KDE
updated 20-Feb-99
Stefan Jeglinski
First-time use of KDE
- Assuming a boot from the hard drive into console mode (to do this in LinuxPPC, you must first defeat the automatic startup into KDE; it is already the default operation in MkLinux). log in as root and type startx to get back into KDE.
- If you are in vmode 6 (640x480 67Hz), you will not be able to see all of the KDE configuration screen. As far as is known, the sizes of these KDE configuration windows cannot be controlled. Option-drag can be used to move the window around to get to all the controls.
- From the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, select the KDE Control Center. Below is a list of preferences I consider important; you should set them as you like, and adjust colors as you like as well.
- applications/panel tiny
- desktop/colors/scheme Solaris CDE, contrast high
- input-devices/mouse threshhold = 2, acceleration = 11
- windows/properties/movement opaque
- window/properties/resize opaque
- window/properties/animation none
- Get familiar with the Linux directory structure. Use the preinstalled File Manager (KDEStart->System->File Manager) to get a graphical view of the directory tree. This is a major advantage of the GUI. The Linux directory stucture can be hell to learn by CLI (command line interface) alone. Important note: for the 2.1.xx kernels, I found that using the File Manager eventually caused an inability to launch anything new from the toolbar. Logging out of KDE showed generally that kdm had quit. In this case KDE must be quit and relaunched from the console again. This has improved greatly with the 2.1.xxx and 2.2.x kernels.
The KDE Config file: kwmrc
- Use the File Manager and hunt down /root/.kde/share/config/kwmrc as an exercise.
- Select show dot files under the View menu; otherwise, the .kde directory will not be visible. This kwmrc file contains the settings that are supposedly accessible through the KDE Control Panel described above.
- In the KDE File Manager, the path is described as Root/My%20Home/.kde/share/config/
(%20 = standard internet hexadecimal code for ASCII "space").
- All the files will be visible in the File Manager's window.
- Try to click on kwmrc and the preinstalled KDE word processor (kword) will try to open it, but cannot, instead giving the error message The config file has no Type=... line; coincidentally, the kwmrc icon has a big question mark in it (related?). I do not know what this means or how to fix it (somebody please tell me if you know). [This description applies to LinuxPPC; MkLinux remains untested]
- There are other easy ways to view/edit kwmrc's contents:
- open a terminal
- type cd /root/.kde/share/config/ (change the directory)
- type emacs kwmrc (use the emacs editor to edit and save changes to kwmrc)
- or type vi kwmrc (use the vi editor to edit and save changes to kwmrc)
- or type cat kwmrc to see the entire file race by
- or type more kwmrc to see a terminal-window-full at a time (space advances a page at a time, return advances a line at a time, b moves you back up, etc.)
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