%general-entities; ]> $LastChangedBy$ $Date$ One option is to put KDE into the /usr hierarchy. This creates a simpler setup but makes it more difficult to try multiple versions of KDE. export &kde-dir-var;=/usr A method of building multiple versions installs KDE in the /opt hierarchy: export &kde-dir-var;=/opt/kde If you are not installing KDE in /usr, you will need to make some additional configuration changes. Best practice is to add those to your system or personal profile: cat > /etc/profile.d/kde.sh << EOF # Begin /etc/profile.d/kde.sh &kde-dir-var;=/opt/kde KDEDIR=&kde-dir; pathappend &kde-dir;/bin PATH pathappend &kde-dir;/lib/pkgconfig PKG_CONFIG_PATH pathappend &kde-dir;/share/pkgconfig PKG_CONFIG_PATH pathappend &kde-dir;/share XDG_DATA_DIRS pathappend /etc/kde/xdg XDG_CONFIG_DIRS export &kde-dir-var; KDEDIR # End /etc/profile.d/kde.sh EOF Add to your /etc/ld.so.conf: cat >> /etc/ld.so.conf << EOF # Begin kde addition /opt/kde/lib # End kde addition EOF /etc/ld.so.conf Several KDE packages install files into D-Bus and polkit directories. When installing KDE in a location other than /usr, D-Bus and polkit need to find these files. The easiest way to achieve this is to create the following symlinks (as the root user): install -d &kde-dir;/share && ln -svf /usr/share/dbus-1 &kde-dir;/share && ln -svf /usr/share/polkit-1 &kde-dir;/share D-Bus also needs to find the configuration files for the system-wide bus, which, if you follow the books instructions, are installed in /etc/kde/dbus-1/system.d. Fix this by issuing the following (as root): mkdir -pv /etc/dbus-1 && cat > /etc/dbus-1/system-local.conf << EOF <!DOCTYPE busconfig PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD D-BUS Bus Configuration 1.0//EN" "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/dbus/1.0/busconfig.dtd"> <busconfig> <includedir>/etc/kde/dbus-1/system.d</includedir> </busconfig> EOF Sometimes, the installation paths are coded into installed files. This is the reason why /opt/kde is used as installation prefix instead of /opt/kde-&kde-version;. After installing KDE, you may rename the directory and create a symlink: mv /opt/kde{,-&kde-version;} && ln -svf kde-&kde-version; /opt/kde Later on, you may want to install other versions of KDE. To do that, just remove the symlink and use /opt/kde as the prefix again (KDE must not be started). Which version of KDE you use depends only on where the symlink points to. No other reconfiguration will be needed.