K Desktop Environment
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# Chapter 3. Installation

| Core dumping fsck's tend to make me nervous
| Linus Torvalds, after finding one of his file systems smashed by a new Beta kernel

Don't worry! Although the use of some Beta software can cause considerable grief, it is unlikely that the installation of KDE will smash your hard disk. In fact, this chapter is designed to guide you through the installation process so that you can take a look at your new desktop as quickly (and with as little grief) as possible. As with all new Window Manager installs, it is recommended that you back up all your X11-specific configuration files before you begin the install. If you do not know the exact location of them, try all the hidden (`.*`) files in your home directory and the directory `/usr/X11/lib/X11/xdm`.

# 3.1. Requirements

Before installing KDE, ascertain that your system fulfills the following requirements:

- A running POSIX compatible UNIX system. UNIX's that are known to work with KDE include: Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, HP-UX, and MkLinux. We are working to make KDE available for more platforms soon.

- Some free hard disk space on the partition where `/opt/kde` will be created. We recommend that you reserve about 50MB if your system supports shared libraries, and considerably more if it does not. If you need or want to build KDE from the source tree, please remember to reserve about 100MB in `/usr/src`.

- A running X11 system with or without xdm. If you have not installed the X Window System yet, first check your UNIX installation media for an installable version. If you cannot find any version working, visit the XFree86 web site for more information on how to get and install the X Window System, or contact your UNIX vendor support.

- The qt-libraries, version 2.2. You can get these at Troll Tech's FTP Server in both rpm and tgz format.

A warning before you start: Before upgrading from a previous version of KDE, we recommend that you do the following:

     cd /opt/kde
     tar cfvz ~/KDE-old-version-backup.tar.gz *

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How to Get New Components |  | Linux: Installing RPMs for RedHat, Caldera and SuSE.