Installation of Qt
This package (unfortunately) expects the X Window system to be installed in the
/usr/X11R6 directory. If you're using
a recent version of Xorg and it is
installed in any other location, ensure you have followed the
instructions in the Creating an X11R6
Compatibility Symlink section.
There are several ways to install a complicated package such as
Qt. The files are not completely
position independent. Installation procedures execute the program
pkg-config to
determine the location of package executables, libraries, headers,
and other files. For Qt,
pkg-config will look
for the file lib/pkgconfig/qt-mt.pc
which must be modified if relocating the package. This file is set
up correctly by the build process.
The default installation places the files in /usr/local/qt/. Many commercial distributions
place the files in the system's /usr
hierarchy. The package can also be installed in an arbitrary
directory.
This section will demonstrate two different methods.
![[Warning]](../images/warning.png)
Warning
Building Qt in a chroot environment may fail.
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
Note
The build time for Qt is quite
long. If you want to save some time and don't want the tutorials
and examples, change the first make command to:
make sub-tools
Method 1 - Installing in the '/usr' Hierarchy
The advantage of this method is that no updates to the
/etc/ld.so.conf or /etc/man_db.conf files are required. The
package files are distributed within several subdirectories of
the /usr hierarchy. This is the
method that most commercial distributions use.
Note
If Qt is being reinstalled,
run the following commands from a console or non-Qt based
window manager. It overwrites Qt libraries that should not be in use
during the install process.
sed -i '/QMAKE_RPATH/d' mkspecs/linux*/qmake.conf &&
bash
export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH &&
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH &&
./configure -prefix /usr \
-docdir /usr/share/doc/qt \
-headerdir /usr/include/qt \
-plugindir /usr/lib/qt/plugins \
-datadir /usr/share/qt \
-translationdir /usr/share/qt/translations \
-sysconfdir /etc/qt \
-qt-gif \
-system-zlib \
-system-libpng \
-system-libjpeg \
-system-libmng \
-plugin-imgfmt-png \
-plugin-imgfmt-jpeg \
-plugin-imgfmt-mng \
-no-exceptions \
-thread \
-tablet &&
make &&
exit
This package does not come with a test suite.
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
ln -v -sf libqt-mt.so /usr/lib/libqt.so &&
ln -v -snf ../../bin /usr/share/qt/bin &&
ln -v -snf ../../include/qt /usr/share/qt/include &&
ln -v -snf ../../lib /usr/share/qt/lib &&
cp -v -r doc/man /usr/share &&
cp -v -r examples /usr/share/doc/qt
Method 2 - Installing in '/opt'
This is the method recommended by the Qt developers. It has the advantage of
keeping all the package files consolidated in a dedicated
directory hierarchy. By using this method, an update can be made
without overwriting a previous installation and users can easily
revert to a previous version by changing one symbolic link.
The Qt developers use a default
location of /usr/local/qt/, however
this procedure puts the files in /opt/qt-3.3.8b/ and then creates a symbolic
link to /opt/qt/.
bash
export QTDIR=$PWD &&
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH &&
export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH &&
./configure -prefix /opt/qt-3.3.8b \
-sysconfdir /etc/qt \
-qt-gif \
-system-zlib \
-system-libpng \
-system-libjpeg \
-system-libmng \
-plugin-imgfmt-png \
-plugin-imgfmt-jpeg \
-plugin-imgfmt-mng \
-no-exceptions \
-thread \
-tablet &&
make &&
exit
This package does not come with a test suite.
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
ln -v -sfn qt-3.3.8b /opt/qt &&
ln -v -s libqt-mt.so /opt/qt/lib/libqt.so &&
cp -v -r doc/man examples /opt/qt/doc
Command Explanations
sed -i '/QMAKE_RPATH/d'
mkspecs/linux*/qmake.conf: In Method 1,
Qt is being installed into the
standard system directories. The runtime library search path does
not need to be set in this case.
bash: This command
enters a sub-shell to isolate environment changes.
export QTDIR=$PWD:
This command defines where the root of the Qt directory is located.
export
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH: This
command allows the not yet installed Qt libraries to be used by the not yet
installed Qt programs.
export
PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH: This command allows the build
process to find supporting executables.
-qt-gif: This switch adds
support for gif files to the
libraries.
-system-zlib -system-libpng
-system-libjpeg -system-mng: These switches force the
build instructions to use the shared libraries that are on your
system instead of creating a custom set of support libraries for
these functions.
-plugin-imgfmt-png -plugin-imgfmt-jpeg
-plugin-imgfmt-mng: These switches enable run-time
linking of the referenced libraries.
If you pass the -plugin-sql-<driver> or
-qt-sql-<driver> switch to the
configure command,
you must also pass -I</path/to/sql/headers>
so make can find the
appropriate header files. For instance, building in MySQL support (as opposed to building the
plugin) will need to use -I/usr/include/mysql
-qt-sql-mysql.
Note
To check if mysql is
autotetected properly, examine the output of ./configure -I/usr/include/mysql
-help. Other database support will require
similar configure
parameters.
-no-exceptions: This switch
disables the exceptions coding generated by the C++ compiler.
-thread: This switch adds
support for multi-threading.
ln -v -sf libqt-mt.so
/usr/lib/libqt.so: This command allows configure scripts to find a
working Qt installation.
ln -v -snf ../../bin
/usr/share/qt/bin: This command and the following
two allow the /usr style installation
to mimic the /opt style installation
by making all binaries, headers and libraries available from a
single directory, /usr/share/qt.
cp -v -r doc/man examples /usr/share
(or /opt/qt/doc): This command installs the man
pages and examples which are missed by make install.
exit: This command
returns to the parent shell and eliminates the environment
variables set earlier.
Configuring Qt
Configuration Information
The QTDIR environment variable needs
to be set when building packages that depend on Qt. Add the following to the .bash_profile initialization script for each
user that builds packages using the Qt libraries. Alternatively, the variable
can be set in the system wide /etc/profile file.
For Method 1 (This is optional, only set this if an application
is unable to find the installed libraries or headers):
export QTDIR=/usr/share/qt
or for Method 2:
export QTDIR=/opt/qt
If you installed Qt using Method
2, you also need to update the following configuration files so
that Qt is correctly found by
other packages and system processes.
Update the /etc/ld.so.conf and
/etc/man_db.conf files:
cat >> /etc/ld.so.conf << "EOF" &&
# Begin qt addition to /etc/ld.so.conf
/opt/qt/lib
# End qt addition
EOF
ldconfig &&
cat >> /etc/man_db.conf << "EOF"
# Begin qt addition to man_db.conf
MANDATORY_MANPATH /opt/qt/doc/man
# End qt addition to man_db.conf
EOF
Update the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment
variable in your ~/.bash_profile or
/etc/profile with the following:
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/qt/lib/pkgconfig
If you want the Qt executables
in your shell search path, update the PATH environment variable in your ~/.bash_profile or /etc/profile to include /opt/qt/bin.
As with most libraries, there is no explicit configuration to do.
After updating /etc/ld.so.conf as
explained above, run /sbin/ldconfig so that
ldd can find the
shared libraries.