Locations

The most traditional way of accessing files in KDE is to go directly to the location of the file. The most obvious approach for direct location access is to use the file manager – Dolphin. By clicking on the breadcrumb location bar anywhere after the last letter, Dolphin will give you the option to edit the location manually by typing it into the location bar. You can also do this in all KDE file dialogs.

All KDE location bars support traditional Unix paths, including “~” for the home folder. By using the “.”, it is also an easy way to access hidden folders. If you type in the full path of a file, KDE will open the file with the appropriate helper application.

KDE’s kio-slave protocols are also accepted in the location bar. For example, if you type, “remote:/” you will see the available networks and network folders you have created. If you type “programs:/”, you will see the categories for all applications in your menu.

Places

“Places” in KDE are a set of shortcuts to folders and removable media on your computer. By default, the Places panel is found on the left-hand side of Dolphin. You can add folders to Places by dragging them over to the panel or by right clicking and then clicking “Add Entry”.

In addition to Dolphin, KDE file dialogs also use the same Places, making it easy to access the files you want to open or save. The Kickoff and Lancelot menus also display the same places, and the shelf widget can be configured to show them as well.

Like the rest of KDE, Places support shortcuts to kio-slaves. Therefore, you can have quick access to network folders, the trash, Nepomuk searches, and much more.

Bookmarks

One of the file access features that is not immediately apparent in KDE is the “bookmark” tool. With it, you can easily create additional shortcuts to locations you frequently use in addition to those listed in Places.

Bookmarks is primarily available in KDE file dialogs, allowing you to configure quick access bookmark folders for specific applications. Like a web browser, you can bookmark any location in the KDE file dialog by clicking the star icon and “Add Bookmark”, or by pressing Ctrl+B. From then on, anytime you want to quickly access a frequently used location not listed in Places, you can click on the star and bring up your list of bookmarks.

Just as Locations and Places can make use of kio-slaves, Bookmarks can use them too. This means you can quickly save to remote network locations, something particularly useful for using applications like Kate to edit remote scripts and websites.

Other Tools

With the breadcrumbs feature enabled in Dolphin, you can drag and drop files into any one of the breadcrumb spots to easily copy or move files. If you drag and drop into a text editor, it will display the full path to the location in text form.

Another helpful way to easily copy files is to right click on any file and move your mouse pointer to “Copy to”. This will open a sub-menu, giving you the ability to choose the location you want. When you find the folder you want, click “Copy Here”. If this feature is not enabled by default, simply open the Dolphin preferences, click “General”, choose the “Context Menu” tab, and then tick the “Show ‘Copy To’…” checkbox.

With any location, you can access it with Krunner by pressing Alt+F2 and then typing in the location. This includes remote network locations and even website URLs.

KDE supports dragging and dropping of files, folders, and even remote locations across its own applications and even works with some non-KDE applications. With full control over how you access your files and folders, you should be able to use KDE exactly the way you want.

Download

The Windows download for KDE is not very obvious on the main KDE download page. It is not clear if this is deliberate, since it is still unstable, but the Windows installer for KDE is actually available on the KDE website.  Download the .exe file and save it. Double-click it to run the installer, just as you would for any other Windows program.

Install

At this point you have only downloaded the small installation file and not the actual KDE packages. Therefore, select the first option in the installation window “Install from Internet”. The next screen will present you with several options about how to install KDE. Unless you are a developer or have some specific reason to choose the other options, just choose “End User”. This will install the binary packages for KDE, whereas the other options all require you to compile KDE from source.

On the next screen, you can choose which KDE programs to install. As you will see, there are quite a few KDE applications now available, although some are still missing. Select as many or as few as you like. Even if you realize that you want to install more software, the installer will let you install just those later on, without having to reinstall the previous ones.

Click next and follow the rest of the instructions just as you would with a normal installer. When it is complete, it will ask you if you want to run System Settings. Check the box and proceed.

Configure and Use

The System Settings program is currently functional, although many settings are not yet available to Windows users.  Click on the “Advanced” tab and then click the “Platform” button. This is a unique non-Unix feature that allows you to select the level of Windows integration. Currently, Plasma is not available but apparently will be in the future.

Next, click on the “General” tab and click “Appearance“.  Click the “Style” button and choose the widget style you prefer. KDE can integrate with the default Windows style or use the default KDE style: Oxygen.

Finally, run KDE applications just like you run regular Windows ones: directly from the Start Menu. KDE games work particularly well, as does the KDE text editor, Kate, which we covered two weeks ago. Always keep in mind that this software is not yet complete, but what they do have available works pretty well. For information and customization options, be sure to read the KDE TechBase documentation on Windows. KDE is free and open source software, which you can freely download, install, and redistribute.

Here’s a list that consists of several actions you can take using Webmin:

• Creating, editing, and deleting UNIX login accounts on your system
• Exporting files and directories to other systems with the NFS protocol
• Setting up disk quotas to control how much space users can take up with their files
• Installing, viewing, and removing software packages in RPM and other formats
• Changing your system’s IP address, DNS settings, and routing configuration
• Setting up a firewall to protect your computer or give hosts on an internal LAN access to

the Internet

• Creating and configuring virtual web sites for the Apache Web server
• Managing databases, tables, and fields in a MySQL or PostgreSQL database server
• Sharing files with Windows systems by configuring Samba

Webmin System Management

Webmin is a powerful software management system used on your choice of an already powerful OS platform. Webmin allows you to configure and setup almost all of the common services and servers on UNIX and Unix-like systems from the simple GUI (Graphical User-Interface). Webmin warns and protects you from potential dangerous actions that are possibly about to occur.

As many of you Linux and Unix-like users have been manually configuring your files, I found that Webmin will recognize any and all existing configurations! This means that all of the work you’ve previously accomplished will remain unchanged once you begin to successfully manage your system with Webmin.

As Jamie Cameron (the developer of Webmin) states in his FREE book on how to fully manage and configure a Linux system using Webmin, you can only use this web-based application if you have a program/Operating System for it to configure, otherwise it’s absolutely useless.

Recently released versions of Webmin can be installed and run on Windows. However, there will be limited functionality as Webmin says not all of its servers will be available if you decide to run it on a Windows based OS. You can find the steps on how to install and properly configure Webmin on their site.

Here’s a hands-on video on how to setup and configure certain aspects your Webmin:

Drawbacks

The only “issue” that was a bit hard to get used to was the fact that when using Webmin you can’t immediately view the exact changes its made, thus you don’t accurately learn from the changes it makes. This can be useful for future configurations. However, once the changes are up and running you’re able to take the config files apart and examine the process it undertook, leaving you with an admiral facial expression.

Our Webmin Journey Concludes

Webmin is most definitely worth taking a much closer look at. This is one of the most useful and powerful tools for administering Linux and Unix-like systems. Moreover, unlike older releases, the newer version allows you to use multiple SSL websites using the same IP addresses for added security and support. Webmin is constantly being updated and never falls behind, its one-of-a-kind easy to use web-interface will convince you of this all on its own.

You can download Webmin on their site or on SourceForge.net