The K Desktop Environment (KDE) is brilliant, dynamic, full-featured -- and dull. At least that's the way it's presented in almost every distribution and boot disk on the market.

Notice the blandness, the careful way in which any possible interest you might have is sapped by the dreary colours and wishy-washy background. It's about as exciting as a wet week in Taihape. Click on something? Explore? Nah, thanks anyway. I think I'll just curl up and die.

Take that background. There's a gazillion interesting wallpapers on KDE-look (along with themes, screensavers, icons and all sorts of other stuff) but let's just stick with what's available by default. Right-click the boring backdrop, choose Configure Desktop then Background. If you move focus to the Picture drop-down you can move up and down the list with the arrow keys and look at a preview image on the right.

Part 1

The dull looking toolbar at the bottom of any KDE installation is known officially as the Panel and, like most of Linux, has about a gazillion configuration options.

It's accessed by right-clicking any blank area on it and choosing Configure Panel.

You can control its position, length, width, size, hiding behaviour, menus, appearance, transparency... the list seems endless. But what isn't immediately apparent is that Panel is actually just the holding bay for a selection of applications and "applets" - mini applications - that you can also tinker with.

Part 2