Hello, my distribution is Kubuntu 11.04, I installed it yesterday.

I want to start to edit the source code of KDE and some KDE apps. I need to test the modified versions. I do not want to install or replace the original KDE installation that comes with Kubuntu.

I downloaded and compiled kdebase 4.6.2 package, and tested Dolphin, Konsole and Kwrite. They use settings from my user's home directory, then I created an user in order to test.

I want to test the plasma desktop, I will have to log in and choose the new plasma desktop, but I want to keep my current kdm and my current KDE plasma desktop installation.

I manage to do this fine, although I use KDE Trunk as my regular system and keep the system installation as a backup.

In the user which you are switching to use your self compiled installation, simply setup a ~/.xinitrc file, which sets the environment variables such as PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, KDEDIRS, etc. then executes "startkde".

Make sure the ~/.xinitrc file is executable.