First-Time Installation Guide


1   Introduction

So you're interested in installing Galago? Can't blame you, but then, I'm biased. The installation is pretty straight-forward, although must be done in several steps. The slightly non-trivial parts only have to be done once, though, so future upgrades should be a snap.

This document covers the installation of a base Galago setup. This may be enough for your use, but likely, you'll want to install more Galago-enabled components.

2   Dependencies

Galago's only requirements are D-BUS (which may or may not come with your distribution, but should probably he upgraded regardless) and GLib (which you have anyway, but may need a newer version of).

3   Components

  • libgalago - The main library for feeding to and receiving data from Galago.
  • galago-daemon? - The daemon that handles all presence and account information.

4   Installing D-BUS

Galago requires a working D-BUS installation, so we're going to start with that. If you already have D-BUS 0.36.x or higher installed, you may skip this section.

4.1   Version Requirements

If you're running Linux, your distribution may already come with D-BUS. However, chances are that it's out of date. You may check your version with your distribution's package manager, although a more universal option exists.

To determine your version of D-BUS, type the following:

$ pkg-config --modversion dbus-1

If it reports a version of 0.36.x, you should be alright. However, if it states that the package was not found, or reports a lower version, you will need to install a new copy of D-BUS.

4.2   Tarball Installation

A tarball installation should be the last resort if a working D-BUS package is not available.

Important: If you have a package containing an older version of D-BUS, make sure you remove it first!

You can find the latest version of D-BUS on the D-BUS download page.

Once you download the tarball, extract it. You'll want to view the README for a list of flags to pass to configure. Once you're done, install it:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
$ make
$ su -c "make install"

All should go well. However, if there are any errors compiling D-BUS, please contact the D-BUS people for support rather than us :)

4.3   Setting up dbus-launch

If you already have dbus-launch set up, you can skip this. If you're running Ubuntu or Fedora Core 4, this is set up for you.

dbus-launch is what starts up the D-BUS "session bus," which provides D-BUS instances unique to the user. It's how Galago clients and feeds all communicate with the daemon. In order to use it, we must launch it before our X-Windows session.

Note: The information here is only useful to those using X-Windows.

At this point, you're going to need to know how you have X set up. That is, whether you're using .xinitrc, .Xclients, .xsession, etc. Whichever file contains the command to execute your window manager or session needs to be editted, and your exec line must look something like this:

exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session /window_manager/

An example using gnome-session:

exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session

5   Gentoo Installation

Galago is now part of the Gentopia overlay. For more information on Gentopia, please see https://gentopia.gentooexperimental.org/

You will need Subversion in order to fetch it:

$ emerge subversion

5.1   Installing the overlay

First, create a directory to store it:

$ mkdir -p /usr/local/overlays/gentopia

Then populate it:

$ svn co https://gentopia.gentooexperimental.org/svn/overlay/ /usr/local/overlays/gentopia

Edit /etc/make.conf and include /usr/local/overlays/gentopia in your PORTDIR_OVERLAY variable, e.g.:

PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/overlays/gentopia"

5.2   Unmasking packages

Due to the experimental nature of Galago in its current stage, the packages are all keyworded ~arch. You will have to keyword them in /etc/portage/package.keywords depending on what you want:

dev-libs/libgalago ~x86
sys-apps/galago-daemon ~x86
x11-libs/libgalago-gtk ~x86
gnome-extra/gnome-presence-applet ~x86
x11-plugins/eds-feed ~x86
x11-plugins/gaim-galago ~x86

5.3   Installing components

Now you should be able to emerge the components; for example, to install gaim-galago and eds-feed, do:

$ emerge gaim-galago eds-feed

The first time you install Galago it might be wise to re-login in order to make D-BUS aware of galago-daemon.

5.4   Maintenance

Remember to update the overlay once in a while:

$ cd /usr/local/overlays/gentopia
$ svn update
D    x11-libs/libgalago-gtk/libgalago-gtk-0.3.2.ebuild
D    x11-libs/libgalago-gtk/files/digest-libgalago-gtk-0.3.2
A    x11-libs/libgalago-gtk/files/digest-libgalago-gtk-0.3.3
U    x11-libs/libgalago-gtk/Manifest
A    x11-libs/libgalago-gtk/libgalago-gtk-0.3.3.ebuild
Updated to revision 120.
$ emerge --update --deep --pretend world

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild     U ] x11-libs/libgalago-gtk-0.3.3 [0.3.2]

6   Arch Linux Installation

You can find PKGBUILD files for Arch Linux in the packaging section of our Subversion repository.

6.1   Installing dependencies

You need the usual Galago dependencies:

$ pacman -S dbus glib2

In addition, you will need Subversion in order to download the repository:

$ pacman -S subversion

6.2   Getting the repository

To check out the repository, execute:

$ svn co http://svn.galago-project.org/trunk/packaging/arch /var/abs/local/galago

Be sure you have write permissions to /var/abs/local.

6.3   Building packages

To build a package, simply do:

$ cd /var/abs/local/galago/libgalago
$ makepkg

6.4   Installing packages

Once you have built the package, install it with:

$ su -c pacman -A libgalago-x.y.z-1.pkg.tar.gz

6.5   Upgrading packages

You should check for new releases once in a while:

$ cd /var/abs/local/galago
$ svn up
U    libgalago/PKGBUILD

This means that the PKGBUILD file for libgalago has been changed. To re-build the package and upgrade it:

$ cd libgalago
$ makepkg -f
...
$ su -c pacman -U libgalago-0.3.2-2.pkg.tar.gz
loading package data... done.
checking for file conflicts... done.
upgrading libgalago... done.

7   Installing Galago Manually

The hard part is out of the way. Installing Galago is rather simple. To start off, simply pick your installation method and follow the instructions.

7.1   Subversion Installation

If you wish to live on the bleeding edge and use the Subversion development tree for Galago, please refer to the Subversion download instructions. You will need at least libgalago and galago-daemon?.

7.2   Tarball Installation

Tarballs are available on the downloads page.

8   After Installation

After installing or upgrading Galago, you will probably want to install libgalago-gtk? and any other modules we have available that you may use.

If you have just upgraded Galago, you will want to restart X. This will ensure that all applications and feeds using Galago, as well as the galago-daemon?, are running the newest code. Failing to do so may result in unstable software. If this is a fresh install, you will definitely need to restart X to activate the D-BUS session daemon.