KDE 4 Alpha 1

The first Alpha release of KDE 4 has been released and packages are available for Kubuntu Feisty. These are intended for developers only.

They install to /usr/lib/kde4 and can be installed alongside your existing KDE 3.

Kubuntu Feisty

• deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde4-3.90.1/ feisty main

These packages are available for i386 and amd64.

Instructions:

• Add the apt sources line above.
• Install kde4base-dev, this will uninstall the normal qt4 packages and install the qt4 kdecopy packages.
• These KDE 4 packages install to /usr/lib/kde4 so run:
  • export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/kde4/lib
  • export KDEDIR=/usr/lib/kde4
  • export PATH=/usr/lib/kde4/bin/:$PATH
  • export KDEHOME=~/.kde4
• Run some programmes. Konsole seems to work. Good luck.
• To avoid having to start a second X server for a full session install xserver-xephyr and run Xephyr :1; export DISPLAY=:1; xterm and run startkde in the Xerphyr xterm.
• To run it as a full session copy /usr/lib/kde4/share/apps/kdm/sessions/kde.desktop to /usr/share/xsessions/kde4.desktop, edit the Name entry in kde4.desktop to be called "KDE 4", put the four export lines at the top of /usr/lib/kde4/bin/startkde and start a new session in KDM with KDE 4.