Starting KDE

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

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.