kde3 apps problem with openSUSE13.2

I installed a couple of kde3 apps (mostly old games) from the kde3 communality repo (used yast), they don’t appear in kde4’s menu and I can’t start them in a terminal. I discovered the problem was that they wore build with prefix=/opt/kde3/ so the binaries end up in /opt/kde3/bin/ and the *.desktop launchers are in /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/
My question is what config file do I have to edit to add /opt/kde3/bin/ to the $PATH and with what variable are the share folders defined or where do I have to put /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/ so that kolf3 shows in my menu?

Tanks

That’s normal and should not be a problem. This is a relict from older times (when KDE3 was new) and was kept to have it co-installable with KDE4.

E.g. /etc/profile has this:

    for dir in  /usr/X11/bin \
                /usr/bin/X11 \
                /usr/X11R6/bin \
                /var/lib/dosemu \
                /usr/games \
                /opt/bin \
                /opt/kde3/bin \
                /opt/kde2/bin \
                /opt/kde/bin \
                /usr/openwin/bin \
                /opt/cross/bin
    do
        test -d $dir && PATH=$PATH:$dir
    done

Which adds /opt/kde3/bin to the path.

And:

wolfi@amiga:~> echo $XDG_DATA_DIRS 
/usr/share:/usr/local/share:/usr/share:/etc/opt/kde3/share:/opt/kde3/share:/opt/kf5/share


How are you trying to run them? What error message do you get?

Try to run “kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental” to refresh KDE4’s menu cache.

I see KDE3 applications just fine in KDE4’s menu, and have no problem to run them (unless a KDE4 application with the same name is installed, as /usr/bin/ comes before /opt/kde3/bin/ in the path).

PS: Why do you want to install the KDE3 version of Kolf (kde3-kolf)?
A KDE4 version is available as well (kolf), and newer obviously.

I’m slightly puzzled by this as I have installed a KDE3 app which shows up everywhere with no problem. It has a .desktop file in /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/ and its executable in /opt/kde3/bin/.

So I am not sure whether your diagnosis is the right one. You can in any case set up a launcher on the desktop by right clicking and selecting Create New>Link to application. In the command box of the Application tab, you can Browse to /opt/kde3/bin/ and select it there.

I recently did a clean install, if I tried and run them from a terminal I got a not found error, the only way to run them is by passing a full path /opt/kde3/bin/kpoker to a terminal or by navigation there with nautilus and clicking on the binaries, I had a 13.1 running most of the same apps with out any problems (the launchers did appear in kde4’s menu) as this is a new 13.2 I thought a setting might have been changed.

update
I did a reboot and now /opt/kde3/bin/ is in my path and the *.desktop files are in the kde4 menu, I really don’t know what happened maybe because that folder didn’t exist during the initial boot and a reboot was needed.

tanks for the help

ps. I really like kde3’s games better, IMO kolf3 is better then kolf4, and there are a few old kde3 applications I use (kchmviewer etc)

Yes, that’s probably the reason.
/etc/profile is run when you login (or start a login shell), and it only adds /opt/kde3/bin/ to the path if it exists.

ps. I really like kde3’s games better, IMO kolf3 is better then kolf4, and there are a few old kde3 applications I use (kchmviewer etc)

Well, I don’t really see a difference between kolf3 and kolf4, but it’s been a while (years!) since I ran kolf3 the last time.
kchmviewer is available as KDE4 version as well.

But you have the KDE3 versions working now anyway… :wink:

On 2014-11-16 22:26, wolfi323 wrote:

> That’s normal and should not be a problem. This is a relict from older
> times (when KDE3 was new) and was kept to have it co-installable with
> KDE4.

Actually it is more recent than that :slight_smile:

In order to be able for kde 3 and 4 to coexist, the kde3 people moved
their tree to /opt, after having been in /usr for ages. In openSUSE, I
mean :slight_smile:

It should not be a problem, unless a particular package was not
completely migrated to /opt.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

No, that’s wrong.
KDE3 has always been installed to /opt/kde3 IIRC, even when it was brand new, long before KDE4 was even dreamed of.
I don’t have my SuSE 8.1 CDs (shipped with KDE 3.0.2) handy at the moment though.
But 10.2’s kdebase3-3.5.5 package did install to /opt/kde3, and 10.2 didn’t have KDE 4 yet.
Here’s the link to the package, open it with an Unarchiving program like Ark or file-roller (or mc) and have a look yourself if you don’t believe me…
http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/discontinued/distribution/10.2/repo/oss/suse/i586/kdebase3-3.5.5-78.i586.rpm

I think there was a discussion to move KDE3 to /usr as well when GNOME2 was moved to /usr, but that never happened.

On 2014-11-21 20:16, wolfi323 wrote:

> No, that’s wrong.
> KDE3 has always been installed to /opt/kde3 IIRC, even when it was brand
> new, long before KDE4 was even dreamed of.

I think you are right.

> I don’t have my SuSE 8.1 CDs (shipped with KDE 3.0.2) handy at the
> moment though.

I do :slight_smile:

I looked on 9.3.

> I think there was a discussion to move KDE3 to /usr as well when GNOME2
> was moved to /usr, but that never happened.

maybe that is why I was confused.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)