to kde module developers: kde itself and all kde applications have broken integration with dbus and policykit

[Dennis Veatch]

On Saturday, July 10, 2010 2:31:24 pm Stefan Wold wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-07-10 at 10:32 -0400, Dennis Veatch wrote:
> > On Saturday, July 10, 2010 10:06:28 am Zbigniew Luszpinski wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > I have just discovered that kde itself and almost all kde applications
> > > have broken dbus/messagebus and policykit integration. This
> > > integration break was caused by installing kde in non standard
> > > directory: /opt/lunar/kde/4
> > > 
> > > The result of this broken integration is that:
> > > *KAuth is broken: you can not use kde sudo like features to do root
> > > duties from casual user account. For example setting the clock:
> > > 
> > > Discussion on Lunar ML: Re: Hello world - my response:
> > > >> I asked about password request in KDE
> > > >> config tool because I couldn't set ntp as default service.
> > > > 
> > > > I reproduced the bug you probably encountered setting ntp:
> > > > "Unable to authenticate/execute the action: 7, DBus Backend error:
> > > > could not contact the helper. Connection error: Could not get owner
> > > > of name > 'org.kde.kcontrol.kcmclock': no such name. Message error:
> > > > The name org.kde.kcontrol.kcmclock was not provided by any .service
> > > > files"
> > > > 
> > > > Will look at it deeper later - Lunar installs dbus files in wrong
> > > > place.
> > > 
> > > I manually copied dbus and policykit kde files to correct locations and
> > > this bug is fixed. Another advantage is that when I plug in usb drive
> > > the kde file browser auto opens its content. Many other hotplug
> > > actions also become active. I still discover other new capabilities
> > > which appeared thanks to fixing dbus integration.
> > > 
> > > How about moving kde to /usr which is right place for it to have full
> > > kde features enabled? I understand that in kde3/4 transition time it
> > > was right to keep both of them in separate dirs. But now after someone
> > > brutally smashed off kde3 from moonbase and knowing that there is no
> > > kde5 for a long time why not moving kde4 to /usr?
> > > 
> > > Adding:
> > > -DKDE4_AUTH_POLICY_FILES_INSTALL_DIR:STRING=/usr/share/PolicyKit/policy
> > > \ -DDBUS_INTERFACES_INSTALL_DIR:PATH=/usr/share/dbus-1/interfaces \
> > > -DDBUS_SERVICES_INSTALL_DIR:PATH=/usr/share/dbus-1/services \
> > > -DDBUS_SYSTEM_SERVICES_INSTALL_DIR:PATH=/usr/share/dbus-1/system-servic
> > > es \ -DSYSCONF_INSTALL_DIR:PATH=/etc \ <--- I'm not sure if it will
> > > work
> > > 
> > > to almost every kde module makes no sense. Not all files will be
> > > correctly installed. For example there is no option for installing
> > > files in the following right directories:
> > > 
> > > /usr/share/polkit-1/actions
> > > 
> > > k3b:
> > > /etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.kde.kcontrol.k3bsetup.conf
> > > /usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/org.kde.kcontrol.k3bsetup.service
> > > 
> > > kdebase4-workspace:
> > > /etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.kde.fontinst.conf
> > > /etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.kde.kcontrol.kcmclock.conf
> > > /etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.kde.ksysguard.processlisthelper.conf
> > > 
> > > kdelibs4:
> > > /etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.kde.auth.conf
> > > /etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.kde.kcontrol.kcmremotewidgets.conf
> > > 
> > > Let's talk about pros/cons of moving kde to /usr
> > > 
> > > have a nice day,
> > > Zbigniew Luszpinski
> > 
> > Yes. I am aware the policy kit stuff needs and has needed some attention.
> > Instead of moving everything to /usr; unless there is a consensus to do
> > so. I think I would rather see the appropriate CMake flags added to
> > their respective modules so some of the things you point out are thrown
> > in the right system directories.
> 
> I'm all for moving it to /usr, that is where it should belong in the
> first place. Everytime I've tried kde4 I moved the prefix to /usr,
> always worked good for me without any conflicts. I don't see any reason
> to keep it in /opt anymore.

In the past I have tinkered with the BUILD of polkit, polkit-qt-1, and the kde 
modules as pointed out by zbiggy their related dbus stuff where it "should" be 
and its a headache really. At this point Ratler, I think that is probably the 
best thing to do and put it back in /usr. If that is the consensus, I think 
qt4 should be included with that move.

However, I don't think any of this should happen until August when kde-4.5 
arrives. From what I can tell it will want qt-4.7. So if qt-4.7 is released 
before kde-4.5, we should hold off on a bump until kde-4.5 is out. That way 
people will not have to recompile twice..or more. I think when when I update 
those, that would be the best way to do it. 

-- 
Dennis Veatch