Eye candy for KDE Desktop Manager (KDM)
There are several layers at which a GNU/Linux system’s appearance can be customized. By far the most visible, especially on a multi-user machine, is the login manager screen. KDM (the KDE desktop manager) has a highly-flexible and easy-to-use XML-based theme system. If you can draw what you want, you can make it happen with a KDM theme. I’ll talk you through the construction of one simple theme I designed for my ASUS Eee PC.
Despite the fact that the KDM theme structure and syntax is quite simple, I have not found any adequate documentation for it. I learned how to use it by reverse-engineering several existing themes. Hopefully, this column will help to rectify the apparent omission. It’s possible to go much further with themes than you can with simple configuration changes to the login manager (I demonstrated these kinds of simple changes in an earlier column).
To follow along, you will need some kind of graphics editing tools (I used Inkscape and Gimp, but you could easily use other programs for this), and you will need to understand basic XML syntax (XML is very much like HTML, so if you are used to looking at HTML you won’t have much difficulty).
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- 1351 reads
- PDF version
More in Tux Machines
- Highlights
- Front Page
- Latest Headlines
- Archive
- Recent comments
- All-Time Popular Stories
- Hot Topics
- New Members
digiKam 7.7.0 is releasedAfter three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. |
Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
|
Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future TechThe metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. |
today's howtos
|
Recent comments
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago