Starting KDE from the command prompt
To start KDE from the command
prompt, you first need to modify your .xinitrc
file:
cat > ~/.xinitrc << EOF
# Begin .xinitrc
exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session startkde
# End .xinitrc
EOF
Note
If you are not using ConsoleKit,
remove ck-launch-session
.
You can now start KDE using the startx command.
Starting KDE at boot
KDE comes with a graphical login interface called KDM (the KDE
Display Manager), which provides a customizable graphical login at
boot. To use KDM, you need to edit your /etc/inittab
file (as the root
user). First, setup run-level 5 to start
KDM (adjust the path to kdm according to your system):
cat >> /etc/inittab << EOF
kd:5:respawn:/opt/kde/bin/kdm
EOF
Additionally, you need to change the default run-level from 3 to 5:
sed -i 's#id:3:initdefault:#id:5:initdefault:#' /etc/inittab
You can now restart your system and see the KDE login screen.
Installing further KDE packages
Every subsequent package can be built while having KDE up and running, but remember to keep
$KDE_PREFIX
and $QTDIR
set.