KDE/KDE4

From openSUSE

This document explains KDE and how to obtain and install KDE.

What is KDE 4?

KDE 4 refers to all versions of the fourth major version of the KDE desktop environment. KDE 4.3 is the stable version we recommend for most users.

Current Status

openSUSE Stable Releases

• KDE 4.3.5: The KDE:KDE4:STABLE:Desktop Build Service project contains KDE 4.3.5 packages as they are going to be released for openSUSE 11.2 online update. For installation/update instructions, see below. These packages are as current as possible and contain some openSUSE customizations. Further they contain patches that will be published as official online updates. Testing these packages and reporting issues on Novell's Bugzilla is highly appreciated.

KDE Factory Releases

For the next openSUSE version, developers are working on the packages in the Factory repository. Those packages are updated frequently and although they are regarded as stable enough to be used, they might contain bugs and break for some days.

• KDE 4.4.x: The KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop Build Service project contains KDE 4.4.x packages which are developed for the next openSUSE release, however built for all current openSUSE versions.

Version: 11.1

KDE 4.3 Live CD: KDE Four Live is a frequently updated Live CD containing recent KDE packages. The latest release includes KDE 4.3.2

Unstable Packages

• Trunk: The KDE:KDE4:UNSTABLE:Desktop Build Service project contains development releases that will become KDE 4.4. They are highly experimental weekly snapshots and might not work. Use with care; do not use with production data.

Safety Advice

Our KDE4 packages use ~/.kde4 for storing settings and data. KDE 3 applications continue to use ~/.kde, even if used within KDE4 workplace.

If you have edited your .profile or .bashrc to change KDEHOME both KDE 3 and KDE 4 applications will share the same config files. This will enable KDE 4 applications to 'upgrade' config files they find but KDE 3 applications will probably be unable to use the updated files.

KDE 3 and KDE 4

The KDE4 packages install into the /usr prefix, so KDE3 and KDE4 can safely be installed at the same time.

To prevent the accidental starting of KDE4 applications within a KDE3 session add at the top of /opt/kde3/bin/startkde

If you are using another window manager then adding this line to the .bashrc file should also load the correct applications.

This has been already done in the Factory and KDE:KDE3 packages which also contain some other minor patches for better co-existence with KDE4 (may need to run kbuildsycoca --noincremental once to become fully active).

Installation

Please refer to [KDE/Repositories] for a list of repositories to choose from.

STABLE KDE Project (KDE 4.3.5)

The KDE:KDE4:STABLE:Desktop Build Service project offers KDE 4.3.5 packages as they will be released for openSUSE 11.2. They may include pending online updates for 11.2.

Click on one of these One Click Install files to install the required packages and optionally register the repository for future. Important: If you get a message that dependencies cannot be resolved, enter the "Advanced Mode" of the one-click handler and enable the "standard" online repository of your distribution.

Version: 11.2

Developers can also optionally install the KDE 4 build dependencies: all the packages you need to have installed for compiling KDE 4.3 from source (experts only).

Version: 11.1

Developers can also optionally install the KDE 4 build dependencies: all the packages you need to have installed for compiling KDE 4.3 from source (experts only).

Version: 11.0

Developers can also optionally install the KDE 4 build dependencies: all the packages you need to have installed for compiling KDE 4.3 from source (experts only).

Factory KDE Project (KDE 4.4)

The KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop Build Service project offers currently KDE 4.x packages as they are under development for openSUSE 11.3. These are releases from the KDE project with openSUSE patches. They should be mostly usable, but have bugs. Feedback is highly appreciated. Especially testing for regressions over the STABLE repository is recommended.

To minimize the risk, you should not update as soon as there is a new build available but only if you encounter some bug and know that there is a fix in the new build.

Click on one of these One Click Install files to install the required packages and optionally register the repository for future. If you get a message that dependencies cannot be resolved, follow the KDE/Upgrade instructions instead.

Version: 11.2

Or you can choose to install a more basic KDE 4 desktop. Developers can also optionally install the KDE 4 build dependencies: all the packages you need to have installed for compiling KDE 4.4 from source (experts only).

Version: 11.1

Or you can choose to install a more basic KDE 4 desktop. Developers can also optionally install the KDE 4 build dependencies: all the packages you need to have installed for compiling KDE 4.4 from source (experts only).

Version: 11.0

Or you can choose to install a more basic KDE 4 desktop. Developers can also optionally install the KDE 4 build dependencies: all the packages you need to have installed for compiling KDE 4.4 from source (experts only).

Version: Factory

Or you can choose to install a more basic KDE 4 desktop. Developers can also optionally install the KDE 4 build dependencies: all the packages you need to have installed for compiling KDE 4.4 from source (experts only).

UNSTABLE KDE Project (Weekly Trunk Snapshots)

The KDE:KDE4:UNSTABLE:Desktop Build Service project contains unstable KDE development snapshots. Feedback is better directed upstream. These packages are provided as-is and are considered experimental and bleeding edge snapshots of KDE trunk. No time will be spent on fixing builds/bugs or helping with problems.

Starting KDE 4

If you're a KDE 3 user installing KDE 4 for the first time, this is how you start KDE 4. After installing the packages, your login manager now contains a "KDE 4" session to login to a full KDE 4 session. So if you have autologin enabled, you have to logout and choose the new session type from the Session Types menu.

Compiling from Source

To compile KDE 4 from source code, follow KDE/Developing/Guide.

• openSUSE specific instructions
• Instructions for building KDE4.

Performance Issues

KDE 4 is the first Free desktop environment to make use of advanced features such as compositing, alpha blending and scalable graphics at the core of the desktop, as opposed to only using a compositing window manager to apply 3D effects to traditional windows and desktop furniture. This has exposed a number of performance problems in video drivers and other Linux graphics subsystems. A year after the initial KDE 4 release, the situation has improved greatly, but the following resources may be useful to find the best drivers and settings for your hardware:

• KDE Graphics Performance Tips
• KWin 4.0 Release Notes
• There seems to be an issue with the fglrx driver and KDE4, which causes windows to be painted/repainted very slow on KDE4, while this does not occur on KDE3. It doesn't matter if compositing effects are turned on or off in KDE4. Using the free radeon or radeonhd drivers seems not to cause such performance problems. You may have to blacklist the 'fglrx' driver in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, to prevent it from being loaded automatically on bootup. If you change your xorg.conf to use the radeon or radeonhd driver, but the fglrx module is still loaded (even if it is no used) you might encounter those performance problems in KDE4.
• But also be aware without the performance provided by the fglrx driver, compositing may shut down on its own due to "insufficient resources" when using cube rotation with the radeon or radeonhd driver. When this occurs, you will receive a dialog box telling you what has happened. Bottom line, a solutions needs to be found to enable ati cards to successfully run the fglrx driver to avoid problems with compositing in kde4.

Most Annoying Bugs/Troubleshooting

Please note that some issues may be resolved already. Check for system updates first.
For more information, check the KDE Bug Tracking system; the most hated bugs and the most severe bugs

Corrupted desktop

When updating from KDE 4.0 or 4.1 to 4.2 the desktop, i.e. panel etc. can get corrupted. If this happens you have to reset the plasma configuration to its defaults. This will cause the loss of all customisation you did with the desktop and its panels.

Open a konsole and execute the folowing commands as user:

kquitapp plasma
rm ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma*
plasma

If you are using KDE 4.3 you have to replace plasma by plasma-desktop. The correct plasma restart on KDE 4.3 is:

kbuildsycoca4
kquitapp plasma-desktop >/dev/null 2>&1
kstart plasma-desktop & >/dev/null 2>&1

If the corruption prevents you from accessing the panel, you can use ALT+F2 and start konsole from there.

Sound

If sound does not work, e.g. in amarok, check that you have all needed codecs installed. You can use the one-click install on opensuse-community.org.

Package dependency issues

If you get package dependency issues when trying to update, make sure that your KDE repos have a higher priority, i.e. lower number, than e.g. your oss or update repo. Use zypper dup to update which will remove obsolete packages and install those that replace them.

Some packages from KDE 4.0 or 4.1 might not exist anymore in KDE > 4.2, in that case you have to remove them. Talk:KDE/KDE4 might give you some hints.

Further, if you have applications installed, such as koffice2 that are not part of KDE:Factory/42/UNSTABLE but of the Playground or Community repos, you have to add the corresponding repos before you try to update via one-click. Otherwise e.g. koffice will require an older version of KDE than the one you want to upgrade to and cause a dependency issue.

YaST Hangs

There is a problem starting YaST with the new Qt/KDE if you don't have a login shell as root (in other words, if you do "su" instead of "su -" for example). The symptom is that YaST does not show any Qt UI (note the control center works, just launching any YaST module hangs).

The problem seems to be that it wants to contact the user dbus instance, but doesn't have permissions for it. If you get a login shell as root, it won't try to do that, and then everything works.

KDE 4 Versions released with openSUSE

• openSUSE 11.2 includes KDE 4.3.1 packages which will be updated to 4.3.5 via an offical update.
• openSUSE 11.1 includes KDE 4.1.3 packages.
• openSUSE 11.0 included KDE 4.0.4 packages.
• openSUSE 10.3: The openSUSE 10.3 CD and DVD and default repositories were released containing a preview of KDE 4. At that time, the KDE Team worked on the base technologies of KDE 4. openSUSE 10.3 included a KDE3 desktop with single KDE4 application.
• openSUSE Factory currently contains the KDE 4.4 development packages (identical to KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop).

Package Naming

The packaging of KDE 4 is more fine-grained than with KDE 3. Applications are packaged individually and named using the form kde4-<appname>; the kde4- prefix is to avoid confusion with the KDE3 equivalent. The module packages, i.e. kdenetwork4, kdepim4, etc (with the exception of kdelibs4 and kdebase4) are usually empty and exist only because of the corresponding debuginfo packages. By installing them, all subpackages derived from them containing the actual applications are installed.

See Also

• KDE/Ideas/11.3
• KDE/Ideas/11.2
• KDE/Ideas/11.1
• What features is KDE4 missing when compared to KDE3