I would like to install Kdenlive 15.12 on a fresh install of Ubuntu 15.10.
I used sunab's PPA for a couple of years, and I can happily use the daily build script to put Kdenlive in a sandbox, but it seems odd to use a temporary/testing build for the main software program I use. I have had all sorts of problems in the past caused by dependencies or using the wrong version of MLT etc, so I would like to install Kdenlive properly, and hopefully understand it a little better through the process.

I've only built software from source once before (with patient help from Steve Guilford!) so I have a vague understanding of the process but unfortunately not enough to troubleshoot effectively - I don't know which factors and settings are important and which are less important.
I'm following the instructions here: https://community.kde.org/Kdenlive/Development/KF5
I'll go through how far I have got (not very far!)

Compiling MLT with Qt5 support
First install dependencies, on ubuntu:
DONE. no problems.

Decide where on the file system you want the compiled files to be installed. I choose /home/ttguy/development/kdenlive
What factors go into this decision? are there better or worse places to install, or is it just a matter of how I organize my home folder? Should this be in my home folder or somewhere else on the system?
I chose INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/sam/kdenlive

Then configure, enabling all components, using target install dir specified by our INSTALL_PREFIX shell var, and pointing to Qt5...
On ubuntu 15.04 (multiarch enabled):
Is there a difference between 15.04 & 15.10 in this case?
I assume they both use KF5 so the process will be the same, right? (I assume that multiarch enabled means a version of the distro which can run both 32 & 64bit, and I also assume that this is the default and I don't need to change anything here, right?
The following packages produced messages or errors:

Code: Select all

Configuring modules/gtk2:
- Libexif found, enabling auto rotate
Configuring modules/jackrack:
- jackrack not found: disabling
Configuring modules/qt:
- Libexif found, enabling auto rotate
- Qt version 5.x detected
- Include directory:  /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5
- fftw found, enabling lightshow
Configuring modules/resample:
- libsamplerate not found: disabling
Configuring modules/swfdec:
- swfdec not found: disabling
Configuring modules/vid.stab:
- vid.stab not found: disabling

How can I fix this?

I tried ignoring this issue and just continuing with the install, knowing that it probably wouldn't work... and of course, it didn't work, so I'll stop here, do some more reading of the documentation, ask for help, and then move on once MLT is up and running.

Hello,

I don't think the PPA way is a wrong way, it uses the ffmpeg from your distro (assuming it is stable enough), and takes latest MLT+Kdenlive bugfixes. It installs files in the system the proper way, tracked by package system.
However it is still good to know how to build a bugfix yourself without waiting for PPA uploads, then...

vid.stab is still not officially packaged for debian/ubuntu (others have submitted some drafts, I've done some progress, but still have to finish), but you can get it from PPA (sunab's or mine). However stabilizers are not required, only suggested, you can work without if you don't shoot in shaky conditions. So if your build fails it is not those failed dependencies that are the cause. Please post the following of the failing process (pastebin link)

Thanks for the help - The first time I tried, I couldn't get MLT open a clip, I just got a message saying 'melt is not installed, you can install it with sudo apt-get install melt'.
But the second time it all worked with no problem, as did the kdenlive installation.
So now I have built kdenlive and I can launch it with "$INSTALL_PREFIX/bin/kdenlive"
I'm not sure if that's the right way to do it though - are these errors normal?

$INSTALL_PREFIX/bin/kdenlive
QFSFileEngine::open: No file name specified
QFSFileEngine::open: No file name specified
Removing cache at "/home/sam/.cache/kdenlive-thumbs.kcache"
[producer_xml] failed to load transition "frei0r.cairoblend"
[producer_xml] failed to load transition "frei0r.cairoblend"
QXcbConnection: XCB error: 8 (BadMatch), sequence: 599, resource id: 65011725, major code: 154 (Unknown), minor code: 11



Unfortunately the theme doesn't work properly either, no Breeze icons and the text is white-on-white in many parts. Any idea what might be causing it?

This checklist comes to my mind:
(0. You ran "make install"? Just to be sure. )
1. Do you correctly set the required environment for your self-compiled Kdenlive before starting it? I use the following script for this task, see below. If you install Kdenlive in non-system locations, then the standard environment will point to the standard installation ... and there's no kdenlive with its associated config and data files, including icons.
2. Did you configure your self-compiled Kdenlive after its first start where to look for the other also self-compiled programs it needs?

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#!/bin/bash
SCRIPT_NAME=$(readlink -f "$0")
SCRIPT_PATH=$(dirname "$SCRIPT_NAME")
export INSTALL_PREFIX=$(dirname "$SCRIPT_PATH")
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$INSTALL_PREFIX/lib
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=$INSTALL_PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS:/usr/share
export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=$INSTALL_PREFIX/etc/xdg:$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
echo "Environment set up for $INSTALL_PREFIX"
$INSTALL_PREFIX/bin/kdenlive


Put this script side-by-side with your Kdenlive executable. Start this script and it will automatically derive the correct installation path and adjust some required environment variables accordingly, such as library loading paths, config dir paths, etc.

Other than that, XCB errors are normal and can be ignored almost all time.

PS: Lebkuchen-Grüße inne Haubtstadt

I confirm TheDiveO's advice: you are missing XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable telling where to find data like icons.
JB is progressing in putting everything Kdenlive needs in Qt resource files so that in the end it will run without that black magic...

Thanks to both of you for your help! I used the script and it seems better, it can now find the icons.

I still can't use a dark theme though because the labels are white-on-white - do you know what might be causing this?

vpinon wrote:I confirm TheDiveO's advice: you are missing XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable telling where to find data like icons.
JB is progressing in putting everything Kdenlive needs in Qt resource files so that in the end it will run without that black magic...

For some other parts of Kdenlive you'll also need XDG_CONFIG_DIRS, such as for the get new stuff dialogs. I know as I had to hunt it down, it wasn't exactly easy for me to figure out, I had to resort to Qt and KF sources. Luckily, this is open source.

Many thanks to both of you for your help!
In the end for various reasons I actually switched to kubuntu, so I have no more theming/legibility issues

Just one more question regarding the install: I would like to use gdb so I can submit useful bug reports - for example, I can't render to webm despite webm workng fine with ffmpeg from the command line. What is the process for setting up and using gdb on an install like this?

GDB should already be installed as part of the compiler chain packages. I recently noticed that the recent builds from main require the crash package to be present, this is checked in the CMake definitions. Please also see the compiling on KF5 discussion page. Alas, with that in place, now when Kdenlive crashes I get KCrash poping up delivering a nicely colored stack backtrace of all running threads.

yes, it appears that I have GDB and crash installed, though I don't see any output in /tmp, so I guess I am not running it by default when I run kdenlive.

Kdenlive crashed earlier and I got the KDE crash handler dialog, then clicking on 'debug with GDB', I got the following message:
Reading symbols from /home/sam/kdenlive/install/bin/kdenlive...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
Attaching to program: /home/sam/kdenlive/install/bin/kdenlive, process 8394
ptrace: No such process.
(gdb)

What command do I need to use to run kdenlive with GDB?
I currently launch it by running your kdenlive.sh script in INSTALL_DIR/bin - do I need to edit the script, or use some kind of '$ gdb kdenlive.sh' command in the terminal?