gramps/INSTALL

$Id$

This file contains some useful details on the installation from source code
for GRAMPS. It does not cover installation of a pre-built binary package.
For that use your package manager, the rest is already done by the packager.

uninstall old version
---------------------
If you do a source install in the same place of an existing install, you need
to remove the old version first (just delete the directory).
GRAMPS is a python application, so loading happens on reading the files, 
meaning that files of a previous version that are no longer present in the
new version can still be loaded, making the new install unstable.

configure vs autogen scripts
----------------------------
If you are building from released tarball, you should be able to just
run "./configure && make". However, if you're building from the SVN,
the configure is not present. You should auto-generate it by
running ./autogen.sh and then "make" and, finally, "make install".

Running ./autogen.sh on this branch of gramps requires the following
packages to be installed:
   * autoconf >=2.53
   * automake >=1.9
   * intltool >=0.25
   * glib-gettext >=2.2.0, included in libglib2.0-dev (may be called
differently on other distros) and maybe something else. If autogen.sh
fails, it should inform you what's missing.


Regular vs local installation
-----------------------------
This version of gramps REQUIRES, among other things, the mime types for 
gramps be properly installed.

The usual ./configure, make, and make install as a root should do the trick.

But be careful if you're using the non-default options or would like
to install without being root.

The latter is possible, but you should supply additional arguments to
autogen or configure:
   --with-mime-dir=$HOME/.local/share/mime
Most likely, such local install will also need some prefix with write
permissions for you:
   --prefix=$HOME/my_gramps_path

Whether you're doing local install or regular install, YOU MUST INSTALL 
MIME TYPES. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!


Installing under non-default prefix
-----------------------------------
As hinted above, mime types for gramps MUST be properly installed. 
The "proper install" means installing them where the shared mime system 
will find them.

By default, the shared mime systems will look in these places:
   1. /usr/share/mime
   2. /usr/local/share/mime   : this may be broken on some systems
   3. $HOME/.local/share/mime : this is a per-user setup, not system-wide
There's a number of ways to instruct the shared mime system
to look in other places, but this is the whole other story.

So if you install some place other than /usr/share, you will most
likely need to add this option to autogen.sh/configure scripts:
   --with-mime-dir=/usr/share/mime

Using the --prefix=/usr/share and installing as a root will most
likely do everything correctly, so no extra care needs to be
taken. You should take extra care only if you are installing under
something like --prefix=/usr/local/my_gramps, /var/gramps123/blah, etc.


Packager's issues
------------------
The above mime types must be installed. However, the 
update-mime-database call to process the newly installed types and 
schemas must be done in POST-INSTALLATION.

In packager's world, the install happens on packager's machine
into something like /tmp/gramps-tmp. However, the postinstall
should happen on the user's machine.

To assist with that, there's an argument available in configure
(or autogen, which will pass it to configure) which disables
mime type processing:
   --enable-packager-mode
This argument should disable postinstall calls made during
make install, and print a nasty warning during configure.
IT IS PACKAGER'S RESPONSIBILITY to follow the advice given
by the configure output and to copy the appropriate code
from the data/Makefile.am into the post-install (and post-uninstall)
of the particular packaging system.