End User FAQ for KDE systems

This page with frequently asked questions (FAQ) has been gathered from questions in the #kde IRC channel. This list isn't comprehensive and may grow.

Since this list might become quite long in the future, feel free to browse the table of contents below or use your browser's Find feature to search for a certain topic.

What about KDE 3?

Is KDE 3 going to be abandoned?

No. There is no EOL (end of life) planned for KDE 3. It will continue to exist and be used as long as there are people using it. However, there is no guarantee of bug fixes and maintenance for KDE 3.5 other than that given by your vendor and possible support contracts. Further development is not planned.

Is it necessary to upgrade to KDE 4?

KDE 3 will continue to exist and be used for a long time. But whether you will have to upgrade will mostly be dependent on your distribution's setup. Please consult with your distribution for more information.

If you wish to stay with KDE 3 and your distro moves on, there are still distros that use KDE 3.5. With time, of course, the number of these is diminishing. By now the most likely place to find KDE 3.5 is in the Enterprise Linux distros, such as CentOS, White Box or Scientific Linux.

Will I be able to keep using KDE 3 or KDE 3 apps?

Yes, you will be able to continue using KDE 3 or KDE 3 apps as long as the necessary dependencies are installed. As the changeover to KDE 4 software progresses some of those dependencies will be missing. However, at the same time, most applications are either getting new versions to run with the more up to date dependencies, or similar, new packages are being written.

How KDE 4 and KDE are set up depends on your distribution. Please consult with your distribution for more information. Some distributions allow both KDE3 and KDE 4 SC to be installed on the same system. However, since the release of KDE 4.3 that is less frequently found.

Some Common Questions

Will KDE browsers be using WebKit? How can I use WebKit in Konqueror?

Currently, there are no plans on replacing KHTML in Konqueror. KHTML continues to be developed actively. As Qt, since version 4.4 also offers webkit, KDE applications can make use of Webkit. A KPart that can be used in Konqueror instead of the KHTML KPart is being developed currently, but not ready for production use yet. KHTML is unlikely to be removed in the lifespan of the KDE SC 4.x series, due to compatibility policies, for one reason. It will be possible to use WebKit as an alternative viewer in Konqueror with the webkitkde project. The source code is available in KDE SVN Playground. Web browsers using webkit are being developed.

Why was the old style menu replaced by Kickoff?

The traditional application starting menu from KDE3 had various usability issues. First and foremost, people tend to use no more than 6-10 applications regularly. Having those applications buried in deep menu structures makes it a lot of effort to start them. Those favourite applications can with Kickoff be moved into their own tab so they're easilly accessible. Kickoff might, for new users be more complicated to use since the "browsing applications" usecase has a less central position. For mid- to long-term users, Kickoff will increase productivity for the most common cases.

For users who prefer the traditional application launcher menu, it can easily be changed by right-clicking on the Kickoff button and choosing "Switch to Classic Menu Style". However, doing that loses the Search facility that is in the new menus now available.

If you don't like Kickoff's click-on-everything style, try Lancelot

Why a new desktop implementation? The old one isn't broken.

The code in kicker, kdesktop and the minicli (The "Run Command" dialogue you get when you press ALT+F2) has been around for a long time. As user needs and technical capabilities shift, the code became unmaintainable and wasn't flexible enough to move KDE forward at a reasonable pace. Moreover, few people dared diving into kicker to extend it. When someone wanted to create a new panel implementation, it has happened multiple times that kicker was just copied and changed. This lead to various forks of kicker and additional maintainance burden for developers. While kicker and kdesktop used to look fine to casual users, they're pretty much a dead-end street in terms of feature development and long-standing, hard to fix bugs.

While Plasma has been rewritten from scratch, and therefore might not yet be able to fully replace kdesktop and kicker for some users, it offers a route to innovation, better collaboration between developers, designers and usability experts. Plasma technology is also built with different formfactors in mind, so it might run on your mobile phone, media center, internet tablet or whatever you can imagine in the future.

Helping the KDE Community

How can I help in development? Do I need to learn how to code?

There are many ways to help the KDE community, not only through programming. There are other areas of contribution that need talent of other kinds. All that's necessary is the desire to help and some commitment. Of course, if you want learn how to program in order contribute, we will be more than willing to get you started as well.

Some other ways to help include

End-user support - if you are experienced, consider joining a mailing list or the Forum to help support newer users.

If you are able to help with translation, consult this list to find a contact point.

English documentation is also needed, and here on Userbase is a good place to start.