Installing and Setting Up KDE 3

KDE is the K Desktop Environment, a popular choice with many Linux users. KDE is sometimes depicted as "Windows like" because it has a panel at the bottom of the screen. This version of KDE is quite old, but very stable, which many people like. If you want KDE 4, the newest version of KDE, see this tutorial.

Installation

KDE 3 has been removed from Arch's default repositories and replaced with KDE 4. If you still want KDE 3, the KDEmod team are still providing it in their "legacy" repository. For more information and how to install it, see this thread at the KDEmod forums:

http://kdemod.ath.cx/bbs/viewtopic.php?id=892

Setting up KDE

You will need to start DBUS and HAL for KDE to work properly. Open up /etc/rc.conf as root with your favourite text editor and scroll down to the line near the bottom that says "DAEMONS". Change it to look like this:
DAEMONS=(.. hal ..)
If you want a login manager (KDM), you can get it to start up automatically for you. Open up /etc/inittab as root with your favourite text editor. Look for the part that looks like this:
# Boot to console
id:3:initdefault:
# Boot to X11
#id:5:initdefault:
Change it to this:
# Boot to console
#id:3:initdefault:
# Boot to X11
id:5:initdefault:
Now scroll down to the bottom and uncomment the following line:
x:5:respawn:/opt/kde/bin/kdm -nodaemon
Now whenever you boot Arch Linux, KDM will start automatically! Now reboot your computer, login and start using KDE!

If you are using sudo...
You will need to make a kdesurc file to tell kdesu (program to put before graphical root programs e.g. "kdesu kuser") to use sudo and not su. With your favourite text editor as root, open /opt/kde/share/config/kdesurc and put in
[super-user-command]
super-user-command=sudo

Removing KDE 3

If you don't want KDE3 anymore, there is one simple command to remove everything related to it. Just run
pacman -Rsc kdemod3-kdelibs