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KDE Frequently Asked Questions

Please report any bugs, inconsistencies or omissions you find in this faq to [email protected].

1. Introduction

• 1.1 What is KDE?
• 1.2 What does the K in KDE stand for?
• 1.3 On which platforms can I expect KDE to work?
• 1.4 Is KDE a window manager?
• 1.5 Is KDE a CDE, Windows 95, MacOS, clone?
• 1.6 Is KDE free software?

2. Getting KDE

• 2.1 Where do I get KDE?
• 2.2 Are there Linux distributions that come with KDE?
• 2.3 What is the current version?
• 2.4 Where do I get Qt?
• 2.5 What is Qt, by the way?

3. Installation instructions

• 3.1 Available package formats
• 3.2 Prequisites
• 3.3 Available packages
• 3.4 Installation instructions for the different package formats
• 3.5 Installing the rpms with SuSe's YaST makes the rpm database
• 3.6 Should I remove old version xyz before installing a new one?
• 3.7 How do I start KDE?
• 3.8 Whenever I start KDE, it complains about "shadow passwords". Why?
• 3.9 Is it possible to install KDE in a user directory?
• 3.10 startkde fails with "can not connect to X server". What is wrong?
• 3.11 Installing Debian packages with dpkg says "giflib2 is missing"
• 3.12 KDE on AIX?

4. The panel

• 4.1 How do I add applications to the panel?
• 4.2 If I try to add an application, the panel complains! Why?
• 4.3 How do I embed an application in the panel?
• 4.4 Why is the panel clock showing the wrong time?

5. The desktop

• 5.1 How do I add an application to the desktop?
• 5.2 How do I mount/unmount a device from the desktop?
• 5.3 How do I use a screensaver as background?

6. The windowmanager

• 6.1 Are there keyboard shortcuts for KWM operations?
• 6.2 Can I define my own set of keyboard shortcuts?
• 6.3 When I "iconify" a window, it disappears. Where does it go?

7. The filemanager

• 7.1 How do I use KFM as web browser with a proxy?
• 7.2 How can I change the appearance of a directory in KFM?
• 7.3 How can I do non-anonymous FTP transfers with KFM?
• 7.4 "KFM cannot connect to 'localhost'", what is going wrong?

8. Configuring KDE

• 8.1 How do I set the language to be used by KDE?

9. Known bugfixes for KDE 1.0

10. Miscelleanous questions

• 10.1 Why does KDE use Qt?
• 10.2 Why does KDE not use gtk, xforms, xlib, whatever?
• 10.3 But Qt isn't free, is it?
• 10.4 Why not code a L/GPL'ed Qt clone?

11. Getting more information

• 11.1 Where is the KDE homepage?
• 11.2 Is there a KDE mailing list?
• 11.3 How do I subscribe/unsubscribe to these lists?
• 11.4 Is there a mailing list archive?
• 11.5 Is there a newsgroup about KDE?

12. Contributing

• 12.1 How can I contribute to KDE?
• 12.2 How do I commit a bug report?
• 12.3 I want to programm for KDE. What should I do first?
• 12.4 How do I get write access to the development list?
• 12.5 How do I get access to the CVS?
• 12.6 I am just curious. Can I have read-only access to the CVS?

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