<para>&kstars; is distributed with &kde; as part of the tdeedu "Edutainment" module. </para>
<para>We also occasionally make an independent release. These independent releases will be available as a gzipped tar archive from the following website: <ulink url="http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kstars/">http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kstars/</ulink>. </para>
<para>Independent releases are announced through the <email>kstars-announce@lists.sourceforge.net</email> mailing list. Releases are also posted to <ulink url="http://edu.kde.org/kstars">the &kstars; home page</ulink>, <ulink url="http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=9862">kde-apps.org</ulink>, and <ulink url="http://freshmeat.net/projects/kstars">freshmeat.net</ulink>. </para>
<para>&kstars; is been packaged by many Linux/BSD distributions, including Redhat, Suse, and Mandrake. Some distributions package &kstars; as a separate application, some just provide a tdeedu package, which includes &kstars;. </para><para>If you would like the latest CVS development version of &kstars;, please follow <ulink url="http://edu.kde.org/kstars/cvs.html">these instructions</ulink>. </para>
<para>On my system, &kstars; uses about 60 MB of system memory with the default settings. Most of this usage is due to the loaded object databases. You can dramatically reduce the memory footprint by reducing the faint limit for stars in the Configuration Window, or eliminating catalogs of objects (NGC, IC, comets, asteroids, &etc;). If &kstars; is idling, it uses very little <acronym>CPU</acronym>; but it will use as much as you have got when panning or zooming. </para>
<para>In order to compile and install &kstars; on your system, type the following in the base folder of the unpacked &kstars; distribution: <screen width="40"><prompt>%</prompt> <userinput>./configure --prefix=$TDEDIR</userinput>
</para><para>Please do not forget the prefix argument to configure. If your <envar>TDEDIR</envar> variable is not set, set prefix to whatever folder &kde; is installed in: this is usually either <filename class="directory">/usr</filename>, <filename class="directory">/opt/kde</filename>, or <filename class="directory">/opt/kde3</filename>. Also, make sure you do the last step as <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem>. </para><para>&kstars; uses <command>autoconf</command> and <command>automake</command>, so you should not have trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the &kstars; mailing list <email>kstars-devel@kde.org</email>. </para>
<para>At this point, there are no special configuration options or requirements. If &kstars; complains that there are missing data files, become <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem> and manually copy all files in <filename class="directory">kstars/data/</filename> to <filename class="directory">$(TDEDIR)/apps/kstars/</filename> (If you do not have <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem> privileges, copy them to <filename class="directory">~/.trinity/share/apps/kstars/.</filename>) </para>
