KDE4 FAQ

The default desktop/window manager in OpenSUSE 11.3 is KDE4. Update to OpenSUSE 11.3

KDE is hanging what can I do?

• In case the Task Manager or the KDE Menu is hanging, try to restart plasma. In a console (or press ALT+F2) type

  killall plasma-desktop && plasma-desktop &
  

• In case windows are no longer movable, try to restart the windows manager. In a console (or press ALT+F2) type

  kwin --replace &
  

• Kill your session by pressing twice CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE. IMPORTANT: In contrast to the above commands, all unsaved data will be lost!
• If nothing works, you have to reboot your PC

How to change the keyboard layout

• Right click on the US symbol on the right side of the system tray/panel - select Preferences Input Methods Add German German (Switzerland) Add
  
• Or in the KDE menu Configure Desktop Input Devices Keyboard Layout click on Configure Layouts Add

What's new on the KDE4 Desktop?

• The new Plasma Desktop (link) with Panel (link), Widgets (link) and Activity (link). Click on the upper right corner (Tool Box) of your desktop to configure
• The new Panel (replaces kicker) with Pager, Task Manager and System Tray. Click on the very right side of the panel to configure (Panel Tool Box)
• The new Pager showing your virtual desktops. Right click on the Pager to configure

New applications in KDE4

• dolphin is the new File Manager (replaces konqueror as file manager)
• okular is the new universal Document Viewer (based on kdpf and replaces kpdf, kdvi and kghostview)
• gwenview is the new Image Viewer (replaces kview and kuickshow)
• systemsettings for configuring KDE4 (replaces kcontrol of KDE3)

A list of more Linux applications can be found here LinuxApplications

What's the Plasma Desktop?

The Plasma Desktop is the name of the default workspace (desktop interface) for KDE4 (like Aqua for Macintosh). It includes the Desktop (configured as Activity) and the Panel (taskbar). Plasma's main components are Widgets.

What are Widgets?

Widgets are small applications (applets) that live on the desktop. Widgets can take on a variety of functions, ranging from displaying your desktop folder, showing a clock, displaying your plugged in devices, and much more...

What's an Activity in KDE4?

An Activity in KDE4 is a set of widgets that have their own wallpaper.

I don't see the cool desktop effects of KDE4?

On a konsole start the program systemsettings. Or from the KDE menu choose Configure Desktop. Choose from Look & Feel Desktop Desktop Effects and uncheck the box Enable desktop effects. To activate more effects go to the tab All Effects.

KDE4 seems to be slow? It takes ages before an application is showing up.

On a konsole start the program systemsettings. Or from the KDE menu choose Configure Desktop. Choose from Look & Feel Desktop Desktop Effects. Usually I disable the effects related to the windows minimization (slow redesign) and move (transparency), but if your system is very slow, disable Desktop Effects by unchecked the box Enable desktops effects on the first tab of Desktop Effects.

I don't like KDE4. Is there an alternative?

Yes. Try out XFCE Desktop (http://www.xfce.org). Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment. At the login screen select Session Type and choose Xfce Session instead of KDE.

Change how the icons are displayed on your desktop

Right click on your desktop. Or on the upper right corner of your desktop click on the Tool Box icon. From the menu choose Folder View Activity Settings Select Activity As activity type choose Folder View Press Apply.
You can now close the Desktop Folder on your desktop by right clicking on it and choose Remove this Folder View. Now the icons are placed on the desktop like in KDE3. By the way, the files shown on the Desktop are in your ~/Desktop folder.

How to change the desktop background?

Right click on your desktop. From the menu choose Folder View Activity Settings Select Wallpaper and change your desktop background.

How can I have different backgrounds on my virtual desktops?

The background (wallpaper) of a desktop is defined by its Activity Settings. In order to have different backgrounds, you need to define for each of your virtual desktop a separate Activity. Right click on the Pager and choose Configure Virtual Desktops.... Check the box Different activity for each desktop. Now on each virtual desktop configure its activity by clicking on the upper right corner on the Tool Box or by right clicking on the desktop. Select Folder View Activity Settings and choose a wallpaper.

How to change the screensaver?

In a konsole/terminal start the program systemsettings. Or from the KDE menu choose Configure Desktop (it's under Favorites). Choose from Look & Feel Desktop and go to Screen Saver

How to change the appearance of the mouse pointer?

On a konsole start the program systemsettings. Or from the KDE menu choose Configure Desktop (it's under Favorites). At the bottom under Computer Administration click on Keybaord & Mouse. Choose Mouse and go to Cursor Theme. Take for example DMZ as new theme. Press Apply.

How can I make a window active when moving with the mouse over it?

On a konsole start the program systemsettings. Or from the KDE menu choose Configure Desktop (it's under Favorites). Choose from Look & Feel Window Behavior. Select Window Behavior and change Policy to Focus Follow Mouse and tick the box Raise, with the following delay

Where is the "Show Desktop" button?

Right click on the panel and choose Panel Options or directly Add Widgets.... Or on the right side of the panel click on the Panel Tool Box and select Add Widgets.... Add widget Show Desktop (under group: Windows and Task). Double click on the widget Show Desktop to put it into the panel.
You can have the same effect (showing the desktop), if you click in the pager on the active virtual desktop.

How to change the font in the konsole (terminal)?

Open a terminal (konsole). In the menu go to Settings Edit Current Profile... Click on the Appearance tab. At the bottom choose Edit Font.... Select a font. For example Droid Sans Mono size 10 points. Finally press Ok and Apply.

How to put application icons in the panel?

In the KDE menu search for the application you want to put into the panel. Instead of starting the application with a left click, right click on it and from the menu cooose Add to Panel. About how to move the icon inside the panel, see next point.

How to move icons/widgets in the panel?

Right click on the panel and choose Panel Options and choose Panel Settings. Or on the right side of the panel click on the Panel Tool Box symbol.
While the Settings window is opened, move the cursor to the icon/widget on the panel, click on it and move to the desired location and click again. Close the Panel Settings window after the move.

I cannot modify my panel, for example add applications or move widgets?

Check if your panel is not locked. Right click on the panel and select Unlock Widgets.

How to adjusting the thickness of the panel?

On the right side of the panel click on the Panel Tool Box. A toolbar pops up. Click the "Height" button but DO NOT RELEASE the mouse button. Now move the mouse, this causes the height of the panel to grow or shrink.

How to change the background of the panel?

On a konsole start the program systemsettings. Or from the KDE menu choose Configure Desktop (it's under Favorites). Choose from Look & Feel Appearance. Select Style and choose the workspace tab. Select a them for your workspace which will be applied to the panel.

How to configure the pager?

The pager shows you the virtual desktops. The pager is a widget and can be added to the panel or to the desktop. To configure the pager located in the panel, right click on it and choose Pager Settings or Configure Virtual Desktops.

I only want to see the application of the active Desktop in the Task Manager

Right click on a empty place in the Task Manager and choose Task Manager Settings. On the General tab select the Filter Only show tasks from the current desktop.

How to Disable Nepomuk?

Open ~/.kde4/share/config/nepomukserverrc and set “Start Nepomuk” to false.

[Basic Settings]
Start Nepomuk=false

Open ~/.kde4/share/config/kdedrc and set “autoload” to false for nepomuksearchmodule:

[Module-nepomuksearchmodule]
autoload=false

If you disable nepomuk, you can also remove the nepomuk database

rm -rf ~/.kde4/share/apps/nepomuk

How to Disable Akonadi?

Open ~/.config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc and set “StartServer” to false.

[QMYSQL]
StartServer=false

Later if you want to use akonadi again, you can manually start it by running the following command: ‘kcmshell4 kcm_akonadi‘ or ‘akonaditray‘.

Note: PIM applications and other akonadi dependent applications (kontact, kaddressbook, kmail, korganizer, kalarm, etc) won’t work with akonadi disabled.

How to clean up your KDE settings

If you experience problems with KDE. I recommend to start from scratch and clean up all your KDE settings.

To (re-)move your KDE settings move them to a backup folder. Start a konsole/terminal and type:

mkdir ~/KDE.backup
mv ~/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd ~/KDE.backup
mv ~/.config/plasma-*               ~/KDE.backup
mv ~/.config/*rc                    ~/KDE.backup
mv ~/.kde4                          ~/KDE.backup
mv ~/.kde                           ~/KDE.backup

Or just remove it completely

rm -rf ~/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd
rm -rf ~/.config/plasma-*
rm -rf ~/.config/rc* 
rm -rf ~/.kde4
rm -rf ~/.kde

NOTE: Maybe you only have to remove ~/.config/plasma-*

Now logout and login again. KDE4 will start with the default settings.

If you can not login to KDE, press Ctrl+Alt+F1. Login to the text console. (Re)move ~/.kde and ~/.kde4. Press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to get back to the login screen.

Instead of starting with fresh KDE settings, try to restore old ~/.kde and ~/.kde4 folders from the backup, see LinuxHome#Restore_from_Backup

How to (re-)define keyboard shortcuts?

On a konsole start the program systemsettings. Or from the KDE menu choose Configure Desktop. Choose from Computer Administration Keyboard & Mouse. Select Global Keyboard Shortcuts. As KDE component: choose for example KWin and define a new shortcut for controlling windows actions. Under Global Keyboard Shortcuts you can only set shortcuts for already defined actions. In case you want to define for example a shortcut for starting a specific application, see next question.

How to set a shortcut to start an application?

On a konsole start the program systemsettings. Or from the KDE menu choose Configure Desktop. Choose from Computer Administration Input Actions. On the left-pane, right-click over a free area, and select New Global Shortcut Command/URL. On the right-pane, in Trigger tab, choose your desired shortcut. In Action tab after Command/URL, type the command you usually use in terminal to start the application. For example type konsole to start a konsole. Press Apply.

How to mount/unmount USB disks and CD/DVD ?

Use the plasma widget called Device Notifier, which shows attached devices such as USB flash drives, CD/DVD drives, or digital cameras. Normally the Device Notifier should be visible in the System Tray as soon as you plugin an external storage device. If this is not the case right click on the system tray and select System Tray Settings, go to Plasma Widgets and mark Device Notifier.
Clicking on the Device Notifier icon shows all attached devices. Clicking on a device brings up a list of possible actions, e.g. Open with File Manager, etc. You can modify the actions, if you go to systemsettings under Advanced select Device Actions. For more info see DeviceNotifier

Kile opens my JabRef .bib file read-only?

Kile uses per default UTF-8 as encoding. Your JabRef .bin file may uses another encoding like ISO-8859-1. (Note: the .bib file is an ASCII file and the encoding should be defined in the second line). It's recommended to use UTF-8 as encoding. To convert your .bib file, open it with JabRef. In the menu choose File Database properties. As Database encoding choose UTF-8. Finally save the database in JabRef.
Now you can open the .bib file in kile with default encoding UTF-8.
IMPORTANT: If you have ever open the .bib file in kile with the wrong encoding, kile will always open this file read-only. Either you rename the .bib file and open it with the correct encoding. Or you edit your kile settings with a normal text editor. Open ~/.kde4/share/config/kilerc search the entry for you file and change ReadWrite=false to ReadWrite=true.

After upgrading to KDE4 I miss my notes in knote

Knote stores its notes in a file called notes.ics. Under KDE3 this file can be found in the .kde folder as ~/.kde/share/apps/knotes/notes.ics. After the update to KDE4 you may need to copy the notes file from the .kde folder (or from his backup) into the .kde4 folder ~/.kde4/share/apps/knotes/notes.ics.

cp ~/.kde/share/apps/knotes/notes.ics ~/.kde4/share/apps/knotes/notes.ics

Okular doesn't print duplex

There is a bug in oklar which prevent okular to take the default settings provided by our print server. Unfortunately, you have to select duplex printing every time manually. Inside the print dialog select Options >> go to the tab Options and select for Duplex Printing Long side.

Scrolling in Firefox is very slow

In firefox type as URL about:config. As Filter type general.smoothScroll and the Value to false with a double click.

Shutdown the PC from the KDE menu does not work or only after a long delay

To power off your PC start a konsole and type the command poweroff or turnoff. For more information see also RemoteTurnOffOn

When you login you see that the bar showing the KDE setup progress stops and you never get to your desktop

This problem might be related to situations when your monitor is connected with both the DVI (white plug) and the VGA (blue plug) lines. If this is the case please disconnect the VGA line and reboot the system.

How to get more help for KDE4?

In the KDE menu under Favorites start Help. Or in a konsole/terminal run the command khelpcenter.
Recommended: Have a look at An introduction to KDE hosted at the KDE UserBase