Get going with KDE and KDM

• 1. Introduction.
• 2. The way off the elephant.
• 3. Using the system
• 4. Configuring KDM and KDE


• Adding users
• Getting packages

1. Introduction.

KDM is a display manager that comes with KDE. It is a replacement for xdm. Obviously you have to install KDE from packages, which is the recommended method for adding applications. You also need a working X setup.

Although you can almost configure KDM without using any UNIX console text editor, it is better to learn some vi or another editor you can use in a console. But if you don't want to, you could do it all from X. Once you are in KDE you can use a graphical text editor like "Kate".

2. The way of the elephant.

This is a 10-step list to get a working KDE desktop. The use of a KDE text editor is a "heavyweight" way to edit configuration files, hence the name of this chapter.

• 1. Download packages.

• 2. Install packages

• 3. Start KDE as root with startkde
  The first thing you will see is the KDE desktop wizard. Here you can set your language, style and behaviour, but remember, this is the only time you will use KDE as root. Every user gets this wizard the first time they use KDE.

• 4. Start a text editor. "Start -> Editors -> (Kate)"
  Start a console. "Start -> System -> Konsole"

• 5. Run "/usr/local/bin/genkdmconf" in the console.

• 6. Let KDM start at boot time.
  Edit "/etc/rc.local" and add this at the bottom:

  	kdm_flags=""
  
  	if [ "X${kdm_flags}" != X"NO" ]; then
  	   /usr/local/bin/kdm ${kdm_flags} ;
  	   echo -n 'kdm '
  	fi
  

• 7. Add a normal user.

• 8. Configure sudo.
  Use visudo to configure sudo. It might be useful to uncomment one of the following two lines by removing the "#":

  # %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
  or
  # %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
  

  The first line allows all members of the group wheel to use sudo. The second one will not ask for passwords.

• 9. Configure KDM. This is optional for now, but since we are in KDE anyway...
  With "Start -> Settings -> Configuration Center" you can configure KDM and KDE.
  In the submenu "System -> Management" you can configure KDM.

• 10. Close KDE and reboot the machine.

3. Using the system

To use a UNIX-like operating system is not hard, especially if you can work in a nice graphical environment. This does not mean that all configuration or administration work can be done with graphical tools. In fact more powerful configuration can be done by manually editing configuration files. At least the documentation is more accessible and you can use copy and paste more easily.

Some tips and disciplines for using OpenBSD:

• Do not log in as root. Use sudo instead, or if necessary use su. With the default configuration of KDM, it is not possible to login at X as root.

• To use sudo, you put sudo in front of the command that you want to run.
  machine$ sudo vi /etc/rc.local
  sudo has a cache where it stores passwords for a short period of time. This means that after you have entered a password it won't be asked again for a while.

4. Configuring KDM and KDE

• If you want to start KDE standard from xinit, edit /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.
  Change "fvwm || xterm" to "/usr/local/bin/startkde"

• 3. To start KDE from the command line as a normal user you will have to add the path to the X binaries "/usr/X11R6/bin/" to your shell profile.

  for sh/ksh ".profile"
  for csh ".csh"

• Some options are not available (anymore) through the configure interface within KDE. For me it was necessary to edit /usr/local/share/config/kdm/kdmrc by hand and change shutdown=halt -p to shutdown=shutdown -hp now

Adding users

You should never login as root, so you have to create a normal user with useradd. When you run it for the first time you can set the default options. Just press Enter for each prompt to use the default options. If this is done, you have to:

• 1: Enter an user name.
• 2: Enter the full name for informational use.
• 3: Enter a shell. sh or ksh will be a good choice.
• 4: Enter user ID number. This number is used for file permissions.
• 5: Enter main group. If you want to use another group, it has to be in the /etc/groups file. You must add your group to this file before you can use it. useradd will add the user names to it.
• 6: Enter additional groups. Here you can make the user a member of other groups.
  One group which is necessary to use sudo is "wheel". You can also enter other groups by separating the names with a space.
• 7: Enter Login class. Select staff if the entered user must have sysadmin rights. (better explanation follows)
• 8: Enter password. Twice.
• 9: Check if every thing is alright and press yes if it is good

Getting packages

The easiest way to get all the right packages is use an official OpenBSD CD, download them all or use the right options for pkg_add. If you make a personal mirror for all packages you can install packages more quickly later on and get on with exploring OpenBSD.
If you decided to download all packages, make a directory on a partition with 2GB of free space.
machine# mkdir -p /path/to/package/dir
Change to this directory
machine# cd /path/to/package/dir/
and use this command.
machine# ftp ftp://ftp.your_mirror.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.2/packages/i386/*
This will download all packages available for the i386 architecture on ftp to your disk.

installing packages

kdebase
kdelibs
kdeaddons
kdeadmin
kdeartwork
kdeedu
kdegames
kdegraphics
kdemultimedia
kdenetwork
kdepim
kdesdk
kdetoys
kdeutils
kdeaccessibility

Language packs look like this: kde-i18n-language   kde-i18n-en

Updated to 4.2 and modified by Fred Crowson.