A tour of the Linux KDE desktop

Introduction

This guided tour of the Linux KDE desktop can be used to help orientate a new Linux user or given to a person expressing interest in Linux as an idea of what a Linux desktop looks like. This tour is written for the KDE 3.2 desktop on Knoppix 3.4 but can be used with any Linux distribution that includes the KDE desktop. KDE is short for K Desktop Environment. For more information on getting hold of and running Knoppix see this page at tuxs.org. By the end of this article you should have an idea of where things are in KDE and be able to start a few everyday tasks. A printable PDF version is also available.

The Desktop

Once you have booted Linux, (logged in) and KDE has started you will see something similar to the screenshot below. This is the standard KDE desktop with a Knoppix background (you can change the background if you wish). The main desktop may have shortcuts to some applications, your hard drive and CD drive. Click these shortcuts once with the left mouse button to use them. As a general rule you only need to (left) click most things once in KDE. Right clicking with the mouse will open more options in some places - give it a go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Panel

At the bottom of the desktop is the "panel", this is where you will start most tasks in KDE.

Starting at the very left there is an "<" that you can use to hide or unhide the panel on the desktop. Click it once to hide the panel, and once again to unhide the panel.

Next is the "K" button. This is is probably the most useful item on the panel. Clicking it expands the K menu (screenshot) with your installed programs on. Most applications are grouped together in common categories such as "Office" or "Internet". To run a program, click the K, navigate to it and left click once. For example to run the OpenOffice.org Writer word processor click K > Office > OpenOffice.org > OpenOffice.org Writer.

Neighboring the K button on the right is the icon bar which contains shortcuts to a few of the most common applications. In the screenshot above the "pen and paper" icon displays the desktop, the "house" icon runs the Konquerer program (screenshot) which browses files on your hard drive, the "black computer screen" opens up a 'shell' program in which to type Linux commands (screenshot), the "globe" icon launches the Konquerer program to surf the internet (screenshot), the "dragon" starts the Mozilla web browser (screenshot) and the "birds" icon runs the OpenOffice.org productivity suite (screenshot). These application shortcuts have been added for you, you can remove ones you don't want and add different ones by right clicking and choosing either 'add' or 'remove'.

In roughly the middle of the panel are four squares representing the virtual desktops in KDE. Virtual desktops allow you to organize your open programs in to different screens so that you don't see them all at once. For example: on 'Desktop 1' I could have my Kmail email application that I always keep open, on 'Desktop 2' I could have Writer and Konquerer for a project I am researching and on 'Desktop 3' I could have an open card game of KPatience. To switch between the desktops just click one of the squares. 

On the far right you will see the time/date.

Applications

KDE includes lots and lots of applications as standard. In fact when you run KDE for the first time you should have almost all the programs you need to work on your computer already installed. There simply isn't enough time on this tour to do any kind of justice to all these applications so instead we will tell you what programs do some of the most common tasks and point you to some web resources to help you get started.

Internet/email/instant messaging. For surfing the internet you can use Konquerer (guide) (screenshot) or  Mozilla (guide) (screenshot). For email there is Kmail (guide). For instant messaging run Gaim (guide).

Office/productivity. To write documents you can use Kword (guide) or OpenOffice.org (guide) (screenshot).  To create spreadsheets there is Kspread or OpenOffice. For desktop publishing you can use Scribus (guide) and Quanta for writing HTML webpages. To view PDF files there is XPDF. For image manipulation there is the photoshop replacement GIMP (guide).

Entertainment. Xine for watching movies/videos (guide), Kscd for listening to CDs (guide) and Xmms to listen to music files (guide). K3b lets you burn CDs.

Getting More Help

This tour should familiarize you with the general layout of the KDE desktop. For more detailed help you can read the official KDE userguide or documentation, this elearn linux tutorial on Knoppix or this detailed review/how to at Distrowatch.