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<!-- <?xml version="1.0" ?>
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<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.2-Based Variant V1.1//EN"
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>Installation instructions</title>
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>These are the generic installation instructions for the K Desktop Environment. Please complement your reading with the <filename
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>s that come along with the package. Please read them carefully and try to help yourself out if anything goes wrong. If you need further assistance, consider joining the &kde; mailing lists (see our web site instructions for joining the &kde; <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/mailinglists/"
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>) or newsgroups.</para>
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>To the would-be converts</para>
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>So you have heard the rumours. Or you have seen the screenshots. And you are dying to get hold of &kde;. But you know next to nothing about this whole <quote
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>alternative OS</quote
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> business. Don't worry! You only need to do some (well, maybe not some) reading, that's all!</para>
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>&kde; does not run on any version of &Microsoft; &Windows; or OS/2 (yet). To run &kde;, you need to have a &UNIX; system. Please refer to <xref linkend="platform"/> for more details.</para>
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>Decide on a platform and set it up for your system. This <acronym
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> can not help you with this, since &kde;<ulink url="http://www.kde.org"
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> runs on many &UNIX;</ulink
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<!-- Taken out because we can not help with all platforms and KDEisnotLINUX -->
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>Finally, you are ready to commence the &kde; installation. Please start reading from the next section. To get &kde;, please refer to <xref linkend="where-to-get-kde"/>. Last but not least, if you encounter any problems while installing &kde;, please do not hesitate to make use of the &kde; <link linkend="mailing-lists"
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> and <link linkend="newsgroups"
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>. But do bear this in mind: no question is too silly to ask, but some are too silly to answer, especially when they are already answered in this <acronym
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>Good luck and have fun!</para>
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>Available package formats</para>
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>You can find several kinds of binary and source packages for different distributions and operating systems on the &kde-ftp;. The binary packages are not made by the &kde; Team, but by the distributors themselves, or some dedicated individuals. Please refer to <ulink url="http://dot.kde.org/986933826/"
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>&kde; Package Policy Explained</ulink
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> for information about the &kde; Package Policy. The only <quote
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> release is the source tar.bz2 packages. Please refer to the <filename
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>s in the several binaries folders. For a list of the available packages for a release, refer to the relevant info page. For the latest release this is the <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/info/3.2.php"
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>&kde; 3.2 Info Page</ulink
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<question id="prerequisites">
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<!-- rewrite to make it more general, pointing to the according webpages? -->
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>For &kde; 3.2, you need the &Qt; library version 3.2 or greater. Please make sure you download the correct &Qt;. You will also need the header files, if you want to compile &kde; yourself. They are all available, at no cost, from <ulink url="http://www.trolltech.com/products/download"
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>http://www.trolltech.com/download</ulink
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>. In addition, there are optional libraries that might improve &kde; if installed on your system. An example is OpenSSL which will enable &konqueror; to browse web pages securely and is needed in a version
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>=0.9.6. These should be provided by your distributor; if not, ask for an update.</para>
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>Description of the base packages</para>
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>The base distribution currently consists of eleven packages. Some are required, while others are optional. Each package is available in each of the aforementioned package formats.</para>
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>This package contains shared libraries that are needed by all &kde; applications.</para>
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>This package contains the base applications that form the core of the K Desktop Environment like the window manager, the terminal emulator, the control centre, the file manager, and the panel.</para>
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>The &arts; sound server. A powerful, network transparent sound server.</para>
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>Various plugins for &kate;, &kicker;, &knewsticker;, &konqueror; and &noatun; </para>
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>Additional wallpapers, themes, styles, sounds ...</para>
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>Various bindings for other languages, including &Java;, Perl, Python, ...</para>
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>Various games like &kmahjongg;, &ksnake;, &kasteroids;, and &kpatience;.</para>
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>Various graphics-related programs like &PostScript; previewer, &DVI; previewer, and a drawing program.</para>
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>Various desktop tools like a calculator, an editor and other nifty stuff.</para>
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>kdemultimedia</term>
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>Multimedia applications like a &CD; player and a mixer.</para>
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>Network applications. Currently contains the mail program &kmail;, the news reader &knode;, and several other network-related programs.</para>
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>System administration programs.</para>
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>Educational and entertaining applications for &kde;'s younger users. </para>
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>A complete Integrated Development Environment for &kde; and Qt</para>
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>&arts; and then kdelibs should be installed before everything else, and kdeaddons last. The other packages can be installed in any arbitrary order.</para>
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>Most package management tools will let you put all these packages in one folder and install them all at once, figuring out the dependencies as they go.</para>
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>Installation instructions for the different package formats</para>
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>Please do not forget to read the <filename
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> files if they are available.</para>
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>Installation of the Debian packages</term>
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>The Debian packages install in accordance with the upcoming <acronym
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> (File Hierarchy Standard).</para>
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<step performance="required"
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>become superuser</para
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<step performance="required"
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>packagename.deb</replaceable
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> for every package you want to install.</para
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>Installation of the <acronym
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>To install binary <acronym
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<step performance="required"
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>become superuser</para
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<step performance="required"
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>packagename.rpm</replaceable
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>Installation of the source <filename
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>Since there are always changes and updates to the way &kde; is compiled, please refer to <ulink url="http://developer.kde.org/build/index.html"
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>Download and Install from Source</ulink
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> for the most up to date installation instructions for the source packages. </para>
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>The general approach should work in most cases though. </para>
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>The source <filename
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> package installs into <filename class="directory"
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>/usr/local/kde</filename
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> by default. You can override this setting by using the <option
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> option of the <filename
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<step performance="required"
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>unpack the packages with <command
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>packagename.tar.bz2</replaceable
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<step performance="required"
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>change folder to the package folder: <command
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>packagename</replaceable
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<step performance="required"
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>configure the package: <command
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>./configure</command
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>Some packages (notably kdebase) have special configuration options that might be applicable to your installation. Type <command
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> to see the available options.</para
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<step performance="required"
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>build the package: <command
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<step performance="required"
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>install the package: <command
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>-c "make install"</option
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> (if you aren't already root). If you already are, just type <command
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>Post-installation procedures</para>
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>First of all, please make sure that you have added &kde;'s binary installation folder (⪚ <filename class="directory"
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>/usr/local/kde/bin</filename
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> and &kde;'s library installation folder to your <envar
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>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</envar
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> (only necessary on systems that do not support rpath; on &Linux; &ELF;, it should work without). This environment variable may be called differently on some systems, ⪚ it is called <envar
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> on &IRIX;. Then set the environment variable <envar
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> to the base of your &kde; tree, ⪚ <filename class="directory"
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>/usr/local/kde</filename
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>Please bear in mind that it is unwise to set <envar
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>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</envar
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> blindly. In the vast majority of cases it is unnecessary and can do more harm than good. There is a web page written by <ulink url="mailto:barr@cis.ohio-state.edu"
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> explaining the evils of <envar
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>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</envar
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> and it can be found at <ulink url="http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~barr/ldpath.html"
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>http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~barr/ldpath.html</ulink
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>Even though you can use most of the &kde; applications simply by calling them, you can only benefit fully from &kde;'s advanced features if you use the &kde; window manager and its helper programs.</para>
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>In order to make it easy for you, we have provided a simple script called <filename
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> which gets installed in <filename class="directory"
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> and is therefore in your path.</para>
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>Edit the file <filename
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> in your home folder (make a backup copy first!), remove everything that looks like calling a window manager, and insert <command
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> instead. Restart the &X-Server;. If you use &kdm;/<application
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>, you will have to edit the file <filename
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> instead of <filename
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>. And if there is no <filename
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> in your home folder, simply create a new one with just one line containing <command
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>Some systems (notably &RedHat; &Linux;) use <filename
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>This should present you with a new shining &kde; desktop. You can now start to explore the wonderful world of &kde;. In case you want to read some documentation first, there is a highly recommended <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/documentation/quickstart/index.html"
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>Quick Start guide</ulink
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> available. Furthermore, every application has an online help that is available via the <guimenu
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>Should I remove old version xyz before installing a new one?</para>
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>In principle, this is not necessary. <acronym
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> and Debian packages should take care of all dependencies.</para>
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>If you compile the source code yourself, you should take more care. Instructions for running two different versions of &kde; on the same system are given at <ulink url="http://developer.kde.org/build/kde2-and-kde3.html"
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>http://developer.kde.org/build/kde2-and-kde3.html</ulink
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>. However, please note that running two different versions of &kde; from source can lead to problems if you are not careful. </para>
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<question id="startkde">
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>How do I start &kde;?</para>
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>The most comfortable method to start &kde; is to use the <filename
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> script. Simply put the line <command
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> at the end of your <filename
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> file (or your <filename
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> file if you are not using &kdm; or <application
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>). Please also remove the lines that start your previous window manager. If there is no <filename
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> in your home folder, simply create a new one that contains just one line: <command
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>Whenever I start &kde;, it complains about "shadow passwords".
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>When your system uses shadow passwords, the screensaver can only
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run properly if the suid bit is set. This bit gives the screensavers
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root privileges, which are needed to access the shadow passwords.
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>The screensavers might be configured to secure the
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machine until the password is entered.</para
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>Setting the suid bit on the screensavers</title>
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<step performance="required"
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<step performance="required"
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<step performance="required"
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>Alternatively, if you compile &kde; from source, you can use
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configure kdebase. Then the suid bit is set automatically during
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>make install</command
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>Is it possible to install &kde; in a user folder?</para>
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>Yes, you can install &kde; in any folder you want. What you have to do depends on the kind of packages you want to install:</para>
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>Source packages</title>
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<step performance="required"
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>Configure and install the package using <command
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>--prefix=<replaceable
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>/users/myhome/kde</replaceable
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>; make; make install</command
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> to install into <filename class="directory"
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>/users/myhome/kde</filename
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<step performance="required"
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>Add the following to your init files. Please note that if it is not necessary for you to set <envar
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>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</envar
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>, it is better to leave it out.</para>
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>For csh or tcsh:</para>
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>setenv KDEDIR /users/myhome/kde
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if ( $?LD_LIBRARY_PATH ) then
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setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH $KDEDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
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setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH $KDEDIR/lib
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if ( ! $?LIBRARY_PATH ) then
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setenv LIBRARY_PATH $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
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>KDEDIR=/users/myhome/kde
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PATH=$KDEDIR/bin:$PATH
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LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
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LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
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export KDEDIR PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH LIBRARY_PATH
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<step performance="required"
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> allows you to use the <option
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> option to select the folder you want to install to. For example, executing <command
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>-i --prefix=<replaceable
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>/users/myhome/kde package.rpm</replaceable
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> will install the package to <filename class="directory"
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>/users/myhome/kde</filename
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>Although &kde; will run from a user folder, there are some problems with programs that require suid root, ⪚ the programs in the kdeadmin package. But since they are not meant to be run by users in the first place, this is nothing to worry about.</para>
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>However, on systems using shadow passwords, the screensavers have to be suid root to enable password access for unlocking the screen, so this option will not work.</para>
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> fails with <errorname
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>can not connect to X server</errorname
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>. What is wrong?</para>
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>You probably tried to start the X server with <command
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>. The X server is started with <command
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> is the script that should be run from your <filename
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> to activate the window manager and the necessary server daemons for &kde;. See also <xref linkend="startkde"/>.</para>
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>&kde; on &AIX;?</para>
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> now officially support &kde; on &AIX;. You can find details at <ulink url="http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/index.html"
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>http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/index.html</ulink
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>. There is also some older information at <ulink url="http://space.twc.de/~stefan/kde/aix.html"
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>http://space.twc.de/~stefan/kde/aix.html</ulink
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>&kde; on a laptop?</para>
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>If you can get &X-Window; to run on your laptop, you should not have any problem getting &kde; to run on it. In addition, you might find the following links helpful:</para>
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><ulink url="http://www.linux-laptop.net/"
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>http://www.linux-laptop.net/</ulink
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><ulink url="http://www.sanpei.org/Laptop-X/note-list.html"
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>http://www.sanpei.org/Laptop-X/note-list.html</ulink
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>I have a neomagic chipset in my laptop. Is there anything special I should do to run &kde;?</para>
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>On some laptops using the 2160 chipset (MagicGraph 128XD) the following options in <filename
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>XF86Config</filename
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> are needed to avoid a lock-up of the graphic engine:</para>
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>Option "XaaNoScanlineImageWriteRect"
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Option "XaaNoScanlineCPUToScreenColorExpandFill"</screen>
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>If you have experienced desktop hangs while using &kde; please try this option.</para
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>I do not like the default &kde; folder after installation. How do I move it without breaking anything?</para>
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>Assuming the default is <filename class="directory"
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> and you want to move it to <filename class="directory"
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>/usr/local/kde</filename
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>, here's what you have to do:</para>
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<step performance="required"
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>change to superuser if you aren't already</para
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<step performance="required"
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>mv /opt/kde /usr/local/kde</command
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<step performance="required"
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>ln -s /usr/local/kde /opt/kde</command
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>This will put all your &kde; files in <filename class="directory"
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>/usr/local/kde</filename
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> but everything is still accessible from <filename class="directory"
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>What files can I delete from my &kde; install folder? Can all the <filename
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> files be safely removed?</para>
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>There should not be any need to keep the <filename
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> files, but you might want to keep the <filename
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> files, as they are used by includes if you ever want to compile your own &kde; programs. But if you wish to add patches to the source programs as they become available (rather than downloading everything again), then they should stay.</para
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>Will I lose my current settings when I upgrade &kde;?</para>
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>No. In most cases &kde; will be able to transport your settings intact. You may need to reenter passwords in some applications (such as &kmail; or &knode;) but most other settings will be safe.</para>
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>There were mixed reports of results between some previous versions of &kde;. To be safe, you may like to back up your entire &kde; configuration. </para>
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>Settings are kept in the <filename class="directory"
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> or <filename class="directory"
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> subfolder in your home folder. Copy your old <filename class="directory"
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>/<filename class="directory"
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> folder to a backup location, install &kde; 3.2, and then copy back any necessary mail and news settings. That said, most people can make a direct upgrade, without removing the old <filename class="directory"
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> folder, without a hitch.</para>
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>You can override the use of <filename class="directory"
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> by setting the $<envar
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<qandaentry id="greyscreen">
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>I upgraded &kde; and it seemed to go fine, but when I start it, I get a blank grey screen, and nothing happens. There are errors in the console about DCOPserver. What's going on?</para>
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>&kde; uses several temporary files during its operation. These are usually to be found in the following locations:</para>
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>~/.DCOPserver-*</filename
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> (there are usually two of these; one is a symlink to the other)</para
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>~/.kde/socket-<replaceable
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>hostname</replaceable
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>~/.kde/tmp-<replaceable
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>hostname</replaceable
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> which is normally a symlink to the next file:</para
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>/tmp/tmp-kde-<replaceable
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>~/.kde/socket-<replaceable
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>hostname</replaceable
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> which is also normally a symlink to:</para
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>/tmp/ksocket-<replaceable
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>If the symlinks get broken, usually because a <command
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> or shutdown script is emptying out the <filename class="directory"
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> folder, then strange things will happen. These files, and the symlinks, will all be created automatically at the start of &kde; so you can safely remove them <emphasis
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>while &kde; is not running</emphasis
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>If you are only getting a grey screen when you start &kde;, or if you get an error message telling you to <errorname
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>Check your installation</errorname
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>, then shut down X and delete all the files listed above, then try to restart X.</para>
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>Normally (&ie; when not upgrading between &kde; versions) it's quite safe to leave these files intact, and you may shave a few seconds off your &kde; startup time by doing so.</para>
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>Compiling kdebase gives me a <errorname
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>bin/sh: msgfmt: command not found</errorname
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>You need the &GNU; <application
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> which is part of the &GNU; i18n package <application
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>gettext</application
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>. You should be able to download it from any &GNU; mirror.</para>
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>How do I uninstall &kde; applications compiled from source?</para>
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>You can uninstall your programs by typing <command
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>make uninstall</command
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> in the folder where you did <command
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>make install</command
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>. If you have already deleted that folder, then there is only one way, and it is not good: go to <filename class="directory"
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> and start deleting files one by one.</para>
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>If you expect to find yourself in this situation, you might want to consider a program such as &GNU; <application
1001
>, found at <ulink url="http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/stow.html"
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>http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/stow.html</ulink
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>What is up with &GIF; support?</para>
1014
>This has to do with issues with Unisys' &LZW; patent. &GIF; support is turned off from &Qt; 1.44 onwards by default. When you want to use &GIF;s and have the relevant license, recompile &Qt; with &GIF; support. <command
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>./configure <option
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>How do I install &kde; themes?</para>
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>Theme support in &kde; has been discontinued with this version. However, there are many opportunities to personalise and add eye candy to &kde; Look at, for example, <guilabel
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>Appearance & Themes</guilabel
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> in &kcontrol;. </para>
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