KDE Firsthand HOWTO
KDE Firsthand HOWTO.Charlie: My first effort at the Firsthand HOWTO covers the K Desktop Environment, KDE.The K Desktop Environment is a Window Manager and more for Linux and Unix. KDE is a very nice desktop computing environment and when combined with Linux it is even more attractive because its free, stable and has alot of functionality. Besides all these impressive features KDE looks cool too, now thats important. Currently the other major player in Linux Xwindow desktops is GNOME and it probably will be very prevalent in the long run because of the support by RedHat Advanced Development Labs or RHAD. Even in the face of the onset of GNOME, I gotta go with KDE for its current look, feel, stability and functionality (lots of apps.)Prerequisites for this HOWTO: i386 hardware - Redhat 5X - XFree86 Well lets go KDE. In order to proceed you should have Redhat up and running and all source libraries installed (including ncurses3 which must be explicitly installed with RedHat, default is ncurses4, use both.) You must also have a working Xwindows system, regardless of which window manager you use. By default Redhat will have FVWM and will work fine if the original install routine was successful. If you cant run X right now, stop, fix that and then come back. See the XFree86 HOWTO for info or general XWindows questions. Once you have a working Linux and Xwindows box, its very easy to go KDE.Just follow these outlined steps to install and make KDE your default XWM and desktop.
- Obtain QT - the GUI toolkit used by KDE. (see below)
- Obtain KDE itself. (see below)
- Install em. Use RPM to install binaries.
- Modify the Xwindows startup files to call KDE.
- Thats it, painless right?
Obtain all of these files you need from ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/latest/contrib/distribution/rpm/redhat-5. Get the QT libraries and dev ver 1.41. Get all of the kde* rpms and the docs. Install as follows, in this explicit order (order is important.) First install the QT source and dev libraries. Then install the main KDE files KDESUPPORT, KDELIBS, and KDEBASE (in that order) and then the rest of the KDE files (in any order) KDE admin, games, graphics, multimedia, network, support utils. You can install all of these binary rpms with the command RPM -Uvh #filename#. Install them all with no errors (just takes a minute) and then proceed. After all files have successfully installed you simply modify your default Xclients file (this is global, substitue your local .xclients if needed) to call KDE. Go to the directoy /etc/X11/xinit and you will see a file called Xclients.kde, copy your original Xclients to Xclients.ori (as a backup) and then cp Xclients.kde Xclients. THATs IT! There are other methods including using GLINT if you are familiar with it and have it running or using the source. But for new installations of KDE on newly built Linux machines, the method described above is fast and easy. And for existing builds this method is generally hassle free and allows you to see each step happen to verify success. Once you have it you need to reinitialize everything (or reboot.) Then just type your normal startx and that will do it. With a working K Desktop I recommend you also get a few nice K applications. Check the KDE website for all of the apps (there are new additions almost daily.) Personally I like to include KPackage (a package manager), KDiskFree (Disk Manager) and KTop (a process monitor and tree) with my KDE installs. Each of these apps have their own instructions, check those out for details. Also look into getting StarOffice, KDE has an office suite called KOffice, but currently I think StarOffice is better. Also note that other current KDE Apps include KBind (for DNS config and admin), KSamba (for Samba config and admin) and soon I am sure well see KDhcp and more soon. Take all that into account and you now have an ultra stable Linux machine that has a friendly desktop and can manage your entire network with GUI based tools and its FREE. Even though all the tools are not quite totally polished yet, I really like that prospect. Yeah I can emacs the dhcpd.conf file every time I need to make a change too, but why should I? Also dont forget to finish it all off with a killer desktop theme like Screamin which is available at kde.themes.org.
KDE is a fully functional and very stable desktop environment for Linux. A very easy desktop to install and maintain. In my opinion a real competitor to M$. Check it out and keep up with the KDE webiste because new apps are added all the time. Our hats off again to all of the developers at KDE and to the GNUFSF coalition. UPDATE KDE has been updated and the instructions are much better, for RedHat 5.2 or KDE 1.1 check out the new instructions (note, the ftp site has changed and has subdirs for the different RedHat flavors.)
