Filling my Technological Void|Learning to Adapt to new Technology…… The Hard Way.

Well recently I was getting bored with Gnome so I decided to try my luck at installing KDE. Amazingly the process seemed much more easier than I thought it would be. I’ve given the process as shown below and heres a picture of my desktop in KDE.

Now lets go to the install procedure. In order to install KDE you need to install three packages.

• kde

• kde-core

• kubuntu-desktop

Before you type install this I must warn you that to install KDE you definitely need a good Internet connection or else the process will take ages. Even with the DVD edition of Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon I had to download 240 MB of data and then do 65 MB of updates after I installed KDE. So if your connection is like mine and limited to the amount of data you download then you might want to take care you don’t exceed your limitations.

To install the above packages issue the command shown below.


sudo apt-get install kde kde-core kubuntu-desktop

The install process will take some time for it to complete. On my system it required me to install 372 packages as shown in the picture below. The number you have to install might vary.

During the installation you will be prompted to use either gdm or kdm if you plan on using Gnome just keep it as gdm. You can aways change this setting later. After installation I rebooted but I think you can logout and use KDE as well. Anyway I found two places where you can switch to KDE.

The first place is when you boot your system and you reach the login screen. You should see an Options button which you can click on select Sessions. There you can select either KDE or Gnome. ON selectign Kde . You will receive another dialog confirming if you want to set it as the default Session or to use it just for that Session . Choose the appropiate option and then login.

Secondly, within Gnome you can go to System > Adminstration > Login Window and then you can select the Session you would like to use.

Once you do that and login you should be at your Default KDE Desktop . Ive changed my wallpaper to get the Desktop shown above. Hope this helps someone out there.

The main page I referred to get KDE configured on my system can be found here.