KDE
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KDE 4.2 released
Arch Linux news:
- "Today, on January 27th, the KDE team announces the stable version of KDE 4.2.0, so we have moved all kde-packages from [testing] to [extra].
- We suggest that you exit from KDE before you update, backup your ~/.kde4 configuration dir and start with a clean config.
- Take a look at old plasmoids, they might not work with the new Plasma.
- You can find the ChangeLog on: http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.2/
- For any problems (we hope there are not) please use the bugtracker or the arch-general mailing list as usual."
To make sense of the myriad kde features, a flash video and a visual guide can be found at: http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.2/
Installing KDE 4.2
pacman -Sy kde
You might also want to install the "extragears" software which is distributed with kde which offers additional applications
pacman -S kde-extragear
and language files
pacman -S kde-l10n-yourlanguagehere
About Plasma
Plasma is the component of the KDE project that actually displays the desktop (i.e. wallpapers, panels, etc).
See the Plasma article for more details.
Known bugs & issues
- if khotkeys doesn't work, updating to qt 4.5 worked here.
You can also create ~/.kde4/Autostart/reloadkhotkeys.sh with contents
#!/bin/bash (sleep 3 && qdbus org.kde.kded /modules/khotkeys reread_configuration) &
and then do a
chmod u+x ~/.kde4/Autostart/reloadkhotkeys.sh
then logout & login.
- For thumbnails of videos in konqueror and dolphin download mplayerthumbs from AUR.
- If you start KDM with inittab make sure to change its path from /opt/kde to /usr
- The first login takes a while; don't worry about this. It's creating new configs etc.
- If you use an nvidia card and use the 173.14.x drivers read How to get decent performance on KDE 4 using a NVIDIA graphics card, also see nvidia/nvnews linux forum for newest drivers & (speed)help. (The 180.22-1 nvidia driver in the extra repository fixes this).
Downgrading to kdemod3 or kde3-legacy from KDE 4.2
For those people who decide that KDE 4.2 is still not yet "ready" for them, there is a website about how to downgrade to a version of KDE 3.5 called kdemod3:
For those people who decide that KDE 4.2 AND kdemod3 are not for them, there is a forum thread about how to downgrade to or keep KDE 3.5:
Samba/Windows support
If you want to have access to Windows services:
pacman -S samba
Java support
pacman -S jre
Printing support
It's currently probably best to use CUPS with the web frontend. Printers configured thus are available in KDE applications.
Proper printing configuration support (i.e. KDEPrint) is scheduled for KDE 4.2
Font defaults
If you experience problems with the default font settings, e.g. special characters for your language do not appear, try to set the fonts in the System Settings app to a font which supports those characters.
KDM Xserver file
An example configuration for KDM can be found at /usr/share/config/kdm/kdmrc. See /usr/share/doc/HTML/en/kdm/kdmrc-ref.docbook for all options.
HAL
Add "hal" to the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf for full media functionality.
Suspend to Disk/Ram not working
If suspend to disk/ram does not work then try installing acpid with
pacman -Sy acpid
It will autoload with hal, also make sure you are in the power group (remember to logout)
GPG and SSH
To disable gpg-agent and/or ssh-agent in KDE sessions, edit /usr/env/agent-startup.sh and /usr/shutdown/agent-shutdown.sh.
Kdebindings
Kdebindings has been built with support for Java and GTK. If you want to use these features use the following pacman command:
pacman -S gtk jdk
Kde begins with desktop effects enabled. This can be burden for older graphic cards or gaming. You can disable desktop effects in System Settings > Desktop or you can toggle desktop effects with Alt+Shift+F12.
Changing DPI settings for KDM
As root open the file /usr/share/config/kdm/kdmrc, and add the following to the [X-:*-Core] section:
ServerArgsLocal=-dpi 96
(Substitute "96" for whichever DPI you want.) Then exit KDE and restart X with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace.
A better way to do this is to make sure your X server is using the correct DPI and then set your fonts.conf globally. Take a look at Better LCD Font Rendering.
Theming KDE 4
KDE 4 themes may be downloaded from < kde-look.org > . Once downloaded, you may unpack the theme and build it from source. The commands:
$ cmake . $ make $ su # make install
usually suffice to install the theme successfully, but always make sure to check the "README" or "INSTALL" files. DeKorator ( available in the AUR ) is a convenient way to change the window decoration of KDE without building themes from source. However, it would appear that there may currently be version compatability issues with DeKorator / DeKorator themes and KDE 4.2.
GTK and KDE 4 Themes
The best way that I have found to provide good overlap between GTK and KDE 4 themes is to use the QTCurve packages.
# pacman -Sy qtcurve-gtk2 qtcurve-kde4
Afterwards, you can easily change the GTK2 theme using a small application like switch2 or gtk-chtheme. Just install one of them, either
# pacman -S gtk-theme-switch2 && switch2
or
# pacman -S gtk-chtheme && gtk-chtheme
and choose your theme.
Also, if you're using oxygen icons and want a consistent look in gtk open/save dialogs, you might want to install oxygenrefit2 icon theme from aur, and set it as your gtk icon theme, by adding to .gtkrc-2.0 (or .gtkrc-2.0.mine if your .gtkrc-2.0 includes it)
# gtk-icon-theme-name = "OxygenRefit2"
How to set Arch Linux logo as icon in Kicker menu
To change the Kicker menu icon you have to change ${icons_dir}/places/start-here-kde.png icon. To set archlinux-icon-crystal-128.svg, from archlinux-artwork package, as Kicker menu icon you must run this (you need librsvg):
# for i in 16 22 32 48 64 128; do rsvg-convert /usr/share/archlinux/icons/archlinux-icon-crystal-128.svg \
-f png -h $i -w $i -o /usr/share/icons/default.kde4/${i}x${i}/places/start-here-kde.png; done
Now re-apply your icon theme and enjoy ours logo.
Split KDE packages
KDEmod is a community-based modular version of KDE 4, which includes a number of UI enhancements. See KDEmod for more information.
Bugs
If you think you found a bug, please see: Common_Issues and regarding that: KDE 4 config files are usually located at /home/$user/.kde4/share/config and for app-specific configs /home/$user/.kde4/share/apps.