How to install KDE 4

Salix uses the XFCE Desktop Environment by default, but KDE 4 is available from all Slackware repositories and it's very easy to install. This how-to was based on a Salix "basic" installation, so it should work for any system that already has Xorg installed.

Preparing for the installation

Make sure you are using one of the mirrors of the Slackware repository that Salix provides that have dependency support. If you have installed Salix 13.0.1 or newer, you'll get them by default. If you have installed from the 13.0 iso, then you can reinstall slapt-get, run dotnew and accept use of the slapt-getrc.new file.

Installing KDE

You only need to do:

 slapt-get -u
 slapt-get -i kdebase kdebase-runtime kdebase-workspace

About 250MB of packages will be downloaded that will take up about 750MB of space after installation.

Starting KDE

KDE doesn't install any files that will make it appear in the GDM login screen. KDE is after all a Slackware package and GDM is not a part of Slackware. But you can log into KDE with either one of the following ways:

• Using GDM: you need to inform GDM that KDE is present, so you can copy the session file to where GDM can find it:

 cp /usr/share/apps/kdm/sessions/kde.desktop /usr/share/xsessions/

• Using KDM: You can use KDM instead of GDM of course. Just remove GDM from your system and every time the system goes into init 4, KDM will be used instead:

 removepkg gdm

That's it! You're ready to log in your shiny KDE 4 desktop!