Hi Now I need to configure the whole system, xorg and the desktop environment toWhat I would suggest to do is: Sources: Git the KDE (I would suggesting starting with stable KDE-4.6), and download the debian source of KDE and apply the patches from the Debian packages, they often fix some interaction with Debian services. Configure/build/install: Configure prefix to avoid the system directories. Don't mix things up. I would suggest installing to an opt-dir, such as /opt/kde-4.6 or /opt/kde-trunk. Display-manager: You can then continue to use the Debian kdm if you chooses, or you can edit /etc/init.d/kdm to first set PATH to your KDE-dir, you may need to change or disable /etc/X11/default-display-manager Xsession: Since I usually have both Debian's KDE and my own, I add another session-type in /usr/share/xsessions. If you don't use the Debian's KDE I would suggest just making sure you have the default kde.desktop there and modify /usr/bin/startkde. Startkde: Unless you have defined the used kde-prefix to be a system-dir, you can't call /opt/kde-4.6/bin/startkde directly. I usually create a /usr/bin/startkde (or /usr/bin/startkde-* when I have multiple installations), that sets the correct paths and then executes the correct startkde. .profile: Similarly you need the user to have the correct paths, so make a .profile or .zprofile if you use zsh, and set the PATH and KDEDIRS there as well. I am currently using a subfile setting the environment I call .profile_kde that I can load from both /usr/bin/startkde and from .profile with the command "source ~/.profile_kde" You can now boot-up and use your installed KDE as if it was natively installed, and even better, if you can install multiple versions in parallel and choose between them using multiple Xsession and clever .profile. This is very useful if you wish to do development on KDE and keep a using version as well ;) Best wishes `Allan |