Beyond Linux® From Scratch (systemd edition) - Version 8.2

Chapter 39. LXQt Desktop

LXQt Desktop Pre-Install Instructions

[Caution]

Caution

Due to recent changes in grep it is essential that the installing system be set to a UTF-8 locale. An example is export LANG=en_US.UTF-8, but any UTF-8 locale is sufficient. Failure to do this will result in a faulty installation.

LXQt can be installed in /usr or /opt/lxqt.

Installing in /usr

Installing in /usr creates a simpler setup. Run: 

export LXQT_PREFIX=/usr

Either add that to your own .bash_profile so that it will still be set if you build the packages over a period of time, or else add it to the system profile as the root user: 

cat > /etc/profile.d/lxqt.sh << "EOF"
# Begin LXQt profile

export LXQT_PREFIX=/usr

# End LXQt profile
EOF

There is no other configuration needed to install LXQt in /usr.

Installing in /opt/lxqt

Installing in /opt/lxqt may simplify upgrading to a later version of LXQt.

Some variables need to be defined in your system profile, as the root user: 

install -vdm755 /opt/lxqt/{bin,lib,share/man}

cat > /etc/profile.d/lxqt.sh << "EOF"
# Begin LXQt profile

export LXQT_PREFIX=/opt/lxqt

pathappend /opt/lxqt/bin           PATH
pathappend /opt/lxqt/share/man/    MANPATH
pathappend /opt/lxqt/lib/pkgconfig PKG_CONFIG_PATH
pathappend /opt/lxqt/lib/plugins   QT_PLUGIN_PATH

# End LXQt profile
EOF

cat >> /etc/profile.d/qt5.sh << "EOF"

# Begin Qt5 changes for LXQt

pathappend $QT5DIR/plugins         QT_PLUGIN_PATH

# End Qt5 changes for LXQt
EOF

Expand your /etc/ld.so.conf file: 

cat >> /etc/ld.so.conf << "EOF"

# Begin LXQt addition

/opt/lxqt/lib

# End LXQt addition

EOF

Before starting to install the packages in the following pages, remember to execute: 

source /etc/profile

Some packages from the KDE Frameworks 5 bundle install files into D-Bus directories. In order to have D-Bus find those files, the easiest way is to create a symlink. Some packages may also install icons from the “hicolor” icon set. Since that icon set is used by many packages, it is a good idea to create a symlink to the one in /usr/share to avoid having multiple installations of hicolor-icon-theme-0.17. Run the following commands as the root user: 

source /etc/profile                                       &&
install -v -dm755                $LXQT_PREFIX/share/icons &&
ln -sfv /usr/share/icons/hicolor $LXQT_PREFIX/share/icons &&
ln -sfv /usr/share/dbus-1        $LXQT_PREFIX/share
[Tip]

Tip

Sometimes, the installation paths are hardcoded into installed files. This is the reason why /opt/lxqt is used as installation prefix instead of /opt/lxqt-0.12.0. After installing LXQt Desktop, you may rename the directory and create a symlink: 

mv /opt/lxqt{,-0.12.0}
ln -sfv lxqt-0.12.0 /opt/lxqt

Later on, you may want to install other versions of LXQt Desktop. To do that, just remove the symlink and use /opt/lxqt as the prefix again. Which version of LXQt Desktop you use depends only on where the symlink points. No other reconfiguration will be needed.

Notes about building LXQt dependencies

LXQt obviously needs Qt-5.10.1, but not all Qt5 modules and dependencies are necessary. Since the aim of LXQt is to be light weight, it may be interesting to cut down the Qt5 overhead, and to build only parts of it. To build Qt and LXQT dependencies, the proposed order is the following:

  1. Build Linux-PAM-1.3.0, Shadow-4.5, and Sudo-1.8.22, with their dependencies

  2. Build the whole X Window System chapter, with Wayland support, and replacing twm vith openbox-3.6.1 (and its required dependencies). Some Xorg applications and fonts may be omitted, but with a negligible impact on build time and size

  3. Build GTK+-2.24.32 and its required and recommended dependencies. GTK+2 is needed for libfm-1.2.5, and brings the gtk-update-icon-cache executable, which is needed by libqtxdg

  4. Build required Qt dependencies, and some of the recommended or optional dependencies, namely: OpenSSL-1.0.2n Libraries, dbus-1.12.4, alsa-lib-1.1.5, PulseAudio-11.1, and libxkbcommon-0.8.0

  5. Build the required parts of Qt-5.10.1. To skip all modules but the four needed for LXQt, do: 

    ls -Fd qt* | grep / | sed 's/^/-skip /;s/qt//;s@/@@' > tempconf
sed -i '/base/d;/tools/d;/x11extras/d;/svg/d' tempconf
# if you plan to build SDDM, add:
sed -i '/declarative/d' tempconf
./configure <book flags> $(cat tempconf)

    The time needed to complete the Qt installation is thus reduced to around 6 SBU

  6. Build miscellaneous dependencies (with their required ones): libexif-0.6.21, libstatgrab-0.91, Polkit-0.113+git_2919920+js38, lm_sensors-3.4.0, UPower-0.99.7, and libfm-1.2.5. If CMake-3.10.2 has not been built during the preceding steps, build it now

  7. Build KDE frameworks dependencies: extra-cmake-modules-5.43.0, libdbusmenu-qt-0.9.3+16.04.20160218, and polkit-qt-0.112.0

  8. Finally, build some desktop utilities: xdg-utils-1.1.2 (needs only xmlto), Xdg-user-dirs-0.16, oxygen-icons5-5.43.0 or other sets of icons

Last updated on 2017-10-27 09:21:45 -0700