Moderators: If this is posted to the wrong board, please move accordingly.

Kubuntu 11.10, KDE 4.7.3, both fully up to date.

I have long been annoyed by the transition from the KDM log on screen to the Ksplash screen. I use user login and a KDM Theme (Horos). When leaving the KDM screen the background image is scaled by Ksplash, which makes the visual transition from KDM to Ksplash look awkward. I have looked, but not found, an easy fix to Ksplash (and there are plenty of posts/reports on this visual 'ugliness'. However, there is a very easy fix to this problem in KDM.

All one needs to do is change one single word in the KDM themes .xml file and problem is solved. I'm using the default Horos KDM theme, so the change is made to:

/usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/themes/horos/horos.xml


Using your favorite text editor launched as root, change crop to scale in the following line:

<normal wallpaper="Horos" scalemode="crop"/>

Save and close the file, log out and log back in and Voila! Smooth transition from KDM to Ksplash screens.

Nice, moved to Tutorials & Tips since it seems to fit well here.