The K Desktop Environment

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6. What users should do when they first run the KDE Desktop.

6.1 Using the KDE Control Center to customize the desktop.

Once KDE is running, each user can customize their own KDE settings using the KDE control center: click on the icon for this on the panel, or click on "K --> KDE Control Center". You can also access individual settings by clicking on "K --> Settings".

6.2 Automatic configuration of non-KDE applications for KDE.

Also, each user should click on "K --> System --> Appfinder", which will run a program to search their path for various common non-KDE applications that may be on the system, and put entries for them (.kdelnk files) in the user's "K --> applnk --> Non KDE Apps" menu.

If your non-KDE application is not one which the "Appfinder" has been configured to seach for, you can still create your own KDE configuration file (.kdelnk file) to integrate it with your KDE desktop. This can be done using the KDE file manager kfm. See the section on the File Manager in the the KDE Help system ("K --> KDE Help") for instructions.

6.3 Using the KDE Help system.

Read "K --> KDE Help --> A Quick Start Guide to the Desktop" for more information on using and configuring KDE. (The default KDE configuration installed by "usekde" will have the KDE Help System opened on the initial desktop seen by a new user.)

More detailed information is available in the sections "Getting the most out of KDE"

6.4 Desktop icons for floppy and cdrom drives, and printers.

The default Desktop directory supplied by the kdebase RPM package, for usekde to install in the user's home directory, includes desktop icons for mounting/unmounting a floppy drive and a cdrom drive, and a printer icon (drag a document's icon from a kfm (K file manager) window to the printer icon to print it. It is quite likely that the system manager will have to carry out some customizations to make these work (the drives must be configured so the user has permission to mount them, for example).

See the section on the File Manager in the the KDE Help system ("K --> KDE Help") for further information.

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