Linux Desktop Hacks

148

|

Chapter 5, KDE Desktop

#44 Run KDE on the Bleeding Edge

HACK

You might need to be root to run this command when you are installing it to

a normal system binaries directory, such as /usr/bin. If you used the

--prefix

command in the configure script, your files are installed to that directory

instead. Remember that you will need to run each command for each mod-

ule you want to compile.

Running KDE

With your new development version compiled, it is advised that you back

up your existing KDE configuration before you run the new version; it is not

uncommon for new development code to eat previous configuration files.

KDE stores its configuration in the .kde directory within your home direc-

tory. A simple way to back up this directory is to rename it to another name.

When you start your new development KDE version, the .kde directory will

be re-created with the new configuration files.

To run KDE, set your

PATH environment variable to include the path where

KDE is installed (as discussed earlier), and then edit your .xinitrc file and

add

exec startkde to it. This will load KDE when you run startx.