To install digikam, first install the deps

To make a pie, first invent the universe. To install digikam, well probably best to give in and go with a pre-compiled binary; but failing that then this might help (and if you want Jasper for other reasons).

Not sure if this is actual WordArt but it being the “logo” for a image processing toolkit seems ironic!

I had an idea about creating a digikam package for Kubuntu, as they only do flatpack, appimage, and snap now. I started my linux days with Slackware, so I thought this would be easy. But, I am conscious it’s been a long time since I was ./configure; make; make install-ing with the best of them …

During install I came across problems as the digikam bootstrap.linux script (which appears to run cmake, which maybe in turn runs make??) was throwing a bunch of errors (due to many unmet dependencies).

RTFM

The INSTALL doc in the project root directory says this (note second point):

1) Select an empty directory to use for building the software.
Let $BUILD_DIR denote this directory.
2) Generate the makefiles used for building the software. To do this,
invoke the command:
cmake -H$SOURCE_DIR -B$BUILD_DIR -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$INSTALL_DIR $OPTIONS
where $OPTIONS corresponds to zero or more -D options as described below
under the heading "Cmake Options".
3) Build the code using the make utility. To do this, invoke the command:
cmake --build $BUILD_DIR
4) Run the test suite to ensure that the software seems to be working
correctly. To do this, invoke the commands:
cd $BUILD_DIR
ctest --output-on-failure
5) Install the software. To do this, invoke the command:
cmake --build $BUILD_DIR --target install

Invoking the command under 2) requires choices to be made for the directories to use.

Clearing up what that means

This could be made more clear by providing an example, say, so I made an issue on their github.

I found under Kubuntu, using BASH, that BUILD_DIR="~/Downloads/jasper/buildlocal/" for some reason didn’t work with cmake. As you can see, I’m not experienced with cmake so I don’t know why.

Follow this recipe for install

The following is what I did to install under my /home/username/Downloads directory:

git clone https://github.com/jasper-software/jasper.git # for jasper for digikam
cd jasper/
mkdir buildlocal
cmake -H"/home/username/Downloads/jasper"
\ -B"/home/username/Downloads/jasper/buildlocal"
\ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="/usr/local"
\ -DALLOW_IN_SOURCE_BUILD=TRUE
cmake --build /home/username/Downloads/jasper/buildlocal
cd buildlocal; ctest --output-on-failure
cd ..
sudo cmake --build '/home/username/Downloads/jasper/buildlocal' --target install

This gave output like:

[sudo] password for username:
[ 85%] Built target libjasper
[ 88%] Built target jasper
[ 92%] Built target imgcmp
[ 95%] Built target multithread
[ 98%] Built target imginfo
[100%] Built target doc
Install the project...
-- Install configuration: ""
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/jasper.pc
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/share/doc/JasPer/README
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/lib/libjasper.so.7.0.0
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/lib/libjasper.so.7
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/lib/libjasper.so
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/include/jasper/jas_cm.h
[...]
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/bin/jasper
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/bin/imginfo
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/bin/imgcmp
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/bin/multithread
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/share/man/man1/jasper.1
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/share/man/man1/imginfo.1
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/share/man/man1/imgcmp.1
-- Up-to-date: /usr/local/share/doc/JasPer/html
[...]

I tried to use checkinstall as I wanted to make a .deb package but I couldn’t get it to work as cmake required to be run using sudo:

checkinstall -D "cmake --build '/home/username/Downloads/jasper/buildlocal' --target install" # this failed, as did running it with sudo

I’ve asked a question on the Unix StackOverflow about using checkinstall to cmake.

Check it works

Then once installed I did

jasper --help # confirmed the install

Now to try and get digikam to build!

Style

Apologies that this post looks like a pile of carp. Will have to modify my CSS and do some other web work in the new year.

Happy New Year 2022

Hope it’s a good one for you!