I switched to kde with the release of kubuntu 9.10. No real reason on why I converted, just wanted to try new things. Love it so far. Anyway, here are the questions:

1- What's the difference between activities and virtual desktops? the virtual desktops are similar to the one in gnome, right? and I saw that I can have many activities for one virtual desktop, but I can't seem to delete or remove an activity, how can i do so?. And what do people use more, activities or desktops?

2- How to stop certain applications from running at startup? like the bluetooth app?

3- I changed the theme of the KDM, but now when I start my laptop the default theme flashes for half a second, then the new installed theme is shown. its nothing serious, but its quite bothering

These are the questions i have so far.
thanks

1, In virtual desktops, any widgets or plasmoids you install will show on all desktops. In activities, every activity can have its own set of plasmoids/widgets. Similarly, a chosen wallpaper will be in all virtual desktops, but activities can have their own. In KDE SC 4.4 activities are linked to virtual desktops, so much of the difference disappears. Adding and removing activities is quite different depending on the version of KDE that you are running. Post the version of kdebase-workspace and someone should be able to advise you.

2. I'm not sure whether you can easily do that. I imagine it is part of the system startup config. Someone else probably can advise.

3. That's probably the distro's splash screen. If so, you can change it at System Settings > Appearance > Splash Screen.

Always bear in mind that distros do customise things, so sometimes an answer is not perfect for your distro, but it should give you an idea where to look. If you still can't find something, ask more questions.

1. You can read more about activities on this Userbase page. Basically, virtual desktops are for grouping windows and activities for desktop stuff (wallpaper, widgets on your desktop etc.).

Remove an activity in KDE SC 4.3.x:



Note that you can't remove the activity you "zoom out" from, and your widgets need to be unlocked. You can find a link to more animations in the first link I posted (Plasma HowTo - short screencasts).

2. There are two cases of "Autostart" - apps that are set to autostart, and apps that are restored from a session.

You can configure autostart applications in System Settings -> Advanced -> Autostart.

If you don't see the application here, it's likely it's restored from the previous session (default setting). This can be configured in System Settings -> Advanced -> Session Manager. You can choose to start with an empty session, or restore manually saved session. If you still want to use the "restore previous session" option, use "Applications to be excluded from sessions" to exclude some applications.

3. With "default theme", do you mean the whole theme or just the wallpaper? As for the first, I don't know why.