How to install the recoll plugin for krunner in Kubuntu 12.10

[sealbhach]

I just figured out how to install this recently so thought I'd share it here.

This is an abridged version of my blog post on how to do this.

This assumes you already have recoll installed and have created a recoll xapian index.

There is no deb package for recollrunner so you will need to download and compile it.

Download recollrunner from here and save it to your Downloads folder.

Make a folder there called recollrunner and copy the downloaded tar.bz2 archive into it.

Extract.

Open a terminal in this directory or do

cd $HOME/Downloads/recollrunner

I found I was missing a dependency, make sure you have kdelibs5-dev installed.

If you don’t then

sudo apt-get install kdelibs5-dev

You will also need to install cmake if you haven’t got it already.

You can get more hints on missing dependencies from here.

Once all the dependencies are satisfied the build process is easy.

mkdir build

cd build

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$(kde4-config --prefix) ..

make

sudo make install

Then you need to run this command:

kbuildsycoca4

Now just hit Alt+F2 and check the krunner plugins to see that the recoll plugin is there.

The plugin creator suggest to restart krunner, you can do that like this:

kquitapp krunner && krunner

if you need to.

.

[kubicle]

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$KDEDIRS ..

Do you actually have $KDEDIRS set? (that config option doesn't really make sense otherwise)
If you use:

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ..

or

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$(kde4-config --prefix) ..

It should install under /usr (and you don't have to create the symbolic links)

[james147]

Open a terminal in this directory or from /home do

cd Downloads/recollrunner

Do you mean /home/USERNAME? I would recommend changing it to

cd $HOME/Downloads/recollrunner

then it does not matter where they open the terminal.

Once all the dependencies are satisfied the build process is easy.
... build commands ...

You don't need so many code tags, also don't use $KDEDIRS use /usr or even better $(kde4-config --prefix) since I think $KDEDIRS is not set by default so that is why it is installing to / instead of /usr

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$(kde4-config --prefix) ..
make
sudo make install

Then you need to generate some .desktop files with this command:

kbuildsycoca4

I don't think kbuildsycoca4 generates .desktop files, as far as I know it reads them and informs the applications of changes and clean/regenerates caches.

I found that because I’m using Kubuntu 12.10 some of the files have been installed to a different location and krunner cannot find them.

They have been put in /lib/kde4 and /share/kde4 rather than /usr/lib/kde4 and /usr/share/kde4.

It will install them to /usr if you use the suggestion about cmake above

I moved them using dolphin but it’s probably best to put commands here instead.
... ln commands...

ln -s creates symlinks, it does not move the files. I do not recommend moving the files are they where build for / not /usr. Personally I would rebuild the application with the right location set.

Now just log out and log back in again and hit Alt+F2 and check the krunner plugins to see that the recoll plugin is there.

You should not need to logout and back in again if you run kbuildsycica4 if you run it after the files are in the right place.



Technically you should install manually built programs to /usr/local (the default value for -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX but then you need to set up some environment variables for kde to find the applications:

export KDEDIR=/usr
export KDEDIRS=/usr/local:${KDEDIR}
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/local/share:/usr/share
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/share/pkgconfig

You should the above in /etc/profile.d/kde-usr-local.sh

This keeps the manually install programs separated from the programs installed by the package manager and makes them easier to find/remove them if you need to without damaging your system (as /usr/local is designed for manually installed stuff only) and stops the package manager fumbling over files that are not owned by any package. It also protects you from overwriting files that the package manager was controlling.

[sealbhach]

Great! Thanks guys for the advice, I have amended the first post. How do you restart krunner as suggested by the plugin creator?

[james147]

kquitapp krunner && krunner

But you should not need to do this... this is what kbuildsycoca4 is meant to get around.

Just run kbuildsycoca4 and see if the plugin is in krunner, if not wait a few seconds and try again, if still not try logging out and back in, if still not then you have installed it wrong

I would also suggest removing some of the [/code][code]'s from your post, it makes it easier to read if a set of commands are all in the same code block

PS: is the layout and certificate on kde-apps.org all messed up for anyone else or just me?