HOWTO: Change your KDM Theme.

**bored2k** · May 13th, 2005

This is a quick and simple guide explaining how to change your KDM theme. The only requirements for this howto are:

a) KDM (duh!)
b) Konsole or any terminal window (duh!x2)
c) A nice KDM theme to install (this is rocket science hard, leave now!)

KDM themes are available at KDE Looks.

Allright so let's get down to bussiness. I'll work using BlueTheme as an example. Its available here.

1) KDM themes usually comes in .tgz or .bz2 packages. You unpack these using the tar command as follows:

* For .tgz, the command is

Code:

tar xzf themename.tgz

* For .bz2, the command is

Code:

tar xjf themename.bz2

In our case, it's a .bz2 so we

Code:

tar xjf 21124-BlueTheme-0.2.tar.bz2

2) You can use the theme in your current directory or any you desire, but we are moving ours to /usr/share/apps/kdm/themes/

Code:

sudo mv BlueTheme /usr/share/apps/kdm/themes/

3) We are now going to edit the file that points kdm to the right theme direction with KWrite editor.

Code:

sudo kwrite /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc

Ok so go to Line 48 and 49. They read

Theme=/usr/share/apps/kdm/themes/kubuntu

UseBackground=true

You change "kubuntu" for your BlueTheme (or your theme name), and that is it

("UseBackground" must be set to true).

*** Another method is found here

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**hammett111** · June 10th, 2005

No use background on mine bud just kubuntu. How do I stop that kubuntu screen from loading in the background when it goes from the login screen to the desktop?

**pdk001** · June 10th, 2005

thanks for an useful tip

**loboc** · February 5th, 2008

Originally Posted by hammett111

No use background on mine bud just kubuntu. How do I stop that kubuntu screen from loading in the background when it goes from the login screen to the desktop?

In Gutsy (7.10) you can disable the splash screen by going to KMENU>System Settings>Splash Screen and then select none.

By the way the package kdmtheme is supposed to do all this graphically but version 1.2 is broken apparently.