Starting KDE

Starting KDE from the command prompt

To start KDE from the command prompt, you first need to modify your .xinitrc file:

cat > ~/.xinitrc << EOF
# Begin .xinitrc

exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session startkde

# End .xinitrc
EOF

You can now start KDE using the startx command.

Starting KDE at boot

KDE comes with a graphical login interface called KDM (the KDE Display Manager), which provides a customizable graphical login at boot. To use KDM, you need to create and enable a systemd unit by running the following commands as the root user:

cat > /lib/systemd/system/kdm.service << EOF &&
[Unit]
Description=K Display Manager
After=systemd-user-sessions.service

[Service]
ExecStart=$KDE_PREFIX/bin/kdm -nodaemon

[Install]
Alias=display-manager.service
EOF
systemctl enable kdm

You can now restart your system and see the KDE login screen.

Installing further KDE packages

Every subsequent package can be built while having KDE up and running, but remember to keep $KDE_PREFIX set.