You have heard rumors about TDE. Or you have seen screenshots. You want test TDE. Yet you know next to nothing about this whole alternate operating system business. Don't worry! You only need to do some (well, maybe not some) reading, that's all!

TDE does not run on any version of Microsoft Windows. To run TDE, you need to have a Unix-like operating system. Please refer to Q:2.2 for more details.

Decide on a platform and set it up for your system. This FAQ can not help you with this, since TDE is intended to run on many Unix-like platforms.

To obtain TDE, please refer to Q:3.1. If you encounter problems while installing TDE, please do not hesitate to make use of the TDE mailing lists. No question is too silly to ask, but remember to first look for answers in this FAQ.

Good luck and have fun!

To run TDE consider at least a Pentium III processor, 512MB of memory, and 500MB of free disk space for a basic installation. A full installation will require about 3GB of hard drive storage space. While TDE will run on slower hardware, performance likely will require some patience. Generally, if your computer runs other desktop environments then the hardware probably is capable of running TDE.

You can find binary and source packages for different distributions and operating systems on the Trinity web site. The binary packages are made by dedicated members of the TDE community. The only official release is the source tarball packages. Please refer to the READMEs and INSTALLs in the several binaries folders. Find the latest stable release here.

You need the Qt library as provided by the TDE developers. Previous versions of Qt will not work with the latest TDE. Please ensure you download the correct Qt. You will also need the header files, if you want to compile TDE yourself. They are all available, at no cost, from the TDE repository. There are optional libraries that might improve TDE if installed on your system. An example is OpenSSL which will enable Konqueror to browse web pages securely. These additional packages should be provided by your distributor.

The base distribution currently consists of several packages. Some are required, while others are optional. Each package is available in each of the aforementioned package formats.

tqt3

Required

This package contains the foundational widget support needed by all TDE applications.

tqtinterface

Required

Necessary for supporting subsequent versions of Qt.

arts

Required

The core sound system for TDE

tdelibs

Required

This package contains shared libraries that are needed by all TDE applications.

tdebase

Required

This package contains the base applications that form the core of the Trinity Desktop Environment like the window manager, the terminal emulator, the control center, the file manager, and the panel.

aRts

Required

The aRts sound server. A powerful, network transparent sound server.

tdeaddons

Optional but recommended

Various plugins for Kate, Kicker, KNewsTicker, Konqueror and Noatun

tdeartwork

Optional

Additional wallpapers, themes, styles, sounds ...

tdebindings

Optional

Various bindings for other languages, including Java, Perl, Python, ...

tdegames

Optional

Various games like KMahjongg, KSnake, KAsteroids, and KPatience.

tdegraphics

Optional but recommended

Various graphics-related programs like PostScript previewer, DVI previewer, and a drawing program.

tdeutils

Optional but recommended

Various desktop tools like a calculator, an editor and other nifty stuff.

tdemultimedia

Optional but recommended

Multimedia applications like a CD player and a mixer.

tdenetwork

Optional

Network applications. Currently contains the instant messaging client Kopete, the download manager KGet, and several other network-related programs.

tdepim

Optional but recommended

Personal information management tools. Contains the email client KMail, the newsreader KNode and other related programs.

tdeadmin

Optional but recommended

System administration programs.

tdeedu

Optional

Educational and entertaining applications for TDE's younger users.

tdeaccessibility

Optional but recommended

TDE accessibility programs such as a screen magnifier and speech synthesizer front end.

tdetoys

Optional

Toys!

tdevelop

Optional

A complete Integrated Development Environment for TDE and Qt

tdewebdev

Optional

Web development applications. Contains such applications as Quanta, an integrated web development environment and other applications useful in web development

tdesdk

Optional

TDE Software Development Kit. Contains a collection of applications and tools used by TDE Developers.

Information about compiling all packages is available at the Trinity wiki.

Most package management tools will let you put all these packages in one folder and install them all at once, figuring out the dependencies as they go.

As TDE is intended for many Unix-like systems, please consult the installation procedures and package management document for the system being used.

There should be nothing to do after installing the packages except use them! Nonetheless, should problems arise, there are some common problems to consider:

System search path

Be sure all TDE binary files are installed in a location listed in your system's PATH.

Library files

Be sure the TDE library files are installed in the expected locations for your system.

TDEDIR environment variable

Be sure the TDEDIR environment variable is correctly set.

starttde script installation

Verify the starttde script is installed to $TDEDIR/bin and therefore in your system's search path.

starttde script is run correctly

Be sure the starttde script is being run from within the appropriate xinitrc or xsession script.

This should present you with a new TDE desktop. You can now start to explore the wonderful world of TDE. In case you want to read some documentation first, there is a recommended "A Quick Start Guide to the Desktop" available in the TDE Help Center. Furthermore, every application has an online help that is available via the Help menu.

In principle, this is not necessary. The various distro package managers should handle all dependencies.

If you compile the source code yourself, you should take more care.

There are only two methods of starting TDE: using a login manager such as TDM or from the command line, using startx. The respective startup scripts should contain a reference to the starttde script.

You probably tried to start TDE directly with starttde rather than letting the login manager or startx process run that script. From the command line the X server is started with startx. starttde is the script that should be run from your .xinitrc, .xsession, or .Xclients to activate the window manager and the necessary server daemons for TDE. See also Q:4.9.

You shouldn't. TDE should transport your settings intact. All settings should be safe.

TDE uses several temporary files during its operation. Usually these directories and files are found in the following locations:

• $HOME/.DCOPserver-* (there are usually two of these; one is a symlink to the other)

• $HOME/.trinity/socket-hostname

• $HOME/.trinity/tmp-hostname, which normally is a symlink to the next file:

• $TMP/tde-USER

• $HOME/.trinity/socket-hostname, which normally is a symlink to:

• $TMP/tdesocket-USER

If the symlinks get broken, such as when cron or a shutdown script is emptying the /tmp folder, then strange things will happen. These files, and the symlinks, will all be created automatically at the start of TDE so you can safely remove them while TDE is not running.

If you are only getting a gray screen when you start TDE, or if you get an error message telling you to Check your installation, then shut down X and delete all the files listed above, then try to restart X.

Normally (i.e. when not updating between TDE versions) it's quite safe to leave these files intact, and you may shave a few seconds off your TDE startup time by doing so.

While many programs originally designed for KDE 3 will compile on Trinity, binary compatibility with KDE 3 is not a goal of TDE developers.

Possibly, but binary compatibility is not a project goal with major point releases. A package that built on a previous version of TDE but no longer builds on the current release should be brought to the attention of the developers.

Not quite, but don't worry. Some "scrubbing" cleanup is required to migrate a KDE 3 profile. For new users or those with little customization we recommend creating a fresh profile. For those long-time users who cringe at the thought of recreating their desktop, we provide a migratekde3 shell script. That script copies a $HOME/.kde3 profile directory to $HOME/.trinity and performs the required "scrubbing" cleanup. Although the script has been tested we provide the tool "as is" with no warranties or guarantees. (The script works really well, actually. :-))