[PLUG] kbuildsycoca ... why?

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Tue Sep 18 13:52:04 UTC 2007


   Here's a strange one for which I'd like some understanding and an
explanation.

   Yesterday I upgraded winpdb (the GUI version of the python debugger, pdb)
from 1.0.8 to 1.2.2. When I invoked the debugger, it showed 'kbuildsycoca
running ...' and spewed a huge number of warnings about files in
/usr/share/kde/applications. This puzzled me because I don't do KDE (too
kute for me) or Gnome. It also opened a virtual console, but instead of
using the default terminal here, rxvt, it opened a konsole. Strange stuff,
and different from the earlier version.

   I posted this information on the winpdb sourceforge forum, and the author
responded that winpdb has nothing to do with kbuildsycoca, and perhaps it's
a wxPython issue. Er, no. Shows up only with winpdb and it's command line
sibling, rpdb2. So, I replied to that message just now.

   In the meantime, I used Google to search for kbuildcoca and learned that
it's used to "rebuild the system configuration cache." Which leads me to you
gurus here:

   1) Why would an application -- particularly a code debugger -- want to
rebuild the system configuration cache each time the application is invoked?

   2) Why is a KDE tool being used when KDE is not the desktop/wm in use
here?

   3) For what is the system configuration cache used, and how is it normally
retained and controlled?

   On a higher level, I still haven't figured out how I broke the application
and why what worked before is not working now. That's today's task.

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |    The Environmental Permitting
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.        |         Accelerators(TM)
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517      Fax: 503-667-8863



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