[lug] KDE on Debian, my experience. So far.

[Glenn Murray]

I've been using Gnome with varying degrees of frustration
since RedHat 5.2, and decided, especially after hearing Kurt
Granroth's spiel at CLUE, to try KDE.  I'm running Debian,
and am loath to use "unstable" packages, but I went to the
site http://kde.debian.net/ and read what I could.


- Insert line "deb http://kde.tdyc.com potato main crypto"
  into /etc/apt/sources.list.

- Start dselect and see the ff.

  Hit http://kde.tdyc.com potato/main Packages
  Hit http://kde.tdyc.com potato/main Release
  Hit http://kde.tdyc.com potato/crypto Packages
  Hit http://kde.tdyc.com potato/crypto Release

  Figure out that I am supposed to install the "kdm"
  package.  I see that it conflicts with gdm, which is bad
  since I have gdm somewhat configured, but is good since
  some gdm "features" don't work, anyway.

  Also, I cannot install task-anti-aliasing, since it
  depends on xlibs, which is not available.  Apparently it
  is in "unstable", which I don't want to mess with.

- Install and reboot.  A nice KDE login screen comes up.
  However, I am unable to login:  I get an error message
  "Could not read network connection list
   /home/glenn/.DCOPserver...:0
   Is the dcopserver program running?"
  or somesuch.

- But I can login as root!  I can choose either KDE on Gnome
  and they both seem to work fine.
 
  I figure it must be a simple configuration problem, file
  permissions, perhaps.  I trot off to the Debian mailing
  list archives and lo, three messages describe my exact
  problem, e.g. 
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde-0011/msg00213.html
  This open software process is great, I'm thinking,
  but:  three messages and not one with a reply.  

Summary:  KDE looks pretty good if you are (always) root.

Glenn Murray
http://www.mines.edu/~gmurray/public_html/Welcome.html