KDE

KDE is Article description::a free software community, producing a wide range of applications including the popular Plasma desktop environment.

Gentoo support for the KDE project is excellent, with comprehensive packaging of KDE Frameworks 5, Plasma 5, and Applications, as well as a wide array of other miscellaneous KDE-based software.

Profile
Choosing an appropriate, although not required, is recommended as it sets a number of global and package-specific USE flags to ease installation and ensure a smooth KDE experience.

In order to choose the most suitable profile, first list what's available:

Then, select the right profile, substituting  with the appropriate profile number:

For Plasma 5 desktop environment choose  with  or   with. Note that other USE flag combinations than set by the profile may technically be possible (especially if selected applications are run instead of a full KDE Plasma desktop environment), but may be unsupported, untested, or lead to unexpected loss of functionality.

Services
Default choices of these services will be pulled in automatically - by the installation steps in the following chapters - depending on the selection made earlier, but still need to be set up properly before starting KDE Plasma for the first time. For deviating from the defaults, it is recommended to install them in advance of KDE Plasma or KDE Release Service via  so that  will take them into account. Follow the links for information how to set up these services.

Session tracker
Choose exactly one of:


 * : Standalone logind package, default for profile, extracted from systemd project for use with OpenRC or other init systems.
 * : Uses the session tracker part of systemd. Users of systemd do not need to take any other initiative here.

Device manager
Choose exactly one of:


 * : Enables support for udev Linux dynamic and persistent device naming.
 * : Fork of udev for better compatibility with older kernels and various toolchains. No longer maintained by Gentoo, discouraged.
 * : Uses the device manager part of systemd. Users of systemd do not need to take any other initiative here.

Miscellaneous

 * : Enables use of the D-Bus message bus system.
 * : Enables the polkit framework for controlling privileges for system-wide services.
 * : Enables support for some storage related services.

X server
Read and follow the instructions in the X server article to setup the X environment.

Plasma
Plasma 5 is the current generation of KDE's desktop environment, based on Qt 5 and KDE Frameworks 5.

USE flags
The package provides the full Plasma 5 desktop, configurable by a wealth of USE flags:

Emerge
Alternatively, provides a very basic desktop, leaving users free to install only the extra packages they require - or rather, figure out missing features on their own.

Display manager
(Simple Desktop Display Manager) is the recommended login manager and is pulled in automatically via by default. This is the preferred option. Alternatively, can be used and pulled in by setting USE flag   for. Change the setting accordingly in. Also, be sure to read through the page if further issues appear.

No display manager
Plasma can be started the old-fashioned way with, but extra care needs to be taken to ensure it gets a valid session.

When using, Plasma can be launched with

This can be added to a user's profile file which will be executed when logging in:

Widgets
Many useful widgets are in the package (already pulled in by ):

System tray
Plasma 5 uses the StatusNotifier specification for systray icons. As not all applications have been ported to the new system, some workarounds exist, and Plasma 5 has a means to convert old xembed-based system tray icons to StatusNotifier icons.

Legacy support is enabled by activating  for, which is pulling in.

Pidgin
requires. After install, the Ubuntu Indicator plugin can be found under Tools | Plugins.

KWallet
Many users will be introduced to, Plasma's encrypted password storage, while adding a (wireless) network connection after login or adding E-Mail accounts in.

For managing KWallets, importing and exporting passwords, there is :

KWallet auto-unlocking
provides a mechanism to avoid being subsequently asked for access to kwallet after login.

It requires the following setup:
 * For KWallet security, use classic blowfish encryption instead of GPG
 * Choose same password for login and kwallet
 * Configure a display manager with support for PAM - both and  fulfill that requirement:

Disabling KWallet
To disable the KWallet subsystem completely, edit the following file:

SSH/GPG Agent startup/shutdown scripts
ssh-agent scripts are located in and. Shutdown scripts require executable bit set because they are not sourced. The article provides more information about this.

Non-root user authentication for dialogs
Some KDE dialogs such as printers, adding wireless networks and adding users require administrator authentication. This is handled through and operates independently from. By default in Gentoo, the root account is the only administrator, and so even if a user account can run root commands through, authentication in these KDE dialogs will fail.

Adding wireless networks using is allowed by a polkit rule which is part of the Gentoo package and already allows access for every user in the group plugdev. For other dialogs the behavior must be configured manually: If all users of the group wheel are required to be administrators, create a copy of starting with a number lower than 50, and edit the line  to the following:

The wiki page provides more details on rules configuration.

Run GUI applications with root privileges
KDE Plasma has a utility in order to start graphical programs with root privileges. It is provided by - if built with USE flag , a graphical frontend to  is installed. This requires, and only works within X.

Remember to rebuild the package to pick up the changes:

It can be used by invoking either from KRunner or a terminal emulator:

A message dialog will be displayed prompting for the root password.

Files
XDG standard directories are being used for KDE Plasma and KDE applications:


 * (defaults to ) - Configuration files
 * (defaults to ) - Application data

Removal
The first step to remove KDE Plasma and its dependencies is to unmerge. This will not yet remove any files from the installation, so the desktop environment will keep running:

In a next step it makes sense to scan directory for any KDE Plasma specific entries in,  and  and clean them up.

Finally, run the command to uninstall any Plasma packages and their dependencies. It would make sense to quit any running Plasma session beforehand:

Applications
Release Service consists of various applications and supporting libraries based on Qt 5/KDE Frameworks 5.

Available versions
KDE Release Service is divided in the following meta packages:

Installation
The package provides the full Release Service bundle:

If not all the packages are required, one or several smaller meta packages from the list above may be picked instead. Alternatively, it is possible to set to reduce the number of applications installed by.

Localization
Plasma-5 and Applications are shipping their per-package. Enable desired localization in systemsettings.

KDE PIM
KDE PIM is a whole suite of applications to manage personal information including mail, calendar, contacts and more. It has several optional runtime dependencies to extend its functionality:


 * Virus detection:
 * Spam filtering: or

Frameworks
KDE Frameworks 5 is a collection of libraries and software frameworks that provide the foundation for KDE Plasma 5 and KDE Applications, but may be leveraged by any Qt application.

As Frameworks are mostly libraries and provide little user functionality, it's not necessary to install them manually - the required packages will be pulled in automatically as dependencies.

More KDE software
The most important KDE applications are in the Gentoo ebuild repository and many are located in the kde-apps and kde-misc categories.

Troubleshooting
Refer to the sub-article.