Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE DESKTOP 10 SP1, KDE Quick Manual

SUSE Linux Enterprise® provides the tools that Linux* users require in their daily activities. It comes with an
easy-to-use graphical user interface (KDE* desktop) that communicates with the underlying Linux system to
access and manage les, folders, and programs. SUSE Linux Enterprise provides an integrated suite of applications
that meet all professional requirements to perform tasks in a business environment. The OpenOfce.org suite
is also included, which allows you to edit and save les in a number of formats. Because the ofce 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
your system yourself, check with your system administrator
for your username and password.

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

Desktop Icons: Click an icon on the desktop to access
its associated program or application. Right-click to open
a context menu for moving, copying, or performing other
functions on an icon.

Desktop Context Menu: Right-click an empty area on
the desktop to access this context menu for creating new
objects, such as les, folders, or bookmarks; conguring
the appearance of the desktop; running applications; and
logging out.

KDE Panel: By default, the panel of your KDE desktop
consists of the following areas (from left to right): main
menu button, quick launcher, desktop previewer, taskbar,
and system tray. You can add or remove icons in the panel
and customize the appearance of the panel as well as its
location on the desktop. Click the arrow at the far right to
hide the panel. If you hold your mouse pointer over an icon
in the panel, a short description is displayed.

Main Menu Button: Click the icon at the far left of the
panel to access a menu leading to all programs, tools, and
applications on your system. The function-oriented menu
structure makes it easy to nd the right application for your
purpose even if you do not know the application names
yet.

Quick Launcher: The quick launcher contains some
larger icons that are shortcuts to frequently used programs,

KDE Quick Start

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1

NOVELL® QUICK START CARD

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folders, and functions, such as an Internet browser, your
home folder, and the online Help Center.

Desktop Previewer: Between the quick launcher and
the taskbar, nd a miniature preview that shows your virtual
desktops. SUSE Linux Enterprise allows you to organize your
programs and tasks on several desktops, which minimizes
the number of windows to arrange on the screen (Section
“Using Virtual Desktops”). To switch between desktops, click
one of the symbols in the previewer.

Taskbar: By default, all started applications and open
windows are displayed in the taskbar, which allows you to
access any application regardless of the currently active
desktop. Click to open the application. Right-click to see
options for moving, restoring, or minimizing the window.

System Tray: This rightmost part of the panel usually
holds some smaller icons, including the system clock display­ing time and date, the volume control, and icons for several
other helper applications.

Starting Programs

To run a program in SUSE Linux Enterprise, click the main
menu icon in the panel or press Alt + F1 to open it and
navigate the submenus. Click an entry to start the corre­sponding program.

If you already know the name of an application but are not
sure how to start it from the main menu, use the main menu
search function. Just type a part of the application's name
into the search eld without pressing Enter afterward. If
the application is installed on your system, the menu
structure leading to this application is highlighted in the
main menu.

Customizing Your Desktop

You can change the way your KDE desktop looks and be­haves to suit your own personal tastes and needs.

Changing Individual Desktop Elements

In the following, nd some examples of how to change in­dividual desktops elements.

Adding Program Icons to Your Desktop

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

1. Click the main menu button.

2. Browse to the desired program.

3. Left-click and drag the menu entry to the desktop then
release the mouse button.

4. Select Link Here from the context menu that appears
then position the icon as desired.

To delete an icon from your desktop, right-click the pro­gram icon and select Move to Trash.

Customizing the KDE Panel

You can customize the KDE panel according to your prefer­ences by adding, deleting, or moving icons or changing the
overall appearance of the panel.

1. To add or remove icons from the panel, right-click an
empty patch in the panel. A context-menu appears.

2. To add an application, click Add Application to Panel
and select the desired application from one of the cat­egories of the submenu.

3. To add an applet (miniprogram), click Add Applet to
Panel and, from the dialog box that appears, select the
desired applet. Click Add to Panel to insert the applet
into the panel.

4. To remove icons from the panel, select Remove from
Panel → Applications or Remove from Panel → Applet
and choose the icon to remove.

5. To change the overall appearance or behavior of the
panel, select Congure Panel from the context menu.
A conguration dialog appears where you can adjust
further settings.

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Changing the Desktop Background

You can change the background colors of your desktop or
select a picture to use as the background. Because KDE of­fers virtual desktops (see Section “Using Virtual Desktops”),
you can apply these changes to one or all of your virtual
desktops.

1. Right-click an empty patch of the desktop and select
Congure Desktop. A conguration dialog appears.

2. In Settings for Desktop select the virtual desktops to
which the changes should apply.

3. If you want a different picture as the background, click
Picture and select one of the pictures provided by the
list. To use a custom picture, click the folder button
beneath the list and select an image le from the le
system.

4. Click Slide Show to have multiple images appear in a
slide show mode.

5. If you do not want a picture on the background, click
No picture.

6. From the Options group, click the left button below
Colors to select the color for your background. For a
multicolor background, set Colors to an option other
than Single Color and click the right button below to
select a second color.

7. Click Apply then OK to close the conguration dialog.

Using the KDE Control Center

Apart from changing individual desktop elements, KDE al­lows you to personalize your desktop to a very high degree.
Find more settings to adjust the overall appearance and
behavior of your desktop in the KDE Control Center. There,
you can also change fonts, keyboard and mouse congura­tion, regional and language settings, parameters for your
Internet and network usage, and more.

Start the Control Center from the main menu by selecting
Personal Settings or press Alt + F2 and enter kcontrol.

The sidebar provides different categories with a subset of
settings each. To get an impression of the numerous possi­bilities, just click a category icon and explore the possibilities
provided there.

For an overview of all categories, switch to a tree view.
Change the view by selecting View → Mode → Tree View.

Clicking an item displays the corresponding settings on the
right. Change the settings as desired. No changes take effect
until you click Apply. Reset all items on the page to the
default values by clicking Default. Performing tasks in some
areas of the Control Center requires system administrator
(otherwise known as root) permissions.

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 or graphics applications.

Moving an Application to a Virtual Desktop

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

1. Open the application.

2. Right-click the title bar of the application.

3. Click To Desktop.

4. Select the desktop on which to place the application.

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

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Adding Additional Virtual Desktops

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

1. Right-click the desktop previewer in the panel and select
Congure Desktops. A conguration dialog appears
where you can increase or reduce the number of virtual
desktops. You can also change the default names of the
desktop.

2. Click OK to apply the changes and to close the congu­ration dialog.

3. If you want the names of the desktops to appear in the
desktop previewer rather than the number, right-click
the desktop previewer and select Pager Options →
Desktop Name.

Using 3D Desktops Effects

If your computer supports Xgl, you can use graphical effects
like turning your desktop into a rotating 3D cube, enabling
translucent or transparent windows, zooming in and out of
the desktop screen, and using other window effects, such
as shadows, fading, and transformations.

To enable and use Xgl, some hardware requirements must
be met—in particular, your graphics adapter must be capa­ble of providing 3D support. After your system has been
congured for Xgl as described in KDE User Guide, 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

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 t in the display at once. Arrange
the windows using Ctrl + Alt + ↑. While holding down

Ctrl + Alt, use the arrow keys to determine the focus.

• Create virtual raindrops on your desktop and use a virtual
windshield wiper to get rid of them. Toggle the raindrops
with Shift + F9 and toggle the windshield wiper with Shift
+ F8.

Using Konqueror

Konqueror is a unied Web browser, le manager, docu­ment viewer, and image viewer. As a le manager, it lets
you display, manage, and create les and generally organize
your le system the way you like.

Start Konqueror as a le manager by clicking the house
icon in the panel. Konqueror displays the contents of your
home directory.

Konqueror Main Window

The Konqueror main window consists of the following ele­ments:

Menu Bar: The menu bar holds menu items for actions
like copying, moving, or deleting les, changing views,
starting additional tools, dening 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 pointer over an icon, a short description is
displayed.

Location Bar: The location bar shows the path to your
directory or le in your le system. You can enter a path
to a directory directly by typing it in or by clicking one of

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the directories in the display eld. Delete the contents of
the location bar by clicking the black symbol with a white
X on the left. After typing an address, press Enter.

Navigation Panel: Hide and show the navigation panel
on the left by pressing F9. The navigation panel displays
your information in a tree view. Determine which contents
to see by clicking one of the symbols in the tab at the left
of the navigation panel. If you hold your mouse pointer
over an icon, a short description is displayed.

Display Field: The display eld shows the contents of
the selected directory or le. In the View menu, choose
between different view modes to display the contents, such
as Icon View, Tree View, or Detailed List View. If you click a
le, Konqueror shows a preview of the contents or loads
the le into an application for further processing. If you
hold the mouse pointer over the le, Konqueror shows a
tool tip with detailed information about the le, such as
owner, permissions, or last modication date.

Managing Files and Folders with Konqueror

To perform actions like copying, moving, or deleting les,
you need appropriate permissions to the folders and les
involved in your action. To copy or move a le or folder,
proceed as follows:

1. To select one or multiple les and folders in Konqueror,
press Ctrl and click the les.

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

3. Navigate to the destination folder in which to insert the
object. Right-click the destination folder and select
Paste. The object is copied or moved there.

You can also copy or move objects by dragging and drop­ping them. When dropping the object, you are asked
whether the object should be moved or copied.

To delete a le or folder, right-click the object and select
Move to Trash from the context menu. The object is moved
to the trash bin from which you can restore it if necessary
or delete the object irretrievably.

Browsing the Internet with Konqueror

To use Konqueror as a Web browser, just type a URL in the
location bar. Like Firefox*, Konqueror also features tabbed
browsing. This means that you can load one page in the
background while reading another. To open an empty tab
in Konqueror, press Ctrl + Shift + N and enter a new URL.
Alternatively, right-click a link in the Web site currently
displayed and select Open in New Tab. Right-click a tab to
access more tab options, like reloading, duplicating, or
closing the tab.

You can also use bookmarks for your favorite Web sites
(and also for les and folders). Add and manage your
bookmarks with the Bookmarks menu.

Browsing the Internet with Firefox

As well as Konqueror, SUSE Linux Enterprise also includes
the Firefox Web browser. To start Firefox, press Alt + F2
and enter firefox.

With features like tabbed browsing, pop-up window block­ing, and download and image management, Firefox com­bines the latest Web technologies. Its easy access to differ­ent search engines helps you nd the information needed.
Enter a URL in the location bar to start browsing. To open
an empty tab in Firefox, press Ctrl + T and enter a new URL.
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 with Firefox

Firefox offers two different kinds of search options: you
can nd information on the Web or you can search the
current Web page for keywords.

1. To start a search on the Web with the Google* engine,
just type your search keywords in the integrated search
bar at the right of the location bar and press Enter. The
results appear in the window.

2. To use a different search engine, click the G icon in the
search bar to open a list of other search engines.

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3. Click the desired engine and press Enter to start the
search.

To search the current Web page for keywords, press Ctrl +

F to open a nd 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.

Downloading Files from the Web

If you download a le with Firefox, the Download Manager
starts and saves this le to the folder congured in the
preferences. By default, your desktop is the destination
folder for downloaded les. Firefox shows your nished
downloads in a dialog box.

You can open the downloaded les from there directly. To
clean up the history of downloaded les, click Clean Up.

Conguring Firefox Preferences

To adjust the default download folder or activate or modify
the pop-up blocking feature, click Edit → Preferences.

From here, you can also congure numerous other settings,
such as appearance, language, privacy, and tab options. Just

click the icons and set the options on each page according
to your preferences. Click Close to apply the changes.

Managing Passwords with KWallet

When you select the option to remember a password in a
KDE application for the rst time (for your e-mail account,
for example), the KWallet wizard starts by default. KWallet
is a password management tool that can collect all pass­words and store them in an encrypted le.

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. It cannot be recovered if you forget it.
Click Finish to close the wizard. After this initial congura­tion, 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.

E-Mailing and Calendaring

For reading and managing your mails and appointments in
SUSE Linux Enterprise, 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.

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 sending or receiving mails, you must congure your
e-mail account.

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1. Click the Mail icon then select Settings → Congure
KMail.

2. In the conguration dialog, click Accounts. There you
can congure the settings for outgoing and incoming
mails.

3. For incoming mails, click the Receiving tab and click
Add. Select the appropriate account type and enter the
details in the following dialog.

4. Proceed similarly for outgoing mails on the Sending
tab. If you are not sure about the settings or items to
select, consult your Internet Service Provider or system
administrator.

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 all common messenger
protocols, such as AOL* Instant Messenger (AIM), Group­Wise® Messenger, ICQ, IRC, Jabber*, Lotus* Sametime, MSN,
SMS, and Yahoo!*. To be able to use instant messaging (IM),
you must register with a provider offering IM services.

To start Kopete, press Alt + F2 and enter kopete. When
you start Kopete for the rst time, a conguration wizard
appears that assists you in creating your user prole.

First, select the service with which you have registered and
click Continue. Then enter the user data received on regis­tration with the messaging service: a user ID, a password,

and the server name and port. Complete the conguration
of the messenger account by clicking Finish.

Add contacts to chat with them by clicking File → Add
Contact. An assistant appears to help with creation. Howev­er, you must be online and connected to the selected
messaging service to add a contact to your list.

To start a chat, 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 sent and received.

Viewing PDF Files

Documents that need to be shared or printed across plat­forms can be saved as PDF (Portable Document Format)
les, for example, in the OpenOfce.org suite. SUSE Linux
Enterprise ships with several PDF viewers, such as KPDF and
Adobe* Acrobat* Reader.

To access KPDF or Adobe* Acrobat* Reader:

1. Click the main menu button.

2. Click Ofce → Document Viewer. Select Acrobat Reader
or KPDF to open the PDF viewer of your choice. Alter­natively, press Alt + F2 and enter acroread or kpdf.

3. To view a PDF le, click File → Open. Locate the desired
PDF le and click Open.

4. Navigate through the documents by using the navigation
icons at the top or bottom of the window. If your PDF
document provides bookmarks, you can access them
in the left panel of the viewer.

Searching for Data

KDE provides more than one application for nding data
on your computer or in the le system. With Kerry, you can
easily search your personal information space (usually your
home folder), which is indexed by Beagle®. KFind is another
option.

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Using Kerry

Use Kerry to nd documents, e-mails, Web history, IM/ITC
conversations, source code, images, music les, applications,
and much more:

1. Press Alt + Space to open the Kerry Beagle Search dia­log.

2. Enter the search string in Search. Enter words or
phrases and modify your search options as described
in the tips displayed in the search window.

3. Click an entry in the column on the right to select the
scope of the search. The selected entry is highlighted.

4. Click the Enter icon to start the search. The results are
displayed in the window. Use the links contained in
each result to open the result directly or show its loca­tion in the le system with the le manager.

Using KFind

To perform basic and advanced searches, use KFind. Start
it from the main menu by clicking Find Files/Folders or press

Alt + F2 and enter kfind.

Searching by Name

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

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

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

3. To search subfolders, check Include Subfolders.

4. 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.

Searching by Contents or Properties

For a more detailed search, you can also specify further
options, such as a text the le must contain or the creation
or modication date of a le.

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

2. To search for certain contents in a le, click the Con-
tents tab. In Containing Text, enter the word or phrase
the le to nd must contain. This option does not work
for all types of les.

3. To search for properties such as creation or modica­tion date of the le, click the Properties tab and choose
the options you want.

4. Click Find to start the search.

Creating a CD or DVD

If you have a CD or DVD writer, you can burn les to a CD
or DVD with K3b.

1. Press Alt + F2 and enter k3b. K3b opens.

2. Click New Data CD Project in the bottom part of the
window.

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

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

5. Enter the required information in the Data Project dia­log. If you are not sure which settings to choose, click
K3b Defaults. This should work well for almost all les.

6. 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 ag 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 lter and
effect plug-ins help create works of art from your digital
images.

To start digiKam, press Alt + F2 and enter digikam. On
rst start-up, digiKam creates a custom folder in which to
store your albums.

digiKam's main window contains a tree view at the left and
shows thumbnails of the images at the right. For quick ac­cess to your images, use the sidebar at the left, which allows
you to switch between different views, sorting the images
according to albums, tags, dates 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, import music from an iPod* (or
upload les to your iPod), and listen to streaming audio
broadcasts of radio stations on the Internet. The le types
supported depend on the engine used for amaroK.

To start amaroK, press Alt + F2 and enter amarok. On rst
start, amaroK launches a First-Run Wizard with which to
dene the folders where amaroK should look for your music
les.

amaroK's main window shows a sidebar on the left providing
different views: your music collection, a context browser,
your playlists, a le browser, etc. 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 les are properly tagged (containing at least
information about the artist and album), you can make use
of several nice amaroK features. To automatically fetch 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, switch to the Context browser in the
sidebar. Click the Artist tab to make amaroK search for the
appropriate Wikipedia article, which is then displayed in
the context browser. To view a track's lyrics, click the Lyrics
tab to start a search and display the results.

To congure the use of another engine (or various other
amaroK features), select Settings → Congure amaroK.

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Conguring Your System with YaST

Whereas the KDE Control Center is only for conguring
your KDE desktop, you can change the installation and the
conguration of your whole system with YaST. Therefore,
administrator (root) permission is required to open YaST.

YaST holds various modules for adjusting your system set­tings. They are are subdivided into the following categories:

Software: Use the modules of this category to set certain
options for installation and update and to install or remove
software packages.

Hardware: Use modules to congure the hardware of
your computer, such as monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer,
or scanner.

System: With these modules, you can change system
settings, such as date, time, or language, and perform tasks,
such as backup or restoration of les.

Network Devices: Use these modules to congure your
network devices, such as network cards, ISDN, DSL, or mo­dem.

Network Services: These modules are for network ser­vices and for conguring several clients, such as LDAP and
NFS clients.

Novell AppArmor: Use the modules of this category to
congure the Novell AppArmor application security system.

Security and Users: Here, you can congure security
aspects, such as the rewall options, and create and manage
users and groups.

Miscellaneous: Holds several modules that cannot easily
be classied into the rst six module groups. For example,
you can view log les and install drivers from a vendor CD.

To open YaST, press Alt + F2 and enter yast. A dialog
opens in which to enter the root password. The YaST
modules offer integrated online help texts.

Managing Printers

Printers can either be connected to your system locally or
accessed over a network. To use a local printer, make sure
that it is connected to your machine. Shut down the system
before connecting a non-USB printer to your system.

You can congure printers with YaST. Start YaST and select
Hardware → Printer in the YaST control center. This opens
the main printer conguration window. If autodetection of
printing devices fails, click Add in the Printer Conguration
dialog to start the manual conguration workow. Follow
the instructions in the YaST online help. If you are not sure
which option to choose and which information to enter,
ask your system administrator.

After conguring a printing device correctly, you can ad­dress it from any application.

Logging Out

When you are nished using the computer, you can log out
and leave the system running or restart or shut down the
computer. Click the main menu button on your panel and
select Log Out. If you want to leave the system running,
click End Current Session in the dialog that opens. Otherwise,
click Turn Off Computer.

For More Information

This guide gave you a short introduction to the KDE desktop
and some key applications running on it. To discover more,
refer to KDE User Guide and the other manuals available
for SUSE Linux Enterprise at http://www.novell.com/
documentation/sled10/.

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