Request for clarification on menu/file spec

Kevin Krammer kevin.krammer at gmx.at
Wed Feb 8 20:15:36 EET 2006


On Wednesday 08 February 2006 11:56, cobaco (aka Bart Cornelis) wrote:
> On Wednesday 08 February 2006 11:32, Kevin Krammer wrote:
> > On Wednesday 08 February 2006 11:09, cobaco (aka Bart Cornelis) wrote:
> > > On Debian we have desktop-profiles [1] which runs an Xsession.d script
> > > that manages the contents of the XDG_*_DIRS variables (and similar
> > > variables such as KDEDIRS, or CHOICESPATH).
> > >
> > > When setting the variables it parses config files that specify the
> > > available config/data sets and the conditions under which they should
> > > be activated. If conditions are met the profile directory is activated
> > > with the specified priority (relative to other active profiles).
> >
> > I thought about suggesting something like this in a cross-distribution
> > way as well, but, as it affects the environment, it will only work for
> > applications that have been installed before a user session starts.
>
> true, I don't see this as a fundamental problem though, you also have to
> restart the session if you upgrade KDE while it's running, you don't change
> the environment that often.

True, it would cover most of the use cases, just wanted to point out that 
cases like the one Jeremy wrote about wouldn't be covered (installing in an 
application specific prefix)

> > Example:
> > I start with a clean Debian installation, KDE is installed in /usr,
> > KDEDIRS unset, XDG variables unset
> > After logging in into KDE I manually compile and install a source package
> > using the configure default of /usr/local
> >
> > Result: the program can be started as /usr/local/bin is in PATH by
> > default, it appears in the menu as /usr/local is part of the XDG default
> > _But_ if the application is a KDE application and has some KDE resources
> > like KParts, it won't find them
>
> right, cause KDEDIRS doesn't include /usr/local by default. If you set up
> KDEDIRS up front to include /usr/local the problem isn't present (just
> running kbuildsycoca after installation should do I think)

Yes, from my experience this works nicely, but KDE applications have the 
advantage of needing just one variable altered and accessing it primarily 
through the rebuildable cache

Anyway, I guess it would already be an improvement if /usr/local were always 
fully setup by default.

Cheers,
Kevin
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