“KDE stands for”K Desktop Environment.” What does the “K” stand
for? Just K, according to the KDE web site http://www.kde.org. But
what is it? KDE is a graphical desktop environment for Unix
workstations. KDE provides features such as drag and drop
functionality to Linux – just like Windows, kids. Unlike Windows,
KDE is free software, released under the GPL. So you won’t
have to kick another buck to BillG@microsoft.com when the “upgrade”
comes out. And if you need to customize it, say for a specific work
environment, you don’t have to pay big bucks to Redmond then,
either.”
“If you bought or downloaded a recent release of Linux, it’s a
good bet you already have KDE on your PC…The KDE team generally
makes RedHat RPM and Debian DEB packages available, as well as
source code so you can compile your own binaries. Not sure how to
compile a binary? It’s actually simple, but it can be intimidating
for the newbie, so . . .you can also check the home page of your
particular ditribution. Caldera, for instance, makes RPMs available
at it’s FTP site, so you can easily install the whole shebang and
be sure that it all works. It’s a good bet your ditribution does,
too, so check it out.”
“You’ll need to install at least the KDElibs and KDEbase
packages, but you already know this because you looked at the
instructions at the KDE web site, right? You’ll want to install
more than that – like games, and other fun stuff.”