Installation guide

40 Chapter 3. The KDE Desktop Environment

application. The navigation panel makes Konqueror an efﬁeient solution for users who wish to have

fast and easy access to all of their information.

3.7. Customizing KDE

KDE allows you to conﬁgure the desktop and your system to suit your needs. The KDE Control

Center lets you customize the look and behavior of the desktop. The following list explains some of

the conﬁguration options in detail.

File Browsing

This section lets you conﬁgure the Konqueror ﬁle manager and customize certain ﬁle operations.

You can also associate ﬁles to applications that you prefer (for example, assigning all MP3 ﬁles

to open in XMMS instead of the default player).

Look & Feel

This sections allows you to customize the visual aspect of your desktop environment. You can

customize background images and conﬁgure fonts, themes, icons, panel elements, screensavers,

and window header decorations. You can also customize mouse and keyboard events which

makes working with the desktop as efﬁcient for your needs as possible.

Note

KDE features support for smooth (anti-aliased) fonts. However, not all fonts are smooth by de-

fault. In order to have smooth fonts for your entire desktop (whether you are reading text ﬁles,

webpages, or text in menus and icons) you must choose fonts that are designed to be anti-

aliased, such as LucidaTypewriter or Courier).

Personalization

This section allows you to set country and language options to your particular locale. You can

also conﬁgure accessibility features such as audible and visual cues and keyboard/mouse cus-

tomization. You can also conﬁgure your shell prompt settings via the Konsole option. Privacy

and encryption settings can be conﬁgured via the Crypto option.

System

This section is an advanced administration interface. You will need your root password to con-

ﬁgure most of these options. This section allows you to conﬁgure system boot settings, Linux

kernel conﬁguration, printer settings, and install fonts system-wide. It is strongly recommended

that you leave these settings at their default values unless you understand the consequences of

changing them.

Web Browsing

This section allows you to conﬁgure the Konqueror Web browser. You can conﬁgure options

such as cache sizes, website cookies, plugins, proxy settings (if available), and enhanced brows-

ing using keyword shortcuts.

3.8. Logging Out of KDE

There are several easy ways to log out from your KDE session: