# Configuring &kde;

How do I set the language used by &kde;?

There are two ways to set the language &kde; uses in the messages it will display:

Using the &kde; Control Center

- Fire up the &kde; Control Center and select Regional & Accessibility followed by Country/Region & Language. You can select your language and location here. If &kde; cannot find a translation in the first language chosen, it will fall back on the default language. This is usually (American) English by default.

  Using the &kde; Control Center is the preferred way of choosing languages in &kde;.

Using the `KDE_LANG` environment variable

- The second method uses the standard locale setting on your system. To change the language, simply set the environment variable `KDE_LANG` accordingly. For example, if your shell is bash, execute ``export` `KDE_LANG`=de` to set German as the language used.

Is there any keyboard switcher for international keyboards for &kde;?

Yes, you can configure it using the &kde; Control Center Regional & Accessibility Keyboard Layout configuration page.

How do I replace the standard text login screen with the &kde; login screen?

Your distribution/&UNIX; flavor may have its own setup tools to change this (⪚ YaST on &SuSE; &Linux;). This will be the safest way to enable the &kde; login screen. However, if for some reason you do not wish to use these tools, the following instructions may be useful.

First, you need to change to the xdm runlevel (runlevel 5 on &RedHat; and &SuSE; systems) by editing your `/etc/inittab` file. In the file, you should have a line saying `id:3:initdefault:`. Change it to `id:5:initdefault:`. Now, at the end of the file, comment out the following line: `x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/X11/xdm -nodaemon` and replace it with `x:5:respawn:`/opt/kde/`bin/kdm -nodaemon`.

The location of &kdm; may differ on your system.

For changes to take effect immediately, type `init 5` (for &RedHat; systems) at the shell prompt.

It is risky to initiate a graphical login without checking beforehand whether it works. If it fails to work, you would be in for a hard time getting back....

For FreeBSD, you should edit the file `/etc/ttys` and change one of the lines that look like

    ttyv8   "/usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon"  xterm   off secure

to instead say `ttyv8 "/usr/local/bin/kdm -nodaemon" xterm off secure`.

I would like to click the &LMB; anywhere on the desktop and have the K menu displayed.

Open the &kde; Control Center and choose Desktop Behavior. You can now choose the behavior of mouse clicks on the desktop. To have the K menu open from a single &LMB; click, change the entry labeled Left button to say Application Menu.

Where do I find information regarding &kde; themes?

Visit http://www.kde-look.org for a wide range of KDE themes and theming resources.

How do I change &MIME; Types?

If you are using &konqueror;, do this instead: first, open a &konqueror; window and choose Settings Configure Konqueror, then File Associations. Find the type you want to change (⪚ `text/english` or `image/gif`), and set the application preference order to whatever you want.

&kde; (&kdm;) does not read my `.bash_profile`!

The login managersxdm and &kdm; do not run a login shell, so `.profile`, `.bash_profile`, &etc; are not sourced. When the user logs in, xdm runs `Xstartup` as root and then `Xsession` as user. So the normal practice is to add statements in `Xsession` to source the user profile. Please edit your `Xsession` and `.xsession` files.

How do I use &TrueType; fonts in &kde;?

You need to install &TrueType; font support into your &X-Window; configuration. Please take a look at x.themes.org for the fonts, and xfsft: &TrueType; Font Support For X11 or X-&TrueType; Server Project Home Page for the font servers.

If you have a bunch of &TrueType; fonts from &Microsoft; &Windows;, edit the `XF86Config` file to get the fonts from the font folder. Then just tell &kde; to use these new fonts with the font administrator utility.

Is it possible to enter, show and work with the Euro Symbol in &kde;?

Yes and no. For details, look here: http://www.koffice.org/kword/euro.php.

How do I run a program at &kde; startup?

There are many ways to do that. If what you want to do is to run some scripts that would set some environment variables (for example, to start `gpg-agent`, `ssh-agent` and others), you can put these scripts into `$`KDEHOME`/env/` and make sure their names end in `.sh`. $`KDEHOME` is usually a folder named `.kde` (note the period at the beginning) in your home folder. If you want scripts to be executed for all &kde; users, you can put them under `$`KDEDIR`/env/`, where $`KDEDIR` is the prefix &kde; was installed to (you can find this out using the command ``kde-config` --prefix`).

If you wish to start a program after &kde; has started, you may want to use the `Autostart` folder. To add entries to the `Autostart` folder:

1. Open &konqueror;.

2. Select Go Autostart from the menubar.

3. Right-click in the window view area and select Create New File Link to Application

4. Click on the Application tab in the window that appears and enter the name of the command to run in the Command text box.

How can I allow more than one user to be logged in a at a time? Can &kde; do fast user switching?

To enable more than one user to log in at one time on the same computer (sometimes referred to as fast user switching) you need to tell the program that logs you in that it can use more than one session (or, in &X-Window; terms, display) at a time.

In &kde;, this program is called &kdm; which stands for &kde; Display Manager. If you are not using &kdm; as your login screen then you will need to consult the documentation for the software you are using on how to accomplish multiple sessions.

By default, this will be configured at installation time automatically if &kdm; supports virtual terminals on your system (currently Linux only). If it was not configured automatically, consult the &kdm; manual, section Specifying permanent &X-Server;s. After modifying kdmrc, you will have to let &kdm; know about it; just invoke `killall -HUP kdm`.