[[LFS Note: the following was from a Redhat 7.1 perspective. It may or may not work well on an LFS system. For LFS, use the LFS hint to install zlib-1.1.3, jpegsrc.v6b, libpng-1.0.12, lcms-1.07, libmng-1.0.3, tiff-v3.5.5, qt 2.3.1 (change -system-mng to -system-libmng), Openssh (LFS HINT) , lesstif-0.93.9. I added: pcre-3.4, audiofile-0.2.2, libxml-1.8.16, libxml2-2.4.5. After you get to the KDE part on the hint, configure kdelibs: ./configure –disable-libfam and then continue with below instructions. You can also install GNUCash using the GNUCash instructions.]]

I tackled installing KDE 2.2.1 from source today. Here is how you do it. I was able to optimize just fine for my system using CFLAGS=$’-march=i686 -O3′ and CXXFLAGS=$’-pipe -O3 -march=i686′. Get the source from: KDE.org. I went ahead and downloaded all components. While you are downloading, go ahead and upgrade QT. I used qt-x11-2.3.1.tar.gz from Trolltech. I used the intructions for installing QT in the INSTALL file. They are different than the intructions in the KDE doc, but I think they are better. I used /etc/profile to set the environment variables. I used the options:
./configure -sm -gif -system-jpeg -no-opengl
from the KDE instructions. I decided to install KDE in /usr/local/kde, so:
export KDEDIR=/usr/local/kde.
For a list of KDE apps, try apps.kde.com. First, I compiled kde-libs. In order to do this I had to get pcre-3.4.tar.gz from sourceforge. I configured this:
./configure –prefix=/usr –sysconfdir=/etc
I compiled kde-libs:
./configure –disable-libfam

Second, I compiled kde-base. I needed lesstif. I used lesstif-0.93.9.tar.gz which I got at hungry.com/lesstif. More info on Lesstif here. Add /usr/local/kde/bin to your PATH (I used /etc/profile).

Third, I compiled kdenetwork, which worked swimmingly. I then compiled all of the rest of KDE concurrently so I could get my email working again. Worked fine. I am going to recompile kdeaddons, though, since the fine manual says to compile that one last. 🙂