Now it may be daunting, but how difficult is it to compile KDE 4.4 (not trunk) on a RedHat EL 5.5 system? I am interested only in a bare minimal system which will help in compiling and running _other_ software such as RKWard and Cantor. I am _not_ interested in running the KDE window manager, RedHat already has KDE 3.5.4 (yes that old!), which I'll have to use anyway.

Additionally, I am _NOT_ looking for any of the multimedia/akonadi/nepomuk stuff. I am _NOT_ looking for any desktop effects. I am looking to compile and install the base libraries which will help in compiling RKWard (and Cantor, may be).

Moreover, I don't have administrative access on this machine. So, everything needs to be compiled in $HOME and installed in (say) ~/.kde4 and NOT ~/.kde. (In particular, as is suggested on http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started/Build/KDE4.x, I _CANNOT_ create another user.)

Now, I have compiled and installed Qt 4.6.3 (by using a lot of --disable-* switches) in $HOME. Then compiled TeXworks on top of it. I can recompile Qt, if need be, to suit KDE.

Note that RHEL 5.5 has gcc 4.1.2. (The servers here are 8 core Xeons, so suff comp power.)

If someone is willing to help me through this, I would be _very very_ glad.

Thanks,

PS:
For the curious:
RKWard: http://rkward.sf.net
TeXworks: http://http://code.google.com/p/texworks/

In this case, you likely only need to compile the essential parts of kdesupport ( oxygen icons for instance ) and kdelibs. Both can be done into a user directory without problem. I would recommend starting by downloading the latest tarballs from kde.org.

Thanks bcooksley.

Do I need a newer gcc?

Are these tarballs enough?
kdebase,kdebase-runtime,kdelibs,oxygen-icons

Do I need kdebase-workspace, kdenetwork, kdebindings, kdesdk, kdeutils? Do I need any other?

Among the library requirements specified here: http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/LFS (apart from cmake and Qt) which ones do I need? Dbus? shared-mime-info?

You should only need oxygen-icons, kdelibs and kdebase-runtime. No other KDE modules should be required. You will however need D-Bus and shared-mime-info, however they are both normally already installed on the system. (If you have HAL you have D-Bus, If you have a GNOME or KDE4 app you have shared-mime-info)

Ok, so it turns out I need automoc4, phonon, (hard dependencies?) ... which are all part of "kde support" package. I could not find any such package! What is this mystical "kde support" package and where can I find it?

automoc4 can be found at svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/kd ... t/automoc4
Phonon can be found at git://gitorious.org/phonon/phonon.git

In general, KDE Support can be found in KDE SVN at svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/kdesupport