Building Evidence

Executive summary

• GTK2 is required (until EWL is ready).
• When going for eyecandy, you'll need evas, imlib2, and freetype2.
• All other libraries are purely optional.
• ./configure with no options should create reasonable defaults for your system.

1. If your download does not contain a file called configure (as it is apt to when "checking out" from CVS), please run ./autogen.sh before you read on.
2. Run ./configure --help.
   A plethora of options will be listed:

   Choose your destiny!

   • The padawaan
   • The Master

   • The padawaan.

     I don't know what all the options mean!

     Just run ./configure without any options; this will normally generate a sensible setup customized to your machine.
     To do this, the build process will check what software libraries are on your system.
     
     

     What does that mean?

     As a general rule, if a feature of evidence's might be useful for you, you probably already have the software libraries required to support that feature on your system: if you for instance listen to MP3 music, you're bound to have some MP3 software. The evidence build-process will see that software and try to build support for MP3 "ID3" tags.
     
     

     I don't have half of the libraries mentioned!

     If the build-process says that it cannot find something, don't worry yet. Often, there are several similar libraries, and if the build-process finds at least one of them, you'll be fine.
     
     

     But it says some functionality won't be built!

     This means that the build-process finds neither library for a given task. It will also tell you which functionality it is that won't be built, and what that means for you -- often, it's not much of a problem.
     For instance, KDE-support will not be built if no KDE-libraries are found, but why would you worry about that if you have no KDE for evidence to support, anyway?
     
     

     But I wanted that functionality!

     Okay. evidence needs some supporting libraries for that. Kindly install them.
     
     

     But I am certain I have those libraries?

     If you are sure you have the software the build-process said it couldn't find, you probably have the "run-time" part of the software, but not the "software development" part of it:

     • To verify whether you have the run-time part, use rpm -q foo (where foo is name of the library in question).
     • To verify whether you have the development part, use rpm -q foo-devel.
     • On a Debian system, use dpkg -l rather than rpm -q.
     • While evidence was reported to built on other systems (such as OS X, FreeBSD and Solaris), package management on on such systems is beyond the scope of this document.

     
     
     

     I have the library and the development files, and they're still not found?

     Apparently, they're in some really unexpected place as far as the build-process is concerned. Give it a clue where to look for the devel-files (using the appropriate --with option to configure, e.g. ./configure --with-foo=/usr/lib).
     
     

     The build process complained about something being missing and just stopped!?

     Something absolutely vital is missing. Please add it before you restart the build-process.
     
     

     I completed thist task that thou hast set for me, whither should I turn?

     Thou hast chosen thy path. Now, you must follow it.
     
     

   • The Master.
     1. You're so cool the plethora of options cannot scare you. You know that in some cases, configure will look for a certain functionality ("hashes") in several libraries ("evas, glib, and judy"), and that a single "hit" will do. Usually, not even that is required -- you know what optional means:
        Such a check is not a suggestion to install that library; it is an attempt to make do with what's already there, so you don't need to install extra libraries just for evidence!
        You are totally unfazed when backends and providers that wouldn't be useful to you are not built -- if configure won't build the "kio-backend" because it can't find KDE-headers, that's not something to worry about if you're not using KDE in the first place, right.
        You relax into the certainty that almost all of evidence's plugins are optional, and that where having at least one out of a class of plugins (file-system backend, scrollbar, etc.) is required, there is always one that can be built without extra libraries.
        You're satisfied as those automatic tests help you install fewer libraries on your machine, rather than force you to install more.
        You know better than to go overboard with installing every library mentioned in the configure-process "to get a complete version of evidence."
     2. You know that using the default backend cannot diminish the cool of a master. Or mistress, as the case may be.
     3. You decide that you want the icon-view, and probably the shelf as well. You know that wanting either necessitates a graphics engine; you choose evas.
     4. You resist the temptation to install supporting libraries for all meta-data providers (plugins that provide extra info on MP3, images, ...), even for those giving extra info for file-types you never had.
     5. You run ./configure with the options of your choice.
     
     
3. Run make and one of make install or checkinstall -- the latter is preferable, but not available on all systems. evidence will not work until installed; trying src/evidence will usually not render the desired results.
4. Run evidence. (Type hash -r first to tell your shell that there is a new kid on the block. If your shell does not understand the rehash command, open a new one.)
5. Customize evidence, if you wish.