FreeBSD/Setup

Setup

To install the current official release, get [[FreeBSD/Ports|ports or packages].

To install the bleeding edge, get [[FreeBSD/Area51|area51].

Once you have installed whichever version of KDE you like (official ports of KDE4, or KDE Frameworks, Plasma Workspace and Applications from area51, as of early 2017), there are a few more steps to get it running, which we try to list here.

X Window System

To use KDE Software Compilation on FreeBSD, <a href="http://www.x.org">X.Org</a> is required. If you still dont't have it, you'll need to <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-install.html">install</a> and <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html">configure</a> it properly.

Other Dependencies

You should have the following packages installed and configured:

- DBus
- HAL
- procfs

Without them, either KDE software won't run, or you won't have a keyboard and mouse in the X Window System, which reduces its usefulness considerably.

Starting KDE4

After installing KDE workspace (`x11/kde4-workspace`) either via ports or packages, you can add `kdm4_enable="YES"` to `/etc/rc.conf` to boot into KDE Plasma Desktop via KDM, the KDE Display Manager.

Starting KDE Plasma 5 Workspace

After installing KDE Plasma 5 Workspace (`x11/plasma5-plasma-workspace`) either via ports or packages, you must also install SDDM.