KDE Plasma: a complete setup guide

Master your KDE Plasma experience / updated for 5.21

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Tech notes and Geek stuff

6 min readFeb 24, 2021

This post keeps track of my KDE customization routine when installing the system from a new ISO. It comes with my Gitlab repo containing every dotfiles.

Step 1 : basic setup

Update the system, using KDE Neon specific command:

$ pkcon update

Install KDE/Qt additionnal packages:

$ sudo apt install catimg clementine cmus easytag encfs fd-find filezilla fzf gimp git gparted grep gufw htop imagemagick inkscape k3b kate kdenlive kcolorchooser kfind kget krita ktorrent kup-backup neofetch nmap ranger ripgrep skanlite ttf-mscorefonts-installer vim virtualbox zsh

DOTFILE: see applications info & details here.

Step 2 : system settings

1. Search

System Settings > Search > Files / Krunner / Web: stop file indexing and extensive search, that may slow down old computers:

2. Keyboard shortcuts

Add a few more shortcuts in System Settings > Shortcuts

Super + Q: close window
Super + up/down: maximize/minimize window
Super + enter: start Konsole
Super + F1 to F4: go to Desktop 1 to 4

3. Basic appearance for the setup phase

Theme & Icons: Breeze-Dark
Fonts: Ubuntu Medium 9pt
Mono Fonts: JetBrains Mono

Note: font render in GTK app is not optimal. To improve it, force font DPI to 105. This option is only available with X Session, not Wayland.

GTK3 settings are synchronized with KDE and stored in .config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini

4. Desktop Behaviour

Increase Animation Speed
Deactivate screen borders
Desktop effects: deactivate blur / activate “Focus: slide behind”
Desktops: 2 desktops inline

5. Applications

Check default applications
Deactivate “Launch Feedback”

6. Dolphin

Enhanced Dolphin menu bar with additionnal icons: Home | Launch Terminal here | Preview
Add “Folder Colors” service: Configure Dolphine > Services > Download new services > Folder Color. This additionnal service allows you to… color your folders.

Step 3: configure Zshell & Plugins

Installation

The package zsh is already installed, here to start the configuration process to create your basic zshrc file:

$ zsh /usr/share/zsh/functions/Newuser/zsh-newuser-install -f

Now install Oh-My-Zsh, a fantastic plugin framework:

$ sh -c "$(wget -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Here a selection of 4 useful plugins:

- zsh-syntax-highlighting - zsh-autosuggestions - zsh-Z - fzf

$ git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting$ git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions$ git clone https://github.com/agkozak/zsh-z $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-z$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf
$ ~/.fzf/install

Now edit .zshrc to activate the plugins:

plugins=(
    fzf
    git
    history-substring-search
    colored-man-pages
    zsh-autosuggestions
    zsh-syntax-highlighting
    zsh-z
)

End the file with these 2 lines for FZF integration:

export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='fdfind --type f'
export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS=" --layout=reverse --inline-info --height=80%"

DOTFILE: full config file here

Zsh Themes

List of themes
Name of your favorite theme in the ZSH_THEME section
Use Spectrum to modify the theme colors: spectrum_ls

# default theme
# ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"
ZSH_THEME="half-life"

Tip: apply the changes by running source ~/.zshrc

Make Zsh default (in KDE you may need to specify it in Konsole settings):

$ chsh -s $(which zsh)

Step 4: configure Vim and plugins

The vimpackage is installed, it uses a .vimrc dotfile located in your home folder. We’ll use that file to add options and plugins to Vim.

Vim with split window (Startify | .vimrc)

Vim-Plug is a light plugins manager for Vim that will make installation easier.

$ curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

First, create a new folder to save your plugins, ie:

$ mkdir .vim/plugged

Open your ~/.vimrc and create a new section for Vim-Plug specifying the directory you’ve created:

call plug#begin(~/.vim/plugged)

Then list the plugins to install (have a look at Vim Awesome):

Plug mhinz/vim-startify
Plug vimwiki/vimwiki

Save and start vim, then use :PlugInstall to install the plugins.

DOTFILE: full .vimrc here

Last tip: to increase keyboard navigation speed on Vim, modify the keyboard delay and speed to 250 ms / 45 rs

Step 5: Nvidia drivers

This section is specific to my current hardware: Intel chipset with integrated nvidia GPU.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
$ sudo apt update # search the versions available:
& apt search nvidia-driver

Install the latest version, reboot to activate Nvidia GPU. Use this command to switch between nvidia and intel chipset, then reboot:

$ prime-select intel|nvidia

If SDDM crashes on boot or displays at the wrong resolution, try this:

delete (move) /etc/X11/xorg.conf
add these 3 lines to /usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup

xrandr --setprovideroutputsource modesetting NVIDIA-0
xrandr --auto
xrandr --dpi 96

For Fast-FPS fans, test your performance on the fantastic Xonotic or RedEclipse.

Step 6: optional tools

Youtube-dl

$ sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl$ sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

Two dependencies may be required for certain operations:

$ sudo apt install python ffmepg
$ youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 {url}

ProtonVPN on Linux

Install and configure ProtonVPN on Ubuntu:

$ wget -q -O - https://repo.protonvpn.com/debian/public_key.asc | sudo apt-key add - 
$ sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://repo.protonvpn.com/debian unstable main'
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install protonvpn

Then login: protonvpn-cli login [Proton username]

Main commands:

$ protonvpn-cli connect 
$ protonvpn-cli status 
$ protonvpn-cli disconnect

DuckDuckGo search from terminal (ddgr)

The apt doesn’t work, being out of date: get the latest deb/rpm from the Github repo: https://github.com/jarun/ddgr/releases/

Rofi Launcher

$ sudo apt install rofi

Explore the themes by running rofi-theme-selector, then hit Alt+a to apply. To customize your launcher, copy the default config file and modify it:

$ rofi -dump-config > ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi

Step 7: the makeover

I was a big fan of theming in my XFCE & Gnome years, mainly because the default themes of these two DE have an old and unsatisfying touch. KDE is a different story, its artistic vision has evolved and today’s Plasma 5.21 theme is pixel perfect and coherent.

Nonetheless, comes a day when you want to change the look of your daily drive. And in that scenario, I recommend the stunning We10x-Dark icon set and plasma theme, that -dispite its name- is so much more elegant than a Windows copy . This theme is coherent with my choice of a classic desktop metaphor (ie. not Apple-ish nor Gnome-ish)