I don't know if it was because of the old version or something else but as you pointed I unistalled the calibre package, performed the manual install for calibre 0.7.47 and right after installation.
Code:
Run "calibre" to start calibre
vmplanet@kubuntu:~/calibre/src$ echo $CALIBRE_DEVELOP_FROM
/home/vmplanet/calibre/src
vmplanet@kubuntu:~/calibre/src$ calibre
Hello world!
libprs500(5280)/ KSharedDataCache::Private::mapSharedMemory: Opening cache "/var/tmp/kdecache-vmplanet/icon-cache.kcache" page size is 4096
Ok, that was the easy part. Now to do something useful.
Thanks for your help.