# Configuring &kde;

How do I set the language used by &kde;?

There are two ways to set the language &kde; uses in the messages it will display:

Using the &kde; Control Centre

  Fire up the &kde; Control Centre and select Personalisation followed by Country and Language. You can select your language and location here. If &kde; cannot find a translation in the first language chosen, it will fall back on the default language. This is usually (American) English by default.

  Using the &kde; Control Centre is the preferred way of choosing languages in &kde;.

Using the `LANG` environment variable

  The second method uses the standard locale setting on your system. To change the language, simply set the environment variable `LANG` accordingly. For example, if your shell is bash, execute ``export` `LANG`=de` to set German as the language used.

Is there any keyboard switcher for international keyboards for &kde;?

Yes, you can configure it using the &kde; Control Centre Peripherals Keyboard Layout configuration dialogue.

How do I replace the standard text login screen with the &kde; login screen?

First, you need to change to the xdm runlevel (runlevel 5 on &RedHat; systems, 3 on &SuSE;) by editing your `/etc/inittab` file. In the file, you should have a line saying `id:3:initdefault:`. Change it to `id:5:initdefault:`. Now, at the end of the file, comment out the following line: `x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/X11/xdm -nodaemon` and replace it with `x:5:respawn:/opt/kde/bin/kdm -nodaemon`.

The location of &kdm; may differ on your system.

For changes to take effect immediately, type `init 5` (for &RedHat; systems) at the shell prompt.

It is risky to initiate a graphical login without checking beforehand whether it works. If it fails to work, you would be in for a hard time getting back....

For FreeBSD, you should edit the file `/etc/ttys` and change one of the lines that look like

    ttyv8   "/usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon"  xterm   off secure

to instead say `ttyv8 "/usr/local/bin/kdm -nodaemon" xterm off secure`.

I would like to click the &LMB; anywhere on the desktop and have the K menu displayed.

Open the &kde; Control Centre and choose LookNFeel Desktop. You can now choose the behaviour of mouse clicks on the desktop. To have the K menu open from a single &LMB; click, change the entry labelled Left button to say Application Menu.

Where do I find information regarding &kde; themes?

Go to http://kde.themes.org/ or http://www.kde-look.org.

How do I change &MIME; Types?

If you are using &konqueror;, do this instead: first, open a &konqueror; window and choose Edit File Type. Find the type you want to change (&eg; `text/english` or `image/gif`), click the &RMB;, select General, and set the application preference order to whatever you want.

&kde; (&kdm;) does not read my `.bash_profile`!

The login managersxdm and &kdm; do not run a login shell, so `.profile`, `.bash_profile`, etc. are not sourced. When the user logs in, xdm runs `Xstartup` as root and then `Xsession` as user. So the normal practice is to add statements in `Xsession` to source the user profile. Please edit your `Xsession` and `.xsession` files.

How do I use &TrueType; fonts in &kde;?

You need to install &TrueType; font support into your &X-Window; configuration. Please take a look at x.themes.org for the fonts, and xfsft: &TrueType; Font Support For X11 or X-&TrueType; Server Project Home Page for the font servers.

If you have a bunch of &TrueType; fonts from &Microsoft; &Windows;, edit the `XF86Config` file to get the fonts from the font folder. Then just tell &kde; to use these new fonts with the font administrator utility.

Is it possible to enter, show and work with the Euro Symbol in &kde;?

Yes and no. For details, look here: http://www.koffice.org/kword/euro.phtml.