>3. The solution to (2) is tmake/qmake plus some Python code to
>establish the configuration (build.py)

>4. To reduce the compile time from an hour to under ten minutes
>(over 80% reduction) we concatenate all of the cpp files generated
>by sip into a single huge file (thanks to Debian for the idea).

>(3) and (4) are potential problems for users, since PyKDE's build
>system is only tested (by me) on a single platform (SuSE) . . .

This is indeed a weakness, but not (IMHO) weak enough that we should
change it.  We've got existance proofs that it mostly works on freebsd.
The tweakage needed to remove 'mostly' probably very small.

>So why do you need to be root to run make in this system? . . .
>.  .  .  I suspect it's because the 'all' target 
>(the one 'make' runs) in the module-level Makefiles includes the
>target that performs the deletion of old libs and
>copy-to-destination of new libs . . .

This was my impression -- the early builds I did as non-root failed
for just those reasons.

>The Makefiles are structured this way not because I chose to write
>them in this fashion, but because tmake/qmake generate the
>Makefiles in this fashion . . .

This may be a show-stopper for the moment.

>While I'm not happy with requiring root privs to run make for
>PyKDE, I don't think it's the end of the world. I'd like to fix it
>for the next release . . .

Agreed.  I think the right approach from here is to determine why
tmake/qmake insist on installing prematurely.