KDE Quick Start

openSUSE 11.2

Abstract

openSUSE® provides the tools that Linux* users require in their daily activities. It comes with an easy-to-use graphical environment (KDE* desktop) that communicates with the underlying Linux system to access and manage files, folders, and programs. openSUSE provides an integrated suite of applications for a wide range of purposes (office, multimedia, Internet). The OpenOffice.org suite is also included, which allows you to edit and save files in a number of formats. Because the office suite is available for several operating systems, you can use the same data across different computing platforms.

Getting Started

When you start your system, you are usually prompted to enter your username and password. If you did not install the system yourself, check with the system administrator for your username and password.

After logging in to KDE for the first time, you see the KDE desktop, which shows the following basic elements:

Desktop Folder:  By default, the desktop folder shows the contents of its ~/Desktop directory. Whenever you insert a file into this directory, it appears in this view too.

Desktop Context Menu:  Right-click an empty area on the desktop to access the context menu for configuring the appearance of the desktop, adding panels or widgets to the desktop, configuring desktop settings, locking the widgets in their current position, leaving the current session, or for locking the screen.

Desktop Toolbox:  Move your mouse pointer to the icon in the upper right corner of the desktop to access the menu that lets you add or lock widgets.

KDE Panel:  By default, the panel of your KDE desktop consists of the Main Menu icon on the left, further widgets and program icons, and the panel settings icon on the right. If you hover the mouse pointer over an icon in the panel, a short description is displayed.

Modifying Desktop Panels

The bottom panel can be customized to suit your individual needs, and additional panels can be configured to further personalize your desktop. Customize it with a right-click on a blank space in the panel and select Panel Options+Panel Settings. An additional area above the panel opens. This let you add additional widgets and spacers, lock widgets, or get more settings.

Adding and Removing Panels

To add a new panel, right-click an empty area on the desktop and select Panel Options+Add Panel. To delete a panel, right-click a blank space in the panel you want to delete and select Panel Options+Remove this Panel. openSUSE requires that at least one panel is left on the desktop.

To add new widget, proceed with Section “Adding and Removing Widgets”.

Adding and Removing Widgets

Widgets are small applications that can be integrated into your panel:

To add a widget to the panel, right-click an empty patch on the panel, and select Panel Options+Add Widgets.

If these menu items are not available, your desktop elements are probably locked. Unlock them first as described in Section “Locking and Unlocking Desktop Objects”.

In the dialog box that appears, you can limit the selection of widgets that is shown with the drop-down list at the top.

Select a widget and click Add Widget. The widget appears in your panel.

Starting Programs

Start programs from the Main Menu or from the command line, using a shell or the Run Command. Additionally, you can start programs from the desktop or the panel by left-clicking the program icon once.

Using the Main Menu

To open the Main Menu, click the Main Menu icon in the panel or press Alt+F1. The Main Menu consists of the following elements: a search function at the top and several tabs at the bottom, providing quick access to the key functions of the menu. Additionally, the menu displays your login name and the hostname of your computer.

Favorites shows a default selection of key programs for quick access, whereas Applications shows all applications installed on your system. To navigate through the menu structure, click an entry and use the arrow icons at the right or the left to switch back and forth. Computer and Recently Used provide quick access to some frequently used places, applications, or documents. Leave shows several options for leaving the session such as logging out, locking the screen (access can only be regained with a password), shutting down or restarting the computer. Some computers offer to suspend your session to RAM or disc.

If you often need a program and do not want to dig into the menu structure, you can integrate it into the favorites tab. Right-click on your icon and choose Add to Favorites.

Using the Run Command Dialog

KRunner is a helper application that lets you quickly start programs. Apart from that, it offers a search function for finding applications or locations.

Press Alt+F2 to open the Run Command dialog. Type a command, for example, dolphin, and press Enter or click Launch to start the application. The command to start the application is often (but not always) the application name written in lowercase.

The Run Command dialog allows you also to use different features. Click on the question mark icon to see a list of active features. To configure or get a list of all features, click on the wrench icon. You can use so-called Web shortcuts defined in Konqueror to send search requests directly to a search engine without first opening the browser. Another interesting feature is to calculate a mathematical expression like =2+2^4-sin(2). Very useful is to convert units, for example, from miles per hour into kilometres per hour. Just insert the expression 60 mph in km/h to get the converted value.

Searching for Programs

Both the Main Menu and the Run Command dialog offer a search function that lets you quickly start programs even if you do not already know the exact application name or command. To search for an application, start typing a command or part of the application name in the Main Menu Search field or the input field in the Run Command dialog. Each character you enter narrows down the search.

From the list below the input field, choose the application matching your query.

Handling Media

If you insert a CD or DVD into your drive or plug in a pluggable device (for example, a USB stick or removable hard disk), the device notifier widget opens a small window alerting you to this. Click on the entry to open it with Dolphin. If you click on the right icon, it shows

Customizing Your Desktop

You can change the way your KDE desktop looks and behaves to suit your personal preferences.

Locking and Unlocking Desktop Objects

Desktop elements can be locked in their current position to prevent them from being moved around on the desktop. As long as the desktop elements are locked you cannot add, move, or remove any objects to or from your desktop.

To lock or unlock the desktop elements, click the desktop toolbox at the upper right corner of the desktop and select Lock Widgets or Unlock Widgets.

Conversely, right-click an empty patch on the desktop and select menu items from the context menu.

Changing Individual Desktop Elements

In the following, you can find some examples of how to change individual desktops elements.

Procedure 1. Adding Program Icons to the Desktop

To create a link to an application and place it on the desktop or the panel, proceed as follows:

Click the Main Menu button and browse to the desired application.

Right-click and select Add to Desktop from the context menu that appears. If these menu items are not available, your desktop elements are probably locked. Unlock them first as described in Section “Locking and Unlocking Desktop Objects”.

To change the icon position on the desktop, left-click the icon and drag it to the desired position.

To delete an icon from your desktop, right-click the program icon and select Remove this Icon.

Procedure 2. Adding Widgets to the Desktop

Desktop widgets (or “plasmoids”) are small applications that can be integrated into your desktop or panel. To add widgets to you desktop, proceed as follows:

Right-click an empty patch on your desktop and select Add Widgets.

If these menu items are not available, your desktop elements are probably locked. Unlock them first, as described in Section “Locking and Unlocking Desktop Objects”.

In the dialog box that appears, limit the selection of widgets that is shown with the drop-down list at the top.

Select a widget and click Add Widget. The widget appears on your desktop.

To position the widget on your desktop, left-click the widget and drag it to the desired position.

To remove a widget from your desktop, right-click the widget and select the Remove... entry.

Procedure 3. Configuring Widgets

In order to configure widgets, the desktop elements need to be unlocked as described in Section “Locking and Unlocking Desktop Objects”. To configure a widget, proceed as follows:

Hover your mouse pointer over the widget until a translucent frame appears around the widget, showing a number of symbols.

If the frame does not appear, your widgets are probably locked. Unlock them first as described in Section “Locking and Unlocking Desktop Objects”

To change the widget size, left-click the scale symbol in the frame and keep the mouse button pressed while slowly moving your cursor across the desktop to scale the widget size.

To rotate the widget in any direction, left-click the arrow symbol in the frame and keep the mouse button pressed while moving your cursor in a circle across the desktop. There is a sticky boundary in the horizontal and vertical positions where you can “clamp” the widget, if you like. Of course, you can also arrange it in any tilted position.

To change the contents, settings, or properties of a widget, left-click the wrench symbol in the frame. Depending on the widget, there could be nothing to configure. In the configuration dialog box that appears, set the options according to your wishes.

Use the X symbol in the frame if you want to close the widget.

You can customize the KDE Panel according to your preferences: Applications and widgets can be added to the quick launch area or the system tray in the main panel, or in additional panels. Panel elements and additional panels can be moved to different places or be completely removed at any time.

Click on the desktop toolbox (lower right corner, half-round icon) to open the settings panel. If you cannot find the desktop toolbox, it is probably locked. Right-click on a widget and choose Unlock Widgets.

To move a panel object to a different place within the panel, hover the mouse over the relevant widget. The mouse cursor turns into a crosslines-like form. When you click on the widget, you can move it to a different position. Click again to fix it at this place.

To change the overall appearance or behavior of the panel, click on the icons at the borders of the settings panel. The icons have the form of arrows and you can change the adjustment of the left and right side. If you click on one of these icons and drag them inside, the width of the panel is immediately changed.

The icons in the settings panel have the following meaning:

To place the panel on different sides of the screen use the Screen Edge button. Drag and drop it to the preferred place.

To change the height of the panel, click the Height button and move the mouse cursor to the end location.

If you need additional widgets on your panel, place them with the Add Widgets... button.

To enlarge the distance between two widgets, use Add Spacer.... A spacer widget appears on the right side. Drag and drop it to your preferred place.

To prevent the panel and widgets from being moved accidentally, use Lock Widgets.

To adjust additional configurations, use More Settings....

Close the settings panel with the red close button on the right side.

Procedure 4. Changing the Desktop Background

You can change the background of your desktop to display colors, patterns, images and more. To select a picture to use as the background, proceed as follows:

Right-click an empty patch of the desktop and select Desktop Settings. A configuration dialog appears.

From the Wallpaper label use the Type drop-down list, choose Image or Slide Show as the background.

For an image wallpaper, choose a default wallpaper from the Picture list. Download and install new wallpapers with Get New Wallpaper.... To use a custom picture, click the folder button beneath the list and select an image file from the file system. Define the Positioning of the image.

To have multiple images appear in Slide Show mode, define the directory from which to select the pictures and set the time interval for the image change.

If you do not want an image or slide show, you can set a Color as desktop background.

Set the other options in the configuration dialog according to your wishes, and click OK to save your changes and leave the configuration dialog.

Modifying Personal Settings

Apart from changing individual desktop elements, KDE allows you to personalize your desktop to a very high degree. Possibilities to adjust the overall appearance and behavior of your desktop can be found in the Personal Settings configuration dialog.

Start the Personal Settings from the Main Menu by selecting Favorites+Configure Desktop.

The General and Advanced tabs provide different categories of settings. To get an impression of the numerous possibilities, just hover the mouse over the category icon to display a list of its content. Performing tasks in some areas of the control center requires system administrator (root) permissions.

If you do not like the view style, click on the Configure button to change it to a classical tree view.

Change the settings as desired. No changes take effect until you click Apply. To discard changes in the recent view that you have not yet applied, click Reset. To reset all items in the recent view to the default values, click Defaults.

To get back to the start-up view showing all categories again, click Overview. You can also enter a search string at the top of the window (for example, Screen Saver) to find the category which holds options related to the search string. Each character you enter in the Search field narrows down the search.

Applying Desktop Effects

If your computer supports a 3D graphics card with Xgl, you can use graphical effects like turning your desktop into a rotating 3D cube, enabling translucent or transparent windows, and zooming in and out of the desktop screen. You can also use other window effects such as shadows, fading, and transformations. If you do not have a 3D graphics card, some effects may be disabled or reduce the performance of your system. If the performance of your system is too low, disable the compositing effect for your current session with Alt+Shift+F12.

To configure the effects on your desktop, proceed as follows:

Start the personal settings window as described in Section “Modifying Personal Settings”.

Select Desktop+Desktop Effects and choose Enable Desktop Effects. If your graphic card does not support 3D, you will be notified.

Optionally, choose some configuration from Common Settings

Select the effects in the All Effects tab. The info icon gives you a small explanation. Some effects may have a configuration dialog for further adjustments.

Use Apply to enable the effects permanently.

With Xgl , you can make use of the following effects:

Wrap your virtual desktops around a cube and rotate the cube to get to another virtual desktop. Rotate the cube with Ctrl+Alt+→ or Ctrl+Alt+←.

Fly through the range of virtual desktops without having to use the pager and select the one to use. To change to this panel-like view, use Ctrl+Alt+↓. To scroll to a desktop left or right of the current one, keep holding Ctrl+Alt and use → and ←.

Zoom into certain parts of the desktop. Select the area to enlarge and right-click while holding the Windows key.

Show all windows opened on one virtual desktop as if they were resized so all fit in the display at once. Arrange the windows using Ctrl+Alt+↑. While holding down Ctrl+Alt, use the arrow keys to determine the focus.

Using Virtual Desktops

The desktop environment allows you to organize your programs and tasks on several virtual desktops. If you often run a lot of programs simultaneously, this minimizes the number of windows to arrange on your screen. You might, for example, use one desktop for e-mailing and calendaring and another for word processing and graphics applications.

Procedure 5. Moving an Application to Another Virtual Desktop

You can display a running application on one or all virtual desktops, or move it to other desktops.

Open the application.

Right-click the title bar of the application.

Click To Desktop.

Select the desktop on which to place the application.

To switch between desktops, click the desired desktop in the pager in the panel.

Procedure 6. Adding Additional Virtual Desktops

Some users might need more desktops than are provided by default. To add additional desktops:

Right-click the pager in the panel and select Configure Desktops. A configuration dialog appears where you can increase or reduce the number of virtual desktops. You can also change the default names of the desktop.

Click OK to apply the changes and to close the configuration dialog.

If you want the names of the desktops to appear in the pager rather than the number, right-click the pager and select Pager Settings.

From the radio button list, select Desktop Name and click OK to apply your changes and close the dialog.

Using the File Manager

With KDE 4, Dolphin has replaced Konqueror as the default file manager. Konqueror remains a Web browser (refer to Section “Browsing the Internet”). To start Dolphin, click the card box icon in the panel or press Alt+F2 and enter dolphin.

Dolphin Main Window

The Dolphin main window consists of the following elements:

Menu Bar:  The menu bar holds menu items for actions like copying, moving, or deleting files, changing views, starting additional tools, defining your settings, and getting help.

Toolbar:  The toolbar provides quick access to frequently used functions that can also be accessed via the menu. If you hover the mouse pointer over an icon, a short description is displayed.

Location Bar:  The location bar displays the path to the current directory. It is available in two versions: one shows the path to the current directory with icons for every parent folder in a “bread crumb” view. Click any icon in the bread crumb view to change to that directory. The second version of the location bar shows the path to the current directory as a string of text you can edit.

Panels:  By default, Dolphin shows only the Places panel on the right. It allows quick access to some often-used places like your home directory, the /root directory of the file system, the trash bin, and removable media. There are several other panels you can add to the main window.

Display Field (Working Space):  The display field shows the contents of the selected directory or file. By default, Dolphin displays the contents of your home directory on start-up. Clicking a folder or file in Dolphin directly starts an action: Dolphin loads the file into an application for further processing or opens the folder.

Status Bar:  Shows the file type and size of the currently selected object and the available disk space .

Managing Files and Folders with Dolphin

To perform actions like copying, moving, creating or deleting files, you need appropriate permissions to the folders and files involved in your action.

To copy, move, or delete a file or folder, proceed as follows:

In order to select one or multiple files and folders in Dolphin, move your mouse over the icon but do not click. A green cross appears on the upper-left edge. If you click on it, the icon is selected. You can also press Ctrl and click the file or files.

Right-click and select Copy or Cut from the context menu.

Navigate to the destination folder in which to insert the object.

To create a new folder at the current location, select File+Create New+Folder or press F10. Enter a folder name in the new window and press Enter.

To insert the object you copied or cut in Step 2, right-click the destination folder in the main display field and select Paste. The object is copied or moved there.

To delete a file or folder, right-click the object in the main display field and select Move to Trash from the context menu. The object is moved to the trash bin. From there, you can restore it if necessary or delete the object permanently.

To quickly filter for certain filenames in the current directory, press Ctrl+I to add the Filter input field to the bottom of the Dolphin main window. Type any part of the filename you are searching for to see all files in the current directory containing the search string. For more detailed and advanced searches, press Ctrl+F to use KFind. For more information, refer to Section “Using KFind”.

Configuring Dolphin

Dolphin offers many options for adjusting the view and the overall settings according to your preferences.

Procedure 7. Changing the View

To switch from the bread crumb view to the editable version of the location bar, press F6. Enter a path to a directory by typing it in. After typing an address, press Enter or click on the background of the bread crumb view.

To delete the contents of the location bar click the black X symbol on the left. To switch back to bread crumb view, press Ctrl+L.

To change the view of the currently displayed folder, either click Icons, Details, or Columns in the toolbar. Dolphin remembers the selected view for each folder. Click Split or press F3 to view the contents of the current folder in two separate columns. Now you can navigate to a different directory in each column and easily drag or drop objects or compare the contents of directories.

To make Dolphin also show hidden files, select View+Show Hidden Files or press Alt++.

To view more details about the files (like access permissions or ownership) in the working space, select View+Additional Information and enable the corresponding options.

To add further directories to the Places panel, drag a folder from the working space to the Places panel and drop it there. Right-click and use the context menu to hide, edit or remove entries from Places.

To add more panels to the main window, select View+Panels and select additional panels such as Information, Folders, or Terminal.

The Information panel shows the properties and a preview of the currently selected file. It also lets you add comments to the file.

The Folder panel shows a tree view of the whole file system and lets you navigate trough all subdirectories of /root.

The Terminal panel attaches a command line to the bottom of the main Dolphin window. Whenever you click a certain directory in the display field, the Terminal panel also changes to that directory, so you can easily switch to the command line for certain tasks you prefer to execute in a shell.

Detach the panels from the main Dolphin window by clicking the left icon at the top of each panel. Click the panel's title bar and drag it to another place on the desktop. To reintegrate the panel into the Dolphin window, click the left symbol at the top of the panel again.

If you want to change Dolphin's overall behavior or view, select Settings+Configure Dolphin and explore the options offered in the Dolphin configuration dialog.

To use the same view mode for all folders, click View Modes in the left sidebar. Activate Use Common View Properties for All Folders on the General tab. Adjust the options for the individual view modes on the other tabs and click Apply to save the changes.

If you want Dolphin to show a different directory on start-up, or if you want to permanently use the editable location bar instead of the bread crumb view, change the relevant options on the General tab.

Click OK to save the changes and to close the Dolphin configuration dialog.

Browsing the Internet

Apart from Konqueror (KDE's default Web browser), openSUSE also includes the default Firefox Web browser. To start Konqueror or Firefox, press Alt+F2 and enter konqueror or firefox.

With features like tabbed browsing, pop-up window blocking, and download and image management, both browsers combine the latest Web technologies. Their easy access to different search engines helps you find the information you need.

Enter a URL in the location bar to start browsing. To open a new, empty tab, press Ctrl+T. To open a link in a new tab, click the link with your middle mouse button. Right-click the tab itself to access more tab options. You can create a new tab, reload one or all existing tabs, or close them. You can also change the sequence of the tabs by dragging and dropping them to the desired position.

Finding Information

Both browsers offer different kinds of search options: you can find information on the Web or you can search the current Web page for keywords.

Procedure 8. Searching the Web

To start a search on the Web, click the left icon in the search bar on the right to open a list of search engines.

Select the desired engine and type your search keywords into the input field.

Press Enter to start the search.

Procedure 9. Searching the Current Web Page

To search the current Web page for keywords with Konqueror, press Ctrl+F, opening the Find dialog. Type your search keyword and press Enter.

To search the current Web page with Firefox, press Ctrl+F to open a find bar at the bottom of the window. Enter your search keyword there and use the buttons beneath the bar to search in different directions or to highlight all hits in the text.

Konqueror offers Web shortcuts for quickly searching the Web. For example, to search the Web for yast using the Google search engine, just type gg:yast into the Konqueror location bar (or the Run Command dialog) and press Enter.

Apart from predefined shortcuts such as gg for Google or wp for Wikipedia, you can also define further, individual Web shortcuts as described in Section “Configuring Preferences”.

Downloading Files from the Web

If you download a file with Firefox or Konqueror, a dialog window appears asking you if you want to save the file. In Konqueror, you then need to specify the location for the file. By default, Firefox saves the file to the folder configured in the Firefox Preferences and shows your finished downloads in the Downloads dialog.

To open the downloaded files directly from there, right-click and select Open. To clean up the history of downloaded files, right-click and select Clear List.

Configuring Preferences

Adjust preferences in Konqueror or Firefox. In Konqueror, access the configuration dialog with Settings+Configure Konqueror. To change the behavior of Konqueror as Web browser, select one of the Web Browsing categories in the left sidebar to show the options for the relevant category. For example, you can “hide” Konqueror's real identity and make Konqueror identify as a different browser (for example, Internet Explorer*) for certain Web sites you visit. To do so, select Browser Identification, and click New to add a new, site-specific identification.

You might also want to configure the Web shortcuts you can use with Konqueror (and the Run Command dialog). In the Konqueror configuration dialog, click Web Shortcuts to see which shortcuts are already defined. Click New to define new shortcuts. Leave the Konqueror configuration dialog with OK to apply your changes.

In Firefox, select Edit+Preferences to open the Firefox Preferences. Click the icons in the upper display field to access the options for the relevant category. For example, change the default download folder on the Main page, or adjust the pop-up blocking feature on the Content page. Click Close to apply the changes.

Managing Passwords

When you enter a password in a KDE application for the first time (in KMail or Konqueror, for example), you are asked if you want to store the password in an encrypted wallet. If you click Yes, KWallet wizard starts by default. KWallet is a password management tool that can collect all passwords and store them in an encrypted file.

To activate KWallet, select Basic Setup and click Next. Select Yes, I wish to use the KDE wallet to store my personal information and enter a password. This is your master password to open KWallet.

Protect Your KWallet Password

If you forget your KWallet password, it cannot be recovered. Furthermore, anyone who knows your password can obtain all information contained in the wallet.

Click Finish to close the wizard. After this initial configuration, you can open your wallet at any time to view, search, delete, or create entries. Normally you do not need to insert an entry manually. KDE recognizes if a resource requires authentication and KWallet starts automatically, prompting you for the KWallet password. However, you can add additional data if you wish.

Whereas KWallet is designed to centrally manage passwords for several KDE applications, Firefox also offers the ability to store data when you enter a username and a password on a Web site. If you accept by clicking Remember, the password will be stored on your hard disk in an encrypted format. The next time you access this site, Firefox will automatically populate the login fields.

To review or manage your passwords in Firefox, click Edit+Preferences+Security+Saved Passwords....

E-Mailing and Calendaring

For reading and managing your mails and appointments, you can use Kontact as your personal information management tool (PIM). Kontact combines KDE applications like KMail, KOrganizer, and KAddressBook into a single interface. This gives you easy access to your e-mail, calendar, address book, and other PIM functionality. Kontact can also manage multiple e-mail accounts.

Starting Kontact for the First Time

To start Kontact, press Alt+F2 and enter kontact. To access one of the components, click the corresponding icon in the left sidebar.

Before you can send or receive mails, you must configure an e-mail account. Create first a new identity with the respective name and email address (choose from the menu Settings+Configure KMail... and go to Identities). To create an account, switch to the Accounts icon in the same dialog box and create your incoming and outgoing mail. Finish with Ok.

If you want to modify your e-mail account (for example, if you need to change any ports or want to add a second account), click the Mail icon, then select Settings+Configure KMail to open the configuration dialog. If you are not sure about the settings or items to select, consult your Internet Service Provider or system administrator.

To write a new mail, click the Mail icon in the Kontact main window and press Ctrl+N to open the mail composer. After you have finished your mail, click Send to send it immediately. In case you have configured multiple e-mail accounts, keep the Send button pressed, then select the account from which you want to send the mail.

Instant Messaging with Kopete

Kopete is an online messenger application that allows multiple partners connected to the Internet to chat with each other. Kopete currently supports a number of common messenger protocols, such as AOL* Instant Messenger (AIM), Gadu-Gadu, GroupWise® Messenger, ICQ, Jabber*, MSN, SMS, and Yahoo!*. To be able to use instant messaging (IM), you must register with a provider offering IM services and configure a Kopete account.

To start Kopete, press Alt+F2 and enter kopete.

To configure an account, proceed as follows:

Select Settings+Configure.

Choose Accounts and click Add Account.

Select your messaging service.

Enter your account information. If the messaging service requires registration but you do not have an account for this service yet, proceed as follows:

Click Register New Account. In the browser window that opens, enter your user data to register.

Switch back to Kopete and enter the data received on registration with the messaging service. This usually consists of the nickname or e-mail address and a password. Complete the configuration of your account by clicking Finish.

Create a new identity with Add Identity.... Usually this is not really necessary, but sometimes you want to distinguish between private and business contacts. A new identity helps to separate these two areas. In the dialog box that opens, enter your nickname and e-mail address. Close with Ok.

Drag and drop your account to the newly created identity. It is now listed under the identity.

Finish with Ok.

If you decided to go online after configuring your account, you can now add contacts in the main Kopete window. Otherwise, first click File+Set Status+Online and enter your password if you are prompted for it. After connecting, click File+Add Contact and select the Kopete account for which you want to add contacts. Enter the contact data or search for a contact and click OK.

To view all your contacts, even if they are offline at the moment, select Settings+Show Offline Users.

To start a chat with someone, click the desired contact and type your message in the lower part of the chatting window. Press Enter to send the message. The upper part of the window displays the messages you have sent and received.

Starting OpenOffice.org

The office suite OpenOffice.org offers a complete set of office tools, including word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, vector drawing, and database components. Because OpenOffice.org is available for a number of operating systems, you can use the same data across different computing platforms.

To start OpenOffice.org in the word processor view, press Alt+F2 and enter oowriter. Conversely, start OpenOffice.org Writer from the Main Menu. To create a new document, select File+New and choose the type of document to create. To open an existing document, select Open and choose the appropriate file from the file system.

Viewing PDF Files and Other Documents

Documents that need to be shared or printed across multiple platforms can be saved as PDF (Portable Document Format) files, for example, in the OpenOffice.org suite. View them with Okular, the default KDE document viewer.

Using Okular Document Viewer

Apart from PDF files, Okular allows you to view a great number of file formats, such as PostScript, several image formats, OpenDocument format (ODF), OpenDocument text (ODT), some eBook formats (ePub), and even Microsoft* Compiled HTML Help (CHM). Okular also provides support for bookmarks, annotations, form fields and multimedia content, and the rotation of pages.

Start Okular from the Main Menu or press Alt+F2 and enter okular.

To open a document, select File+Open and choose the desired file from the file system. Navigate through the document by using the navigation icons at the top or bottom of the window. Depending on which icon you click on the navigation panel on the left, the sidebar either shows a table of Contents, a Thumbnail view of each page, the Reviews for this file, or your Bookmarks for this file. To filter for any text listed in the sidebar or the overall document, enter a string into the input field at the top of the sidebar. If you want to select and copy text or images from the file in Okular, click the Selection icon in the toolbar and select one of the options from the context menu. Click the Browse icon to switch back to browsing the document.

Procedure 10. Working with Bookmarks and Annotations

With Okular, you can review a document by highlighting certain text parts or adding annotations or bookmarks that Okular then attaches to the file in the form of metadata. Note that the annotations and markers you add are not stored within the document, so you cannot print them or pass them on to other users.

To add a bookmark for a page, click the page in the sidebar or in the main display field and press Ctrl+B. The page is added to the Bookmarks list on the left sidebar. Right-click the bookmark entry to access a context menu for going to this bookmark or renaming, or removing it.

To create an annotation for a page, press F6 and select one of the annotation tools from the toolbar that appears. The annotation is added to the list of Reviews and is flagged with the login name of the user who created it. Use the icons at the bottom of the sidebar to group the annotations by page, by author or to show the annotations for the current page only.

To open a pop-up note and add text for an annotation (or to remove an annotation), right-click the annotation entry in the Reviews list and select the corresponding menu item. The annotations or markers you added are automatically attached to the file, you do not need to save them.

Using Acrobat Reader

If Acrobat Reader is not installed by default, install the acroread package with YaST. To start Acrobat reader, press Alt+F2 and enter acroread or start the program from the Main Menu. Click File+Open, locate the desired PDF file and click Open to view the file.

Searching for Data

KDE provides more than one application for finding data on your computer or in the file system. One application is KFind, which is described below.

Using KFind

To perform basic and advanced searches, use KFind. Start it from the Main Menu by clicking Applications+Find Files/Folders or press Alt+F2 and enter kfind.

Procedure 11. Searching by Name

To use a filename (or a part of it) as the search keyword, proceed as follows:

Enter the filename or a part of the filename in the Named input field. Use wild cards, such as an asterisk (*), to indicate missing characters in the filename.

Specify the folder in which to search for the file. Either enter a path to the folder in Look in or click Browse to locate the folder.

To search subfolders, check Include Subfolders.

Click Find to start the search. The results are displayed in the lower part of the dialog. To directly open the result, just click it. Right-click it to choose one of the options from the context menu.

Procedure 12. Searching by Contents or Properties

For a more detailed search, you can also specify further options, such as a text the file must contain or the creation or modification date of a file. To search for content or properties, proceed as follows:

On the Name/Location tab, specify at least the path to search for the file. You can leave Named empty.

To search for certain content in a file, click the Contents tab. In Containing Text, enter the word or phrase the file to find must contain. This option does not work for all types of files.

To search for properties such as creation or modification date of the file, click the Properties tab and choose the options you want.

Click Find to start the search.

Creating a CD or DVD

If you possess a CD or DVD writer, you can burn files to a CD or DVD with K3b. To create a data CD or DVD, proceed as follows:

Press Alt+F2 and enter k3b. K3b opens.

Select File+New Project+New Data Project from the main menu.

Use the tree view in the top left part of the window to search for the files or folders to burn. When they appear in the top right part of the window, drag and drop them into the Current Projects window.

Change the name of your medium in the Volume Name textfield.

Insert a writable CD into the device then click the Burn icon.

Check the settings in the Writing tab. Usually this should work well for almost all files. If you wish, you can change more information in the Filesystem tab. files.

Click Burn.

Managing Your Digital Image Collection

With digiKam, it is easy to manage your digital images: download your images from the camera, edit and improve them, organize them in albums (or flag them with tags for easy retrieval, independent of folders or albums), and archive them on CD, or export them to a Web image gallery.

digiKam also contains a set of useful batch functions and plug-ins, allowing you to convert multiple images to various different formats, rename multiple images, or automatically improve them with functions such as red eye reduction, speck removal, and hot pixel removal. Various filter and effects plug-ins help create works of art from your digital images.

To start digiKam, press Alt+F2 and enter digikam. On initial start-up, the first-run wizard appears. It asks the location where to store your images and metadata. Usually you can accept the default paths.

digiKam's main window contains a tree view on the left and shows thumbnails of the images on the right. For quick access to your images, use the sidebar on the left, which allows you to switch between different views, sorting the images according to Albums, Dates, Tags or Searches. To enter digiKam's viewing and editing mode, double-click an image thumbnail.

Managing Your Music Collection

KDE's Amarok music player allows you to play various audio formats, create playlists, listen to streaming audio broadcasts of radio stations on the Internet and subscribe to podcasts. The file types supported depend on the engine used for Amarok.

To start Amarok, press Alt+F2 and enter amarok.

Amarok's main window shows a sidebar on the left providing different views: your music collection, some addresses to listen to podcasts or streams from the Internet, your playlists and a file browser. The middle part, the context browser, displays information about the current track, the Wikipedia page of the artist and the song's lyrics by default. The right part of the window shows the current playlist. To play music, just drag and drop items from any of the sidebar browsers to the playlist area. Double-click an item in the playlist to start playback.

If your music files are properly tagged (containing at least information about the artist and album), you can make use of several nice Amarok features. To automatically retrieve the album cover images from Amazon, select Tools+Cover Manager and click Fetch Missing Covers. The next time you play a track from this album, the cover is displayed in the context browser and on the on-screen display. To learn more about the artist, click on the Wikipedia button in the middle area to make Amarok search for the appropriate Wikipedia article.

To configure the use of another engine (or various other Amarok features), select Settings+Configure Amarok.

Logging Out

Log out (and leave the system running), restart or shut down the computer.

Logging Out or Switching Users

Click the Main Menu button on your panel and select Leave+Logout. This ends your session but leaves the system running. To start a parallel session as a different user, select Leave+Switch User instead.

Restarting or Shutting Down the Computer

Click Leave, then select one of the following options:

Shutdown

Logs you out of the current session, then turns off the computer.

Suspend to RAM

Pauses your current session without logging out. Your computer consumes very little power, but can be brought back to fully-functional status very quickly.

Suspend to Disk

Suspends your session, using no power until the computer is restarted. The state of your session is preserved, however, including all applications you have running and all documents you have open.

Restart

Restarts your computer.

For More Information

This guide gave you a short introduction to the KDE desktop and some key applications running on it.

Find the other manuals available for openSUSE at http://www.novell.com/documentation/opensuse112 or in your installed system under /usr/share/doc/manual.

To learn more about KDE and KDE applications, also refer to http://www.kde.org/ and http://www.kde-apps.org/.

Legal Notice

Copyright© 2006- 2009 Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Section being this copyright notice and license. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.

SUSE®, openSUSE®, the openSUSE® logo, Novell®, the Novell® logo, the N® logo, are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Linux* is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other third party trademarks are the property of their respective owners. A trademark symbol (® , ™, etc.) denotes a Novell trademark; an asterisk (*) denotes a third-party trademark.

All information found in this book has been compiled with utmost attention to detail. However, this does not guarantee complete accuracy. Neither Novell, Inc., SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, the authors, nor the translators shall be held liable for possible errors or the consequences thereof.

GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.2, November 2002

Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

PREAMBLE

The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document “free” in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.

We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.

APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

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The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has no effect on the meaning of this License.

VERBATIM COPYING

You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.

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COPYING IN QUANTITY

If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document’s license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

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It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.

MODIFICATIONS

You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:

A.  Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.

B.  List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.

C.  State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.

D.  Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.

E.  Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.

F.  Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.

G.  Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document’s license notice.

H.  Include an unaltered copy of this License.

I.  Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled “History” in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.

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K.  For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”, Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.

L.  Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.

M.  Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.

N.  Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.

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If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties--for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

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COMBINING DOCUMENTS

You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.

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In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History” in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled “History”; likewise combine any sections Entitled “Acknowledgements”, and any sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections Entitled “Endorsements”.

COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.

You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.

AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.

If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.

TRANSLATION

Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license notices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include the original English version of this License and the original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.

If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “History”, the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.

TERMINATION

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:

   Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME.
   Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
   under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
   only as published by the Free Software Foundation;
   with the Invariant Section being this copyright notice and license.
   A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU
   Free Documentation License”.

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the “with...Texts.” line with this:

   with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the
   Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.