Chapter 18. KDE

The K Desktop Environment (KDE) is an open source software project that provides a consistent, user-friendly, contemporary desktop for Unix and Linux systems. KDE is not simply a window manager like fvwm, but a whole desktop environment including services to assist end users, application developers, and system administrators in standardizing the look and feel of their applications and configuring their systems. The KDE interface makes full use of drag-and-drop functionality so that, for instance, you can grab an icon for a text file in the file manager and drag it to a text editor window to open it. Full network integration of KDE applications allows you to transparently access files from other computers or FTP sites and manipulate them as if they were local.

KDE also implements a standard help system based on HTML. Applications that display a Help button offer a specific file of documentation for that application in the help viewer.

One goal of KDE is to provide the user with system information and configuration through easy-to-use graphical interfaces on the desktop. The KDE Control Center is a central utility for desktop and application configuration, as well as a source of information for important system components. The Information module of the Control Center can retrieve and display status information for your processor, memory, PCI bus, network devices, and many other hardware components on your system.

A wide variety of applications has been developed to take advantage of KDE's features and provide the user with a wealth of productive applications. The base package comes with programs such as a mail client, a calendar and organizer, a CD player, image viewers, chat programs, and more.

Most Linux distributions ship with KDE and allow you to set it up as the default session environment when you install the operating system. If you are installing KDE separately, download and install the KDE packages (you can find them at ftp://ftp.kde.org, among other places). You can also use this link if you want to upgrade your version of KDE with the current official version.

Red Hat 8.0 has introduced a new look and feel called Bluecurve. For the most part, the applications and services offered on the KDE desktop under Bluecurve are the same as those described here, but they may appear in different places or have different names and icons. For instance, the startup menu at the bottom left corner of the screen, which displays a large K in vanilla KDE, displays a red hat in Bluecurve.

To set KDE as your desktop environment, look for the X initialization files in your home directory. Depending on your distribution and how you log in, look for .xinitrc, .xsession, or .Xclients in your home directory. If none of these files exist, create a new .xinitrc file. Edit the file to remove any window manager references that may exist and add startkde on a line at the end of the file. If you are logging in through the KDE or GNOME display manager, there may be a Session tab or icon that allows you to select KDE as your desktop environment. In that case, you do not need to update or add an initialization file.