KDE

Desktop Theme

Baghira

• Baghira offers a very good QT/KDE theme imitating Apple OSX look.
• On SuSE, just install package through YaST (packman or Guru repositories)
• To activate:
  • Configure Desktop - Personal Settings → Appearance & Theme → Style → select Baghira.
  • Configure Desktop - Personal Settings → Appearance & Theme → Window Decoration → select Baghira.

Mouse Icon theme

• To install, simply extract archive folder in ~/.icons (eg. ~/.icons/Shere Khan X/.
• Select theme through Configure Desktop - Personal Settings → Peripheral → Mouse → Cursor Theme.

Shere Khan X

• Best OSX-like icon theme.

Jaguar X

• Another good OSX-like icon theme.

Window Shadows

• To enable window shadows, right-click on window title bar → Configure Window Behavior → Translucency → panel Shadows.

Amarok

• xine-lib/1.1.14-1 has a bug that makes Amarok to freeze frequently when changing track. (see bug). Bug is solved in xine-lib/1.1.14-2.
• Still some problems with crossfading. It introduces jerky feedback. Around track changes, CPU goes up to 100%. However jerkiness is not always around track change...
• Recent versions of Amarok requires to install package kubuntu-restricted-extras or Amarok will not play mp3 files.
• Proxy settings — Edit file ~/.kde/share/config/kioslaverc as follows (also works within Gnome, see [1]):

[Proxy Settings][$i]
ProxyType=1
httpProxy=http://username:password@proxyserver:port/
httpsProxy=http://username:password@proxyserver:port/
ftpProxy=http://username:password@proxyserver:port/

• Keyboard shortcuts — Amarok shortcuts shall work if the Gnome shortcuts for media keys like Play, Pause... are disabled.
• Prevent Amarok to lock the sound card under Gnome — In menu Settings → Configure Amarok... → Playback → click Configure Phonon. This opens the KDE Sound and Video Configuration window that lists in which order of preference audio devices should be used. If you have something that looks like the name of the sound card at the top, with PulseAudio somewhere below, this is the cause of the locking problem. Only one application can use the sound output at a time. PulseAudio is a sound server application that allows several applications to share the same sound output. For all use case, drag PulseAudio to the top of the list so that Amarok will use PulseAudio rather than compete with it (reference [2]).

Konqueror

• Check the Wikipedia page on Konqueror for handy information!

KIO

• KIO (KDE Input/Output [3]) are plugins in the Konqueror architecture that extends its capabilities well beyond those of other browsers and file managers.
• Information on KIO in Konqueror can be obtained from KDE KinfoCenter (manual here). It can be launched with the command kinfocenter. Check the Protocols section.
• Useful KIOs:

fish

Allows you to access another computer's files using the SEcure Shell (SSH) protocol. fish is supposedly faster than sftp.

Syntax is fish://username@server/folder.

sftp

SFTP is a Secure file transfer protocol. sftp is an interactive file transfer program, similar to ftp, but it performs all operations over an encrypted ssh transport.

Syntax is sftp://username@server/folder.

smb

The smb ioslave enables you to browse the shares of a Windows® (or Samba) network. It requires libsmbclient.

Syntax is smb://a_workgroup, to list the hosts in a workgroup.

Syntax is smb://the_host or smb:/a_workgroup/the_host to see the shares of a host.

Syntax is smb://the_host/the_share or smb:/a_workgroup/the_host/the_share to access a share directly.

man

Using the man ioslave you are able to read the man pages installed on your system.

K3b

• To enable MP3 support, install MAD MP3 decoding library and K3b MAD MP3 decoder plugin.