Chapter 5. Examining the KDE Desktop

In This Chapter

  • Walking through KDE

  • Setting up your workspace

 

A bus station is where a bus stops.

A train station is where a train stops.

On my desk, I have a workstation. . .

 
 --Steven Wright

In Chapter 4 you get to see how the GNOME desktop works; this chapter discusses the other popular desktop in the Linux world — KDE. The KDE desktop environment provides a graphical interface to your Linux distribution using features commonly found in Microsoft Windows systems. It's available as a software package in Fedora and Ubuntu, and is the main desktop used in Kubuntu, a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu, but focused on the KDE desktop. This chapter walks through the KDE desktop features, showing you how to work your way around the KDE desktop and get the most from your workspace.

Tip

If you installed both the KDE and GNOME desktops in Fedora (see Chapter 3), you can switch between the two when you log in. Select the arrow button in the bottom panel next to the GNOME or KDE text. Whichever text displays is the desktop you log into.

The KDE Desktop Basics

KDE desktop was first released in 1996 as the Kool Desktop Environment, but these days it tries to be a little more sophisticated and prefers to be called just the K Desktop Environment (but it's still pretty cool). It quickly became popular among Linux beginners because it provides a Windows-like interface for your Linux desktop. Figure 5-1 shows the KDE desktop used in Fedora.

Figure 5-1. The Fedora 11 KDE ...

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