KDE, installing

Congratulations! You have installed Xorg and are now ready to get KDE running.

First, su to root.

$ su -
password:
# 

After you have root privileges, you must install KDE. As of the time of writing this article KDE 3.4 is the most current.

You have two options for installing KDE: build from ports or use the BSD packages.

To build KDE from source, use the ports tree:

# cd /usr/ports/x11/kde3 && make install clean

[update - 2008/09/06: KDE 4.1.1 is available in ports]

# cd /usr/ports/x11/kde4 && make install clean

OR to install pre-built package:

# pkg_add -r kde

Notice: If you look at the command above, it's 'kde' and NOT 'kde3'. BSD has been nice enough to keep with the times. If you are adding a package as a general rule, you leave off the version number and you'll get the most stable version.

After KDE is installed you must tell the X server to invoke KDE at the start of the X server and NOT to use the default WM. This is done though editing the .xinitrc file.

# % echo "exec startkde" > ~/.xinitrc

Note: Sometimes if you are already using a window manager (i.e. XDM) you might have to edit the .xsession instead of the xinitrc

If all has gone well, you SHOULD be able to:

# startx

and have X start up and then invoke KDE.

Note: A lot of this article has originated from http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11-wm.html