HOWTO KDE Desktop for the end-user

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1 Stable KDE
2 Unstable KDE
3 KDE 4.0
- 3.1 Uninstalling KDE 4.0
4 External Links

[edit] Stable KDE

Before emerging kde, set languages for internationalization, i.e. for English and French Canadian:

File: /etc/make.conf

LINGUAS="en fr_CA"
# use kdeenablefinal only if you have a lot of memory
USE="hal kdeenablefinal"

Note: Please refer to HOWTO Update KDE 3.3 to KDE 3.4 for more information on installing KDE, especially for versions equal to or higher than 3.4.

Note: Do not set the use flag "kdeenablefinal" if using distcc. See USE Flags explained for more info.

Code: Emerge KDE & auto-mounting components

emerge kde
emerge dbus hal
rc-update add dbus default
rc-update add hald default
echo "exec startkde" > ~/.xinitrc

Setup the display manager

File: /etc/conf.d/xdm

DISPLAYMANAGER="kdm"

Code: Setting KDM to run automatically

rc-update add xdm default

Further reading is available in the Gentoo Handbook.

[edit] Unstable KDE

If you want the unstable kde, then instead of emerging the kde package, set your package.keywords file accordingly, then emerge kde-meta.

First of all you have to add only one line to /etc/portage/package.keywords:

kde-base/kde-meta

And then execute this script:

Code: unmask_kde-meta.sh

 #!/bin/bash
 retval=0
 emerge -vp kde-meta &>/dev/null
 retval=$?
 while  [[$retval == 1]] ; do
        package=$(emerge -vp kde-meta |grep "^\-" | cut -f 2 -d " " | head -n 1)
        atom="~"
        echo "unmasking package $package"
        echo "$atom$package" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
        emerge -vp kde-meta &>/dev/null
        retval=$?
 done

Code: Emerging Unstable KDE

cd /usr/portage  # or wherever your PORTAGE_DIR is
for x in kde-*/*
  > do
  >    echo "${x} ~<arch>" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords #Replace <arch> with your architecture.
  > done
echo "sys-libs/pam ~<arch>" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords #Replace <arch> with your architecture.
echo "sys-apps/ivman ~<arch>" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords #Replace <arch> with your architecture.
emerge kde-meta

VeqIR's note: I have observed that it is best to run the second code block before the first, as the first code block sometimes tries to insert a line consisting of only "~" into package.keywords. If someone could verify this, it'd be appreciated.

Anupamsr note: I used this command to add every thing related to KDE 3 (i.e., all the stuff related to version number 3.x.x) It is to be noted that it is not calculated usig dependencies and so is not totally automatic. I used it to be completely sure.

Code: Unmasking KDE

 #!/bin/bash
 cd /usr/portage/kde-base
 ls */*3.*.* | sed 's/.ebuild//g' | sed 's/\// /g' | awk '{print "kde-libs/"$2" ~x86"}' | sed 's/-3.[0-9].[0-9]/ /g' | sed 's/-r[0-9]//g' | sed 's/  / /g' | uniq >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
 cd -

I just patched the first script a bit and it works for me now. Use it the same way as the first script, put "kde-base/kde-meta" into /etc/portage/package.keywords, and run it. This version of the script needs app-portage/eix. If anyone minds, just build a replacement for the eix command line in the workaround function. I've been a bit lazy, so it'll need a good bit of cleanup yet.

Code: unmask_kde-meta.sh

 #!/bin/bash
 retval=0
 START_PACKAGE="kde-base/kde-meta"
 EMERGE_COMMAND="emerge -vp --nospinner --color=n --quiet ${START_PACKAGE}"
 COMMENT_TO_ADD="# line added by $0, PID $$"
 ACCEPT_FLAG="~x86"

 function workaround {
 	package="~$(ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=${ACCEPT_FLAG} eix --nocolor --pure-packages --format-compact  '<category>()/<name>()-<bestshort>()' --compact -e $1 |sed -e 's/(~)//')
 }

 package="~some-category/some-package-0.0.1"
 pname="some-category/some-package"
 ${EMERGE_COMMAND} &>/dev/null
 retval=$?
 while  [[ $retval == 1 ]] ; do
 	lastpackage=$package
 	package=$(${EMERGE_COMMAND} | grep "\-" | cut -f 2 -d '"' | head -n 1)
 	if [[ "a$package" == "a" ]] ; then
 		echo "Error in the script? \$package would be empty."
 		exit -2;
 	fi
 	if [[ "$package" == "$lastpackage" ]] ; then
 		lastpname=$pname 
 		pname=$(echo "$package" |sed -e 's/\(\~\)\(.*\)\(\-[0-9].*\)/\2/')
 		workaround "$pname"
 		if [[ "$pname" == "$lastpname" ]] ; then
 			echo -e "The package cannot be merged, even after adding it to \
 your package.keywords file. \n 
 That probably means you need to check package.mask. \n \
 Please investigate $pname"
 			exit -1;
 		fi
 		
 		echo "Ok, that didn't work. Trying to add the latest available unstable version $package to package.keywords in   case the depending ebuild uses deprange."
 	fi
 	echo "adding package $package to /etc/portage/package.keywords"
 	echo "$package ${ACCEPT_FLAG} ${COMMENT_TO_ADD}" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
 	${EMERGE_COMMAND} &>/dev/null
 	retval=$?
 done

[edit] KDE 4.0

KDE 4.0.x is masked for testing. To test it, first unmask all of the KDE 4.0 packages by running the following script as root:

File: unmask_kde4.0.sh

#!/bin/bash
UM="/etc/portage/package.unmask"
cd /usr/portage/kde-base
for x in $(ls); do
  if [[ -n $(ls $x | grep 4.0 | xargs) ]]; then
    echo "kde-base/$x:kde-4" >> $UM
  fi
done
cd - > /dev/null
echo "kde-base/qimageblitz" >> $UM
echo "app-text/poppler" >> $UM
echo "app-text/poppler-bindings" >> $UM

Enable the new htmlhandbook and semantic-desktop USE flags if you wish. Then emerge KDE:

Code: Emerging KDE

emerge kde-meta

[edit] Uninstalling KDE 4.0

To uninstall KDE 4.0.x, run the following script as root:

File: unmerge_kde4.0.sh

#!/bin/bash
cd /usr/portage/kde-base
emerge -Cav $(\
  for x in $(ls); do
    if [[ -n $(ls $x | grep 4.0 | xargs) ]]; then
      echo "kde-base/$x:kde-4"
    fi
  done | xargs) kde-base/qimageblitz
cd - > /dev/null