KDE 4.0.0 emergency FAQ
From Software libre para los países en desarrollo
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- You're free to edit this FAQ to amend any question if you know a better answer or if you see a typo.
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- People have already posted this page to Digg and Reddit. Feel free to upvote those stories if you want to help fellow KDErs.
- But the most important part is, if you're experiencing an issue, please report it to the KDE bug tracker, bugs.kde.org!
Here [1] is an excellent overview of KDE 4.0.0, what to expect from it, and why it was released when it was, "straight from the horses' mouth", as it were :)
Where do I download / How do I install KDE4?
It all depends on your distribution. The official KDE 4 info page has instructions on how to get KDE 4 for the most popular distros, though -- scroll down to Binary packages.
There's also a Windows development push, but it's not as far advanced.
Why can't I auto-hide/ resize the panel? Can I add a new panel?
Unfortunately, configuration of the Plasma Panel via the UI didn't make it in time for the 4.0 feature-freeze, but you can bet these features will be re-instated for 4.1. Some have reported success with modifying ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-appletsrc while plasma is not running, but it's best to wait until someone writes a proper guide.
Note that these features are currently unavailable purely because Plasma is a complete re-write of the old desktop (which consisted of kdesktop, kicker, etc) and these features simply haven't been re-added yet - there is no conspiracy to "dumb-down" KDE!
Can I make the taskbar show only tasks from the current desktop?
Again, the Plasma panel and some of the associated widgets were still in their infancy for 4.0.0, and this was not implemented in time. It is now done in trunk/, and should be in KDE 4.1.
Where has my panel disappeared to?!
See this FAQ.
How do I add icons, pager etc to the panel?
Drag widgets from the Add Widgets dialog onto the panel. For app launchers, open kickoff, right-click on the app you want, and choose to add it to the panel.
Dragging from the Desktop onto the Panel is as yet unsupported, as is re-arranging the widgets on the panel.
Global shortcuts (ALT+F2 for KRunner, ALT+Tab, etc) aren't working?!
Several people have mentioned this. This is an unexpected bug, it could be that:
- kded is not running, or
- that the GlobalAccel KDED module is not loaded.
The latter issue can be determined by issuing
qdbus org.kde.kded
from konsole and seeing if KdedGlobalAccel appears in the output. If you get Service 'org.kde.kded' does not exist. you may issue
kded4
to restart the daemon, followed by
qdbus org.kde.kded /kded loadModule kdedglobalaccel
to try to load the module. If KdedGlobalAccel does not appear, then you have this problem, a fix isn't know, yet.
If keyboard shortcuts still don't work after these steps, delete the file: ~/.kde4/share/config/kglobalshortcutsrc and then open the keyboard shortcuts page in system settings. The shortcuts should now work, although they will be reset to the defaults.
There is a bug report filed at bugs.kde.org
When is the next release in the KDE4 Series?
The next release will be 4.0.1, which will be mainly bug fixes and is slated for tagging at the end of January with a release likely following near the beginning of February. Further 4.0.x bugfix releases will appear fairly regularly. The next "big" feature release will be 4.1. There is no Release Schedule for 4.1 yet, but the concensus seems to be that it will be released somewhere between July and September, inclusive.
Does Konqueror use WebKit?
Konqueror in 4.0.0 "uses" KHTML - the quotes are there because Konqueror simply embeds whichever component ("KPart") advertises itself as being a web-browser component. This means it should be possible to implement a WebKit-based KPart as an alternative to KHTML without Konqueror having to be modified. Such a KPart is currently under development.
Note that, as a core part of kdelibs, KHTML is still actively supported and will remain the default HTML rendering engine until further notice.
Is KDE 4.0.0 suitable for regular end-users?
This is debatable - my own personal opinion is that, unless you are willing to put up with some rough edges and missing features, and to get filing bug reports, you might find that 4.1 is a better fit for you. Again, see here (especially the "Eat Your Children" remarks) and here for more info.
Is KDEPIM (Kontact, KMail etc) available for KDE 4.0.0?
A KDE4 port of KDEPIM did not make it for 4.0, unfortunately, although you can of course use the KDE3 version. A nice bit of info regarding the plans for KDEPIM for KDE4 can be found here.
Why is KWin's 3D stuff slower than Compiz Fusion?
This actually isn't necessarily the case - it seems to depend a lot on hardware configuration. But anyway, Compiz has a substantial head-start on kwin_composite from the point of view of developer time and testing, which would explain the disparity. There's no reason why kwin_composite shouldn't get faster and smoother as KDE4 progresses.
There is a lot of KWin-specific information, including a "performance tip" for nVidia users, available here.
Is KDE4 faster or slower than KDE3?
The jury is still out on this one as a) 4.0.0 is only the initial release and is bound to have some unoptimised parts and b) it's very hard to measure speed objectively (although there is a lot of commentary on Jos's series of blogs. Memory usage is slightly easier to quantify: currently, it seems that, contra to earlier reports that KDE4.0.0 used 39% less memory than its predecessor (see Lubos and Thiago's comments), that KDE4.0.0, with compositing on, might currently actually use more. Since KDE3 was not the memory-guzzler that people have always assumed it to be, however, even if it uses "more", it will still run quite well on less-than-top-of-the-range hardware.
Why does my favorite GTK or GNOME application look ugly under KDE4?
I don't know much about this one, but I've seen it asked a lot; if someone could fill in the details, that would be great. There is a bug report here.
It's possible that the GNOME preferences daemon (GConf) is failing to start up, and causing GNOME applications to run with the default settings. Try opening one of the GNOME control center applets -- that should start the daemon automatically and cause apps to pick up their configuration (including looks).
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/gtk-kde4?content=74689
With KDE 4.1 you can install a gtk-qt-engine-kde4 which (at least under Kubuntu) makes it possible to configure the look & feel of gtk applications from systemsettings similar to KDE 3. Just install the package and perhaps restart KDE. Then you will be able to select something like "use qt style" in the "systemsettings/style/gtk applications" tab.
Can't Plasma launch things?
Plasma's launchers (desktop app launchers/folders, apps added to the panel by right-clicking and adding from the menu) don't launch. Clicking on them does highlight them while clicked, but nothing happens. Launching icons from kickoff works fine. Is this just not implemented yet? It seems like a big oversight, if not -- I thought it would be fairly easy to run a command, with one API call.
Answer: This should work, so is likely a bug with your distro.
Moving icons on the panel?
This is not yet implemented.
ESD and soundcards don't work?
Phonon complains that my main sound card doesn't work, and ghosts it out. It also fails to use KDE. All that works is my USB (digital) audio headset. Is this a misconfiguration on my part, or is sound device detection/use just flakey at the moment?
