I have scoured the internet searching for how but I can't seem to find anything but info about it. I am running ubuntu jaunty. I started with desktop edition then installed studio edition on top of that. Decided I wanted to try kde as opposed to gnome and now, I am stuck. I have kde installed but don't see much of a difference. except that my shutdown menu that was to the right of my clock disappeared. If Plasma comes already installed automatically with kde 4.x then how do I use it how do i access it.

I wanted to install a theme but kbfx won't run and I can't find the menu applet to put on my menu bar. i read that plasma replaces kbfx in kde 4.x, so what I am asking is if this is true and what do i replace the kbfx menu applet with.

KBFX is an application menu while Plasma is your whole "desktop" - it's more correct to say that Plasma replaced Kicker, KDesktop and SuperKaramba from KDE3. If you use KDE4 you should already have Plasma installed - your panel (often (incorrectly) called "taskbar"), wallpaper, widgets etc. all belong to Plasma.

As far as I know there is no KDE4 version of KBFX yet. There are other application launcher though: Kickoff is the default one, and there is also the traditional menu from KDE3. Another one worth mentioning is Lancelot (should be part of kdeplasma-addons package).

I recommend that you check the Plasma FAQ to learn more about Plasma.

how do i change all of that. because my taskbar and everything still looks the same. and i can't find anything to use to change the layout. The reason I was looking for kbfx was because I found a theme that I wanted and it said to add the kbfx menu to the taskbar, but after that I don't know how to install themes and what not. I want to make it look more kde-ish. i read about kdm theme manager, how do i get/access that.

Hm. Could you please post a screenshot? Sounds like you're confusing a lot of things (kbfx = just a "start menu"; maybe you want to change the "start button" icon in the panel? Plasma also supports themes, and so do KDM (the login manager)).

I have no idea what I'm talking about, just bits and pieces that I pick up from different guides and faqs. I found kdm and I am trying to install it, but I keep getting an error and all I want to do is just install themes. what software can I use to install themes?

what do you want a screenshot of. my desktop?. how do i post a screenshot?

Depends what you mean with themes. As said, there are different themes: Plasma themes changes the way your desktop looks, there are "Styles" that change the look of normal applications (buttons, radio buttons, lists etc.). You have KWin themes to change the look of your window decoration (the thing you click on to move windows), and KDM themes change your login screen's (where you enter user name and password to login) appearance.

A KBFX theme will probably only change the looks of the KBFX "start menu" and/or the "start" button.

Yes, a screenshot of your desktop.
To take a screenshot, you can try and press the "Print Scrn" button on your keyboard. If nothing happens, try to run "KSnapShot" (a KDE application) to take a screenshot. Then you can upload it in various sites, such as Imageshack. When it's uploaded, post the URL here.

By the way, how did you install KDE?

I'm not quite sure what I did exactly. I know that I tried to find a package online, I'm not sure if I found one or not and installed it, but whatever I did, I remember i found something but I wasn't sure if worked or not because nothing changed so out of not being sure whether or not it worked so I opened the terminal and typed sudo apt-get install kde*. and it seemed to work. no errors, i restarted my pc and got to choose. the login screen changed to the login screen that comes with kubuntu.

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8493/36623158.png

trying to install a theme. give the taskbars and stuff a different look
i now realize that it's not kdm that I want right now it is kde

I'm beginning to think that maybe I should just install kubuntu and start over, but I don't want to do that.

grandpa2390 wrote:http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8493/36623158.png

Heh that's what I suspected - you're still running Gnome.

Try to log out. In the login manager, you should be able to choose "Session" or something like that (should be a button with some options somewhere). Change it to "KDE", then log in.
KDE vs Gnome is not only about themes, they're completely different desktop environments. Well, try KDE out and see for yourself.

Learn more about KDE on userbase.

For future posts, please edit your old post by clicking on instead of having two posts in a row.

I currently searching for a solution for this but in case you know something here is my issue. I thought I had selected kde but when I tried to do it again, it turns out it can't start do to this. kstartupconfig4 is corrupt or won't start or does not exist.

I found the solution to that problem, and if any should come across this in a search for a solution, the answer was to do this in the terminal (atleast it worked for me)
$ sudo chown -R username.username /home/username/.kde
replace username with your username everytime it occurs in the command.

Wow this looks great, now i see a difference, I just hope I haven't messed anything up trying to fix it.