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

One of the following VFS libraries:

• GIO 2.16 or later (recommended)
• GNOME VFS 2.6 or later
• Thunar VFS (also requires the D-Bus bindings for GLib [dbus-glib])

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)
• gnome-vfs
• thunar-vfs

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.