KDE is designed for everyone.

Those new to UNIX®, or those who simply have no interest in learning to use new technologies and commands not found in their previous operating systems don't need to face the intricacies of the command line unless they want to. Yet there is much KDE offers that is of value to experienced UNIX® users, with GUI tools to make simple what were previously complex tasks, and the command line just a mouse click away if you want it.

No matter what your level of experience with UNIX® or any other operating system, KDE brings you:

In October 1996, German LyX developer Matthias Ettrich initiated the development of KDE with a USENET posting. Soon after, a couple of interested developers began planning and programming parts of the new project. One year later, the window and file managers, the terminal emulator, the help system and the display configuration tool were released for Alpha and Beta testing and proved to be relatively stable.

In July 1998, KDE 1.0 was released. It was the stable version for the next six months, while developers continued work on improving KDE without stability constraints. In January 1999, their improvements were consolidated and integrated to produce KDE 1.1, the new standard, stable version.

Development continued from there with KDE 2.0, an almost complete rewrite of the desktop, being released on October 23rd 2000. The KDE 2.x version evolved through six minor releases over the period of a year, each bringing an already impressive desktop further features and stability.

At the time of writing, KDE 3.0 is in preparation for release, introducing a broad range of improvements over the 2.0 series. Although the GUI didn't change as dramatically as it did during the move from KDE 1 to KDE 2, many refinements like a completely new printing system, vastly improved SSL support (for secure Internet transactions) or full support for languages which are written right-to-left (like Arabic or Hebrew) found their way into the desktop. You can find more information about this exciting development at http://www.kde.org/.

The developers and users communicate primarily via several mailing lists, as described in the Mailing Lists section. If you would like to help, please do, KDE is driven by volunteer contribution, and you are always welcome to take part.

KDE is open source software, and all of KDE is released under free licenses such as the GPL.

The main web site for KDE is http://www.kde.org/. Here you can find all important information regarding KDE, including announcements, bugfixes, developer information and much more.

For software upgrades, please visit our FTP site, ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, or use a mirror if one exists near you. You can find an up to date list of mirrors at http://www.kde.org/ftpmirrors.html.

On the FTP servers, the directory unstable always contains brand new software, but it is often untested and may not even compile. If you are looking for more reliable components, please take a look in the stable directory, where we put Beta and release versions.

If you are interested in developing KDE applications of your own, you should visit http://developer.kde.org/" where you will find a wealth of information, including tutorials, API guides to the KDE libraries, and much more. You should also visit Troll Tech's server (http://www.trolltech.com) which features a great deal of information concerning the Qt™ library used by KDE. You will probably find it valuable to join the KDE developer mailing list.

Using RPMs is the easiest method to get KDE up and running. Just visit your favorite KDE mirror and visit the directory /pub/kde/stable/distribution/rpm. There, you can see directories for different operating systems. Currently, the i386, alpha and sparc architectures are supported. The RPM packages can also be found on the Red Hat contrib sites like sunsite.unc.edu or ftp.redhat.com.

The basic system consists of the files kde-component.architecture.rpm You need at least kdesupport, kdelibs and kdebase. After getting the base distribution, feel free to download any other RPMs that you think may come in handy.

Next, start installing with the base package. If you are installing KDE for the first time, use

 
rpm -i kdesupport.arch.rpm
rpm -i kdelibs.arch.rpm
rpm -i kdebase.arch.rpm

If you are upgrading from a previous release, try

 
rpm -Uvh kde-component.arch.rpm

Once again, the order given above should be preserved, and the given components should be installed before any other KDE components.

This will unpack the base distribution and install it by default in /opt/kde.

If the installation of the base packages has been successful, you can install the remaining packages (use -Uvh instead of -i once again to update an existing version) the same way.

The installation for a Debian system is also rather straightforward. You will only find KDE 2.0 packages for Debian 2.2 (Potato) and 3.0 (Woody). We describe here how to install packages for Debian 2.2, the stable version, since Debian 3.0 is still in development. However, the installation for both versions, is almost identical. The main difference is that KDE is officially included in Debian 3.0 and you do not need to specify any special location to find the deb packages for KDE.

The first step is to tell your system where it can find the deb packages for KDE. A list of locations for the Debian packages is kept on your hard disk in /etc/apt/sources.list. You should add to that file the following line: http://kde.tdyc.com/ stable kde2

Then you have to update your local package database so that your system knows that there are new packages available. Type the following command:

apt-get update

Finally you should install the KDE base components. This is accomplished by typing:

apt-get install kdebase

If you want to install other components you should try some, or all of these options:

apt-get install task-kdenetwork
apt-get install task-kdeadmin
apt-get install task-kdetoys
apt-get install task-kdeutils
apt-get install task-kdemultimedia
apt-get install task-kdegraphics
apt-get install task-kdepim
apt-get install task-kdegames
apt-get install task-koffice
apt-get install kdebase-docs
apt-get install kdm

You may also be interested in installing your language.

apt-get install
kde-i18n-xx
 

where xx has to be substituted by the country code.

The control files for some KDE applications will be placed at /etc/kde2, the executables will go in /usr/bin and most of the auxiliary files in /usr/share under different directories.

If you are upgrading from a previous version of KDE you should perform the following steps. First, update file /etc/apt/sources.list by changing the line with the location of KDE packages with line: http://kde.tdyc.com/ stable kde2. Second update your package database:

apt-get update

Finally install the KDE base system:

apt-get install kdebase
apt-get dist-upgrade

If you want to install more KDE components try some, or all of these options.

apt-get install task-kdenetwork
apt-get install task-kdeadmin
apt-get install task-kdetoys
apt-get install task-kdeutils
apt-get install task-kdemultimedia
apt-get install task-kdegraphics
apt-get install task-kdepim
apt-get install task-kdegames
apt-get install task-koffice
apt-get install kdebase-docs
apt-get install kdm

If your Linux distribution did not come with an RPM or DEB archive format, or you are not using Linux at all, you must compile KDE on your own. In the future, we are planning to provide a binary distribution which includes its own installation program.

In order to compile and install KDE properly, you need to have the following items installed on your hard disk:

Once you have all the needed helper applications, go to your favorite KDE mirror and retrieve the following files from the directory /pub/kde/stable/newest version:

In all cases above, version stands for the current version number. Once you have downloaded all you need, extract these files to /usr/src. This process should yield the following directory structure:

Make sure you have write permissions to /opt/kde.

Next you must compile and install the packages using the following:

Apply the above steps to every package you want to install.

Every configure script has several options available. Some are common between the packages while others are specific to an individual package. The following is part of the result of configure --help in kdelibs:

  --disable-fast-perl     disable fast Makefile generation (needs perl)
  --enable-debug          creates debugging code [default=no]
  --enable-strict         compiles with strict compiler options (may not work!)
  --enable-profile        creates profiling infos [default=no]
  --enable-final          build size optimized apps (experimental - needs lots of memory)
  --disable-closure       don't delay template instantiation
  --enable-shared[=PKGS]  build shared libraries [default=yes]
  --enable-static[=PKGS]  build static libraries [default=no]
  --enable-fast-install[=PKGS]  optimize for fast installation [default=yes]
  --with-gnu-ld           assume the C compiler uses GNU ld [default=no]
  --disable-libtool-lock  avoid locking (might break parallel builds)
  --with-pic              try to use only PIC/non-PIC objects [default=use both]
  --with-extra-includes=DIR
                          adds non standard include paths
  --with-extra-libs=DIR   adds non standard library paths
  --with-qt-dir=DIR       where the root of Qt is installed
  --with-qt-includes=DIR  where the Qt includes are.
  --with-qt-libraries=DIR where the Qt library is installed.
  --disable-rpath         do not use the rpath feature of ld
  --disable-path-check    don't try to find out, where to install
  --with-xdmdir           If the xdm config dir can't be found automaticly
  --with-pam[=ARG]        enable support for PAM: ARG=[yes|no|service name]
  --with-shadow           If you want shadow password support
  --with-krb4[=PATH]      Compile in Kerberos v4 support.
  --with-afs              Compile in AFS support (requires KTH krb4).
  --with-ldap[=PATH]      Compile in LDAP support.
  --with-samba-libs=path  Use Samba-tng libs in 'path'                [search]
  --without-gl            disable 3D GL modes
  --without-xpm           disable color pixmap XPM tests
  --without-dpms          disable DPMS power saving
  --with-x                use the X Window System
  --with-motif-includes=DIR    Motif include files are in DIR
  --with-motif-libraries=DIR   Motif libraries are in DIR                           

Several options are not required and are only useful as work arounds for known problems (e.g. --disable-FEATURE). Since some are important options, for instance --with-shadow, you should always check the available options.

An important option is --prefix. This option specifies the path where configure should install (for kdesupport and kdelibs) or where to look for libraries (for the other packages). By default, configure will look in /opt/kde . If you want to install KDE into /usr/local/kde, you have to use configure --prefix /usr/local/kde.

If you have installed the Qt libraries in an uncommon place, for instance in $HOME/src/qt, you must use configure --with-qt-dir=$HOME/src/qt. By default configure looks in the most common places for Qt before it gives up.

If you have problems that you are not able to solve, send a copy of the config.log file to the address given in the offending package's README file.

You must install KDE in the following order: kdesupport, kdelibs, then the application packages (for example kdebase). All the application packages should only depend on kdelibs, so you can compile them at the same time (if you have a powerful machine).

If you want to take advantage of multiprocessor systems, try make -j Number of processors instead of make.

After you have placed the KDE binaries into their destination directory, there are a few adjustments you must make to your startup scripts.

The following procedure was tested on SuSE Linux 5.0, and should be compatible with the other popular UNIX's as well. Always make backups of configuration files before changing them! Add the following to the end of your /etc/profile:

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/kde/bin 
export KDEDIR=/opt/kde

Next, edit the .xinitrc file in your home directory. Look for the line that calls your window manager and replace it with startkde.

Now that everything needed to run KDE has been installed, you can go on to chapter 4 where you will start KDE for the first time. If something goes wrong, you may need to compile KDE on your own. Read Using Source Compilation to Install on Top of Other Systems for more information.

We have made the installation as bulletproof as possible, so you should not encounter any serious problems unless your configuration is exotic. If you do experience difficulties feel free to use the KDE mailing lists

After everything has come up, take some time to explore the new environment. If you have already worked with Windows®, OS/2 or Mac® OS, many things should look familiar to you. The main visible parts of KDE that you will see are the desktop itself, and the panel.

As you have seen in the previous section, working with files is as easy as 1-2-3. However, when you want to copy and move files, the whole copy-and-paste business can get annoying. Don't worry — a procedure called “drag and drop” allows you to copy and move files more quickly and easily.

So far, you have only worked with the tools and programs KDE provides. Undoubtedly, you will want to use other UNIX® programs as well. There are two ways of running them: The quick command line and the terminal.

Everyone has undoubtedly encountered the following problem: You start ftp, log into a great site like ftp.kde.org and start downloading files. It is late in the evening and you shut down your machine after completing the transfer. The next morning, you are at the keyboard again, and you start wondering into which directory you placed the recently transferred files. Using KDE's KFind utility makes finding those lost files a snap.

Using multiple desktops helps you organize your work. You can place your programs on different desktops, and name the desktops so you know what you do there. This increases and optimizes your workspace. It also helps you when you are surfing the net instead of doing your work and your boss comes in. But, of course, this is rare — at least in the office where I work.

You can switch between desktops by clicking the desktop buttons on the Kicker panel. If you want to rename them, you can do so by double-clicking on them.

You can use windows on multiple desktops. If you want to have a window present everywhere, just click the sticky button on the top-left of the window. To send a window to another desktop, click on the title bar with the right mouse button, choose To Desktop, and select the desktop where you would like the window moved.

To quit working with KDE, you can use the Logout entry in the application starter menu. You will be asked if you really want to quit KDE. Quitting will close all windows and return you to your console or display manager. For information on how programs can save your work during logout, please read the notes for logging out.

The KDE K Menu and Kicker are not limited to the setup you find right after installing KDE. The KDE panel is designed to be extended, and there are two main ways of doing that: Adding new programs, and adding shortcut icons.

Your desktop can be an efficient place to work. Every time you start KDE, you can see the complete files, folders and URLs which you often use.

There are two ways to create and edit files on your desktop. In any application, you can say that you want to save your work in the Desktop subfolder of your home directory. For example, my home directory is /home/stupiddog, so my Desktop directory is /home/stupiddog/Desktop. Everything you save there will be put on your desktop.

If you want to move existing files to your Desktop, the best way to achieve this is to use Konqueror. Open a file manager window and drag the files you need to your desktop. You can choose to copy them if you want to keep all your common stuff on the desktop now, or you can create symbolic links to the real files. Everything you change in the link files will be automatically updated in the originals. For more information on how to use drag & drop and the file manager, see the chapter Moving files with drag & drop.

Placing files on your desktop may shorten the paths you need to enter. However, sometimes it would be nice if you could start KEdit with a commonly edited file already opened in it. And how often do you find yourself frustrated after browsing through endless lists of bookmarks to find a site you visit often? Wouldn't it be nice if everything necessary to deliver you to that site was done automatically after clicking a single icon?

Under normal circumstances, deleting a file under UNIX® is something which cannot be undone. However, with KDE, you can choose Move to Trash instead of Delete. This will move the file into the Trash Folder, which, by default, is accessible as an icon on your desktop. In the Trash Folder, you can always recover deleted files. Remember to empty the trashcan now and then by clicking on it using the right mouse button, then choosing Empty trashcan, otherwise you might run out of disk space because the files still need space. Note, however, that once you empty the Trash Folder, the files contained therein are lost forever.

KDE is a huge project, and every KDE supporter has already realized that. All of us are trying very hard to create a user interface that is easy to use and maybe also has the potential to make UNIX ready for the desktop PC. You have the chance to participate in this project too, and we would be thankful if you did. Developers and interested users communicate via several mailing lists described in the section called “Other Sources for Help ”. If you would like to help, please do so! We are still looking for helpers in the following departments:

This document contains copyrighted material from Andreas Buschka, Gerhard Poul and Robert David Williams. All trademarks and branded names mentioned are properties of their legal owners.

During the creation of this documentation, the authors used the following sources for information:

This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.