<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.2-Based Variant V1.1//EN"
"dtd/kdex.dtd"
> -->
<chapter id="install">
<title
>Installation instructions</title>
<para
>These are the generic installation instructions for the K Desktop Environment. Please complement your reading with the <filename
>README</filename
>s and <filename
>INSTALL</filename
>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/"
>mailing lists</ulink
>) or newsgroups.</para>
<qandaset>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>To the would-be converts</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>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
>alternative OS</quote
> business. Don't worry! You only need to do some (well, maybe not some) reading, that's all!</para>
<para
>&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>
<para
>Decide on a platform and set it up for your system. This <acronym
>FAQ</acronym
> can not help you with this, since &kde;<ulink url="http://www.kde.org"
> runs on many &UNIX;</ulink
> platforms. </para>
<!-- Taken out because we can not help with all platforms and KDEisnotLINUX -->
<para
>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"
>mailing lists</link
> and <link linkend="newsgroups"
>newsgroups</link
>. 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
>FAQ</acronym
>.</para>
<para
>Good luck and have fun!</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>Available package formats</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>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/"
>&kde; Package Policy Explained</ulink
> for information about the &kde; Package Policy. The only <quote
>official</quote
> release is the source tar.bz2 packages. Please refer to the <filename
>README</filename
>s and <filename
>INSTALL</filename
>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"
>&kde; 3.2 Info Page</ulink
>.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="prerequisites">
<para
>Prerequisites</para>
</question>
<answer>
<!-- rewrite to make it more general, pointing to the according webpages? -->
<para
>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"
>http://www.trolltech.com/download</ulink
>. 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
>=0.9.6. These should be provided by your distributor; if not, ask for an update.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>Description of the base packages</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>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>
>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>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term
>&arts;</term>
<listitem>
<para
>Required</para>
<para
>The &arts; sound server. A powerful, network transparent sound server.</para>
>&arts; and then tdelibs should be installed before everything else, and tdeaddons last. The other packages can be installed in any arbitrary order.</para>
>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>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>Installation instructions for the different package formats</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
><important>
<para
>Please do not forget to read the <filename
>README</filename
> and <filename
>INSTALL</filename
> files if they are available.</para>
</important
></para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term
>Installation of the Debian packages</term>
<listitem>
<para
>The Debian packages install in accordance with the upcoming <acronym
>FHS</acronym
> (File Hierarchy Standard).</para>
<procedure>
<step performance="required"
><para
>become superuser</para
></step>
<step performance="required"
><para
>run <command
>dpkg <option
>-i <replaceable
>packagename.deb</replaceable
></option
></command
> for every package you want to install.</para
></step>
</procedure>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term
>Installation of the <acronym
>RPM</acronym
> packages</term>
<listitem>
<procedure>
<title
>To install binary <acronym
>RPM</acronym
>s</title>
<step performance="required"
><para
>become superuser</para
></step>
<step performance="required"
><para
>execute <command
>rpm <option
>-ivh <replaceable
>packagename.rpm</replaceable
></option
></command
></para
></step>
</procedure>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term
>Installation of the source <filename
>.tar.bz2</filename
> files</term>
<listitem>
<para
>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"
>Download and Install from Source</ulink
> for the most up to date installation instructions for the source packages. </para>
<para
>The general approach should work in most cases though. </para>
<para
>The source <filename
>.tar.bz2</filename
> package installs into <filename class="directory"
>/usr/local/kde</filename
> by default. You can override this setting by using the <option
> (if you aren't already root). If you already are, just type <command
>make <option
>install</option
></command
>.</para
></step>
</procedure>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>Post-installation procedures</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>First of all, please make sure that you have added &kde;'s binary installation folder (⪚ <filename class="directory"
>/usr/local/kde/bin</filename
>) to your <envar
>PATH</envar
> and &kde;'s library installation folder to your <envar
>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</envar
> (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
>SHLIB_PATH</envar
> on &IRIX;. Then set the environment variable <envar
> to the base of your &kde; tree, ⪚ <filename class="directory"
>/usr/local/kde</filename
>. <caution
> <para
>Please bear in mind that it is unwise to set <envar
>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</envar
> 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"
>Dave Barr</ulink
> explaining the evils of <envar
>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</envar
> and it can be found at <ulink url="http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~barr/ldpath.html"
>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>
<para
>In order to make it easy for you, we have provided a simple script called <filename
>Some systems (notably &RedHat; &Linux;) use <filename
>.Xclients</filename
> instead.</para>
</note
></para>
<para
>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"
>Quick Start guide</ulink
> available. Furthermore, every application has an online help that is available via the <guimenu
>help</guimenu
> menu.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>Should I remove old version xyz before installing a new one?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>In principle, this is not necessary. <acronym
>RPM</acronym
> and Debian packages should take care of all dependencies.</para>
<para
>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"
>Although &kde; will run from a user folder, there are some problems with programs that require suid root, ⪚ the programs in the tdeadmin package. But since they are not meant to be run by users in the first place, this is nothing to worry about.</para>
>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>
>. There is also some older information at <ulink url="http://space.twc.de/~stefan/kde/aix.html"
>http://space.twc.de/~stefan/kde/aix.html</ulink
>.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>&kde; on a laptop?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>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>
>If you have experienced desktop hangs while using &kde; please try this option.</para
>
</answer
>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>I do not like the default &kde; folder after installation. How do I move it without breaking anything?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>Assuming the default is <filename class="directory"
>/opt/kde</filename
> and you want to move it to <filename class="directory"
>/usr/local/kde</filename
>, here's what you have to do:</para>
<procedure>
<step performance="required"
><para
>change to superuser if you aren't already</para
></step>
<step performance="required"
><para
><command
>mv /opt/kde /usr/local/kde</command
></para
></step>
<step performance="required"
><para
><command
>ln -s /usr/local/kde /opt/kde</command
></para
></step>
</procedure>
<para
>This will put all your &kde; files in <filename class="directory"
>/usr/local/kde</filename
> but everything is still accessible from <filename class="directory"
>/opt/kde</filename
>.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>What files can I delete from my &kde; install folder? Can all the <filename
>*.h</filename
>, <filename
>*.c</filename
> and <filename
>*.o</filename
> files be safely removed?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>There should not be any need to keep the <filename
>.c</filename
> and <filename
>.o</filename
> files, but you might want to keep the <filename
>.h</filename
> 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
>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>Will I lose my current settings when I upgrade &kde;?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>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>
<para
>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>
<para
>Settings are kept in the <filename class="directory"
> subfolder in your home folder. Copy your old <filename class="directory"
>.kde</filename
>/<filename class="directory"
>.kde2</filename
> 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"
>.kde</filename
> folder, without a hitch.</para>
<para
>You can override the use of <filename class="directory"
>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>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>&kde; uses several temporary files during its operation. These are usually to be found in the following locations:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem
><para
><filename
>~/.DCOPserver-*</filename
> (there are usually two of these; one is a symlink to the other)</para
>If the symlinks get broken, usually because a <command
>cron</command
> or shutdown script is emptying out the <filename class="directory"
>/tmp</filename
> 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
>while &kde; is not running</emphasis
>.</para>
<para
>If you are only getting a grey screen when you start &kde;, or if you get an error message telling you to <errorname
>Check your installation</errorname
>, then shut down X and delete all the files listed above, then try to restart X.</para>
<para
>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>
>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
>./configure <option
>-gif</option
></command
>.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para
>How do I install &kde; themes?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para
>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
