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KDE
is a free software community, producing a wide range of applications including the popular Plasma desktop environment.
Gentoo support for the KDE project is excellent, with comprehensive packaging of KDE Frameworks, Plasma, and Applications, as well as a wide array of other miscellaneous KDE-based software.
Contents
Prerequisites
1.1
Profile
1.1.1
Combined hardened profiles
1.2
Services
1.2.1
Session tracker
1.2.2
Device manager
1.2.3
Miscellaneous
1.3
X server
1.4
Wayland
Plasma
2.1
Available versions
2.2
Installation
2.2.1
USE flags
2.2.2
Emerge
2.3
Starting Plasma
2.3.1
Display manager
2.3.2
No display manager
2.4
Widgets
2.5
KWallet
2.5.1
KWallet auto-unlocking
2.5.2
Disabling KWallet
2.6
SSH/GPG Agent startup/shutdown scripts
2.7
Non-root user authentication for dialogs
2.8
Run GUI applications with root privileges
2.9
Files
2.10
Removal
Applications
3.1
Available versions
3.2
Installation
3.3
Localization
3.4
KDE PIM
Frameworks
4.1
Available versions
More KDE software
Troubleshooting
See also
External links
References
Prerequisites
Profile
Important
Read
relevant documentation
before performing any profile changes.
Choosing an appropriate
profile
, although not required, is recommended as it sets a number of global and package-specific USE flags to ease installation and ensure a smooth KDE experience.
In order to choose the most suitable profile, first list what's available:
root
eselect profile list
...
[21] default/linux/amd64/23.0 (stable)
[22] default/linux/amd64/23.0/systemd (stable)
[23] default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop (stable)
[24] default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/systemd (stable)
[25] default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/gnome (stable)
[26] default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/gnome/systemd (stable)
[27] default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/plasma (stable)
[28] default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/plasma/systemd (stable)
...
Then, select the right profile, substituting
with the appropriate profile number:
root
eselect profile set X
For Plasma desktop environment choose
desktop/plasma
with
OpenRC
or
desktop/plasma/systemd
with
systemd
. Note that other USE flag combinations than set by the profile may technically be possible (especially if selected applications are run instead of a full KDE Plasma desktop environment), but may be unsupported, untested, or lead to unexpected loss of functionality.
Combined hardened profiles
Users that run hardened profiles can also combine it with all the features of the plasma desktop profile. For steps on doing this please follow
KDE/Hardened_KDE_Plasma_profile
Services
Default choices of these services will be pulled in automatically - by the installation steps in the following chapters - depending on the
profile
selection made earlier, but still need to be set up properly before starting KDE Plasma for the first time. For deviating from the defaults, it is recommended to install them in advance of KDE Plasma or KDE Gear via
emerge --oneshot
so that
Portage
will take them into account. Follow the links for information how to set up these services.
Session tracker
Choose exactly one of:
elogind
: Standalone logind package, default for
desktop/plasma
profile, extracted from systemd project for use with
OpenRC
or other init systems.
systemd
: Uses the session tracker part of systemd. Users of systemd do not need to take any other initiative here.
Device manager
Tip
By default, systemd-utils is used on OpenRC systems, and systemd is used on systemd systems. Users who don't want to change providers should skip this step.
Choose exactly one of:
udev
: Enables support for udev Linux dynamic and persistent device naming.
systemd
: Uses the device manager part of systemd. Users of systemd do not need to take any other initiative here.
Miscellaneous
D-Bus
: Enables use of the D-Bus message bus system.
PipeWire
: PipeWire is used for sound as well as screensharing and window previews on Wayland.
polkit
: Enables the polkit framework for controlling privileges for system-wide services.
udisks
: Enables support for some storage related services.
X server
Read and follow the instructions in the
X server
article to setup the X environment.
Wayland
In Plasma 6, Wayland is the default session. Many users have been shifted to a Wayland session without even realizing.
Starting from Plasma 6.2.1 in Gentoo,
kde-plasma/plasma-login-sessions
controls the default Plasma session via USE flags:
USE flags for
kde-plasma/plasma-login-sessions
KDE Plasma login sessions
+wayland
Install Wayland session file for Display Managers
Install X11 session file for Display Managers (default is Wayland if both enabled)
Data provided by the
Gentoo Package Database
Last update: 2026-04-12 18:50
More information about USE flags
Users can set
or
wayland
on this package if they wish to control the default.
For Plasma 6, have a system with applicable
VIDEO_CARDS
USE expand settings and kernel with DRMs (Direct Rendering Manager) enabled for Mesa. KWin, the window manager and Wayland compositor, uniquely falls back to low performance software Rendering if unsatisfied.
Plasma
Plasma 6 is the current generation of KDE's desktop environment, based on Qt 6 and KDE Frameworks 6.
Available versions
KDE
Gentoo
Ebuild repository
Status
KDE Plasma 6.5.5
kde-plasma/plasma-meta-6.5.5
gentoo
Stable for
amd64
and
arm64
; testing for
loong
ppc64
riscv
and
x86
KDE Plasma 6.6.4
kde-plasma/plasma-meta-6.6.4
gentoo
Testing for
amd64
arm64
loong
ppc64
riscv
and
x86
KDE Plasma 6.6 stable branch
kde-plasma/plasma-meta-6.6.49.9999
KDE
Live version
KDE Plasma 6 master branch
kde-plasma/plasma-meta-9999
KDE
Live version
Note
Before proceeding, make sure to choose a Plasma profile.
Installation
USE flags
The
kde-plasma/plasma-meta
package provides the full Plasma desktop, configurable by a wealth of USE flags:
USE flags for
kde-plasma/plasma-meta
Merge this to pull in all Plasma 6 packages
+browser-integration
Enable integration with Chrome/Firefox with browser extensions
+crash-handler
Pull in kde-plasma/drkonqi for assisted upstream crash reports
+display-manager
Pull in a graphical display manager
+elogind
Enable session tracking via sys-auth/elogind
+firewall
Pull in kde-plasma/plasma-firewall for system firewall administration
+kwallet
Enable support for KWallet auto-unlocking via kde-plasma/kwallet-pam
+networkmanager
Enable net-misc/networkmanager support
+sddm
Pull in the x11-misc/sddm display manager and system settings module
+smart
Pull in kde-plasma/plasma-disks for disk health monitoring
+wallpapers
Install wallpapers for the Plasma Workspace
+xwayland
Enable Wayland windows screensharing to XWayland applications via gui-apps/xwaylandvideobridge
Add support for X11
Add support for accessibility (eg 'at-spi' library)
bluetooth
Enable Bluetooth Support
crypt
Pull in kde-plasma/plasma-vault for encrypted vaults integration
cups
Add support for CUPS (Common Unix Printing System)
discover
Pull in resources management GUI; a centralised GHNS alternative and optional sys-apps/fwupd frontend
flatpak
Pull in kde-plasma/flatpak-kcm for flatpak permissions administration
grub
Pull in Breeze theme for sys-boot/grub
gtk
Enable Breeze widget style and system settings module for GTK+
ocr
Enable Optical Character Recognition support via app-text/tesseract
oxygen-theme
Pull in Oxygen icons, sound theme and visual style for KDE Plasma
plymouth
Pull in Breeze theme for sys-boot/plymouth
pulseaudio
Install Plasma applet for PulseAudio volume management
qt5
Pull in required packages for seamless integration of KF5/Qt5-based applications
rdp
Enables RDP/Remote Desktop support
sdk
Pull in kde-plasma/plasma-sdk for Plasma development
systemd
Enable use of systemd-specific libraries and features like socket activation or session tracking
thunderbolt
Pull in kde-plasma/plasma-thunderbolt control center module
unsupported
Allow packages that are known to ruin runtime experience ** DO NOT FILE BUGS WITH THIS ENABLED **
virtualkeyboard
Pull in kde-plasma/plasma-keyboard
wacom
Pull in kde-plasma/wacomtablet control center module
webengine
Use kde-apps/khelpcenter to access the locally installed KDE Help System Handbook
Data provided by the
Gentoo Package Database
Last update: 2026-04-12 18:50
More information about USE flags
Emerge
root
emerge --ask kde-plasma/plasma-meta
Alternatively,
kde-plasma/plasma-desktop
provides a very basic desktop, leaving users free to install only the extra packages they require - or rather, figure out missing features on their own.
Warning
Please note that installing just
kde-plasma/plasma-desktop
will exclude important packages needed for KDE Plasma to function, such as
kde-plasma/powerdevil
(power management, suspend and hibernate options),
kde-plasma/systemsettings
, and many more. This package should be used with the understanding that additional packages will need to be installed to ensure a functioning environment. Do not expect support when using this package.
Starting Plasma
Display manager
SDDM
(Simple Desktop Display Manager) is the recommended login manager and is pulled in automatically via
kde-plasma/plasma-meta
by default. This is the preferred option. Alternatively,
LightDM
can be used and pulled in by setting USE flag
-sddm
for
kde-plasma/plasma-meta
. Change the setting accordingly in
/etc/conf.d/display-manager
. Also, be sure to read through the
SDDM
page if further issues appear.
No display manager
Plasma can be started the old-fashioned way with
startx
, but extra care needs to be taken to ensure it gets a valid session.
FILE
~/.xinitrc
#!/bin/sh
exec
dbus-launch
--exit-with-session
startplasma-x11
When using
Wayland
, Plasma can be launched with
dbus-run-session startplasma-wayland
This can be added to a user's profile file which will be executed when logging in:
FILE
~/.profile
#!/bin/sh
dbus-run-session
startplasma-wayland
Widgets
Many useful widgets are in the
kde-plasma/kdeplasma-addons
package (already pulled in by
kde-plasma/plasma-meta
):
root
emerge --ask kde-plasma/kdeplasma-addons
KWallet
Many users will be introduced to
kde-frameworks/kwallet
, Plasma's encrypted password storage, while adding a (wireless) network connection after login or adding E-Mail accounts in
kde-apps/kmail
For managing KWallets, importing and exporting passwords, there is
kde-apps/kwalletmanager
root
emerge --ask kde-apps/kwalletmanager
KWallet auto-unlocking
kde-plasma/kwallet-pam
provides a mechanism to avoid being subsequently asked for access to kwallet after login.
root
emerge --ask kde-plasma/kwallet-pam
It requires the following setup:
For KWallet security, use classic blowfish encryption instead of GPG
Choose same password for login and kwallet
Configure a display manager with support for PAM - both
x11-misc/sddm
and
x11-misc/lightdm
fulfill that requirement:
FILE
/etc/pam.d/sddm
Config lines for KWallet PAM unlocking via SDDM
-auth
optional
pam_kwallet5.so
-session
optional
pam_kwallet5.so
auto_start
For unlocking on tty login (no display manager, or like
gui-apps/tuigreet
), edit
/etc/pam.d/login
accordingly. The user will need to specify the
force_run
parameter.
FILE
/etc/pam.d/greetd
Config lines for KWallet PAM unlocking via Greetd
-auth
optional
pam_kwallet5.so
-session
optional
pam_kwallet5.so
auto_start
force_run
Note
For LightDM,
/etc/pam.d/lightdm
needs to be edited instead.
Note
If the filesystem containing a user's KWallet files is mounted by
pam_mount
upon logging on, it may be required to copy
~/.local/share/kwalletd/kdewallet.salt
to the same path on the root filesystem. Otherwise, PAM attempts to unlock KWallet before the home directory is available and fails. The file
~/.local/share/kwalletd/kdewallet.kwl
which actually contains the encrypted KWallet passwords does not need to be copied.
Disabling KWallet
To disable the KWallet subsystem completely, edit the following file:
FILE
~/.config/kwalletrc
[Wallet]
Enabled
false
SSH/GPG Agent startup/shutdown scripts
ssh-agent scripts are located in
/etc/xdg/plasma-workspace/env
and
/etc/xdg/plasma-workspace/shutdown
. Shutdown scripts require executable bit set because they are not sourced. The
Keychain
article provides more information about this.
Non-root user authentication for dialogs
Some KDE dialogs such as printers, adding wireless networks and adding users require administrator authentication. This is handled through
sys-auth/polkit
and operates independently from
app-admin/sudo
. By default in Gentoo, the root account is the only administrator, and so even if a user account can run root commands through
sudo
, authentication in these KDE dialogs will fail.
Adding wireless networks using
net-misc/networkmanager
is allowed by a polkit rule which is part of the Gentoo package and already allows access for every user in the group
plugdev
. For other dialogs the behavior must be configured manually: If all users of the group
wheel
are required to be administrators, create a copy of
/usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d/50-default.rules
starting with a number lower than 50, and edit the line
return ["unix-user:0"]
to the following:
FILE
/etc/polkit-1/rules.d/49-wheel.rules
Administrator wheel group
polkit.addAdminRule(function(action, subject) {
return ["unix-group:wheel"];
});
The
Polkit
wiki page provides more details on rules configuration.
Run GUI applications with root privileges
Warning
It could be a
very
bad idea to start GUI applications with root privileges, versus adding the regular user to the relevant group or simply just running the command unprivileged. Only use
kdesu
when absolutely necessary.
KDE Plasma has a utility to start graphical programs with root privileges. It is provided by
kde-plasma/kdesu-gui
and is already pulled in by
kde-plasma/plasma-meta
. It requires
Xorg
, and only works within X
[1]
root
emerge --ask kde-plasma/kdesu-gui
It can be used by invoking
kdesu
either from KRunner or a terminal emulator:
user
kdesu
A message dialog will be displayed prompting for the root password.
Note
Some applications such as kwrite, dolphin etc. refuse to be opened with
kdesu
for security reasons.
Note
By default, kdesu internally uses
su
, which may not be preferred for some use cases. It is possible to use
sudo
or other sudo-compatible commands, by changing
kdesurc
FILE
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kdesurc
Use sudo instead of su in kdesu
[super-user-command]
super-user-command
sudo
Files
XDG standard directories are being used for KDE Plasma and KDE applications:
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME
(defaults to
$HOME/.config
) - Configuration files
$XDG_DATA_HOME
(defaults to
$HOME/.local/share
) - Application data
Removal
The first step to remove KDE Plasma and its dependencies is to unmerge
kde-plasma/plasma-meta
. This will not yet remove any files from the installation, so the desktop environment will keep running:
root
emerge --ask --depclean --verbose kde-plasma/plasma-meta
In a next step it can be useful to scan
/etc/portage
directory for any KDE Plasma specific entries in
package.mask
package.unmask
and
package.accept_keywords
and clean them up.
Finally, run the command to uninstall any Plasma packages and their dependencies. It would make sense to quit any running Plasma session beforehand:
root
emerge --ask --depclean
Warning
Please note that this will not just remove KDE Plasma but also any other package not registered (or being depended on) in @world. Carefully read through the list of packages to be removed before continuing. Alternatively, run this command prior to unmerging of kde-plasma/plasma-meta to get an overview of already dangling packages on the system.
Applications
KDE Gear consists of various applications and supporting libraries based on Qt/KDE Frameworks.
Available versions
KDE
Gentoo
Ebuild repository
Status
KDE Gear 25.12.3
kde-apps/kde-apps-meta-25.12.3
gentoo
Stable for
amd64
and
arm64
; testing for
x86
KDE Gear 26.04.0
kde-apps/kde-apps-meta-26.04.0
gentoo
Testing for
amd64
arm64
and
x86
KDE Gear 26.04 stable branch
kde-apps/kde-apps-meta-26.04.49.9999
KDE
Live version
KDE Gear master branch
kde-apps/kde-apps-meta-9999
KDE
Live version
KDE Gear is divided in the following meta packages:
Package name
Description
kde-apps/kdeaccessibility-meta
Accessibility applications and utilities.
kde-apps/kdeadmin-meta
Administrative utilities, which help in managing the system.
kde-apps/kdecore-meta
Basic applications such as file browser, editor, terminal emulator.
kde-apps/kdeedu-meta
Educational applications and games.
kde-apps/kdegames-meta
Standard desktop games.
kde-apps/kdegraphics-meta
Graphics applications such as image viewers, color pickers, etc.
kde-apps/kdemultimedia-meta
Audio and video playback applications and services.
kde-apps/kdenetwork-meta
Network applications and VNC services.
kde-apps/kdepim-meta
PIM applications such as emailer, addressbook, organizer, etc.
kde-apps/kdesdk-meta
Various development tools.
kde-apps/kdeutils-meta
Standard desktop utilities such as an archiver, a calculator, etc.
Installation
The
kde-apps/kde-apps-meta
package provides the full KDE Gear bundle:
root
emerge --ask kde-apps/kde-apps-meta
If not all the packages are required, one or several smaller meta packages from the list above may be picked instead. Alternatively, it is possible to set
USE flags
to reduce the number of applications installed by
kde-apps/kde-apps-meta
Localization
Plasma and Applications are shipping their
localization
per-package. Enable desired localization in System Settings.
KDE PIM
KDE PIM is a whole suite of applications to manage personal information including mail, calendar, contacts and more. It has several optional runtime dependencies to extend its functionality:
Virus detection:
app-antivirus/clamav
Spam filtering:
mail-filter/bogofilter
or
mail-filter/spamassassin
Frameworks
KDE Frameworks is a collection of libraries and software frameworks that provide the foundation for KDE Plasma and KDE Gear (applications), but may be leveraged by any Qt application.
As Frameworks are mostly libraries and provide little user functionality, it's not necessary to install them manually - the required packages will be pulled in automatically as dependencies.
Available versions
KDE
Gentoo
Ebuild repository
Status
KDE Frameworks 6.23.0
kde-frameworks/*-6.23.0
gentoo
Stable for
amd64
arm64
and
ppc64
; testing for
loong
riscv
and
x86
KDE Frameworks 6.25.0
kde-frameworks/*-6.25.0
gentoo
Testing for
amd64
arm64
loong
ppc64
riscv
and
x86
KDE Frameworks 6 (master) branch
kde-frameworks/*-9999
KDE
Live version
More KDE software
The most important KDE applications are in the Gentoo ebuild repository and many are located in the
kde-apps
and
kde-misc
categories.
Troubleshooting
Refer to the
Troubleshooting
sub-article.
See also
KDE/Ebuild repository
— provides instructions on adding Gentoo's KDE ebuild development repository to a system.
kde-sunset ebuild repository
- For old KDE software that has been removed from the main ebuild repository.
Desktop environment
— provides a list of desktop environments available in Gentoo.
External links
Official KDE user wiki
Official KDE forum
KDE Store (themes, widgets, wallpapers, etc.)
References
Retrieved from "
Categories
KDE
Desktop environment
US