Sept 11, 2014: This post is a revision of Give your KDE a Plasma 5 Looks Based On Breeze Free Customization, containing updated theming packages which results in a better, more accurate resemblance to Plasma 5 looks & feels.
As you already know, the KDE project is working hard to bring us a newer, slicker and shinier version of its famous Plasma desktop, KDE Next Gen Plasma Workspace is Getting Near Production.
While it’s still not ready for a prime-time appearance, that doesn’t mean we can’t barrow it’s design and apply it to our own KDE 4.X workspace now, does it? if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad…
So how do we do that? how do we give our desktop a refreshing face-lift without compromising its stability for that sake? Easily – by changing a few of our theming options, follow these steps:
Refresh Your KDE Desktop With a Bit of Kvantum & Breeze
1. First, Download the following list of files needed for theming process:
2. Extract the files, and in case you don’t have it installed by now, you’ll need to install Kvantum by compiling it from the Kvantum-master directory (don’t worry I’ll guide yo through it ;) ).
2.a) First, make sure you have Qt4 (>= 4.8) and X11 development packages (libqt4-dev and libx11-dev in debian-based systems).
Now open up a Terminal >> change directory into Kvantum by typing: cd /home/<YOUR-USER-NAME>/Downloads/Kvantum-master/Kvantum > press Enter >> enter: qmake && make
Optionally, if you have “strip” on your system, also type: strip ./style/libkvantum.so
2.b) After the compilation has finished (with no errors of course), we need to distribute the created files. Type: sudo dolphin to open Dolphin instance with elevated privileges, and use it to do the following file operations:
The file libkvantum.so found inside /home/<YOUR-USER-NAME>/Downloads/Kvantum-master/Kvantum/style/ needs to be put inside /usr/lib/qt4/plugins/styles/. Note, if the folder styles doesn’t exists on your distro – create it.
Import “color/Kvantum.colors” from System Settings > Application Appearance > Colors > Scheme, select it and click Apply.
You may now delete Kvantum-master directory (so it won’t confuse you on the next step).
3. Now move (copy) the files into their designated directories (Note: you might need to enable ‘show hidden files’ first):
- /home/<YOUR-USER-NAME>/.config/Kvantum/
- /home/<YOUR-USER-NAME>/.kde/share/apps/color-schemes/Dynamo.colors
- /home/<YOUR-USER-NAME>/.icons/dynamo-icon-theme
- /home/<YOUR-USER-NAME>/.icons/Breeze (Mouse cursor)
- /home/<YOUR-USER-NAME>/.kde/share/apps/desktoptheme/Dynamo Plasma
- /home/<YOUR-USER-NAME>/.kde/share/apps/aurorae/themes/Dynamo
*Note: on some distributions the correct path might be: /home/<YOUR-USER-NAME>/.kde4…
* Another method to apply these, is by going into both Application and Workspace Appearance (inside ‘System Settings’) and install the zip files from there.
4. Almost done, the last step is to apply the themes, colors, etc…
Go inside System Settings (via start menu) >> Application Appearance >> inside Style under Applications tab select Widget style: Kvantum.
Inside Colors option, under Schemes, select Dynamo. Inside Icons, under Theme tab select Dynamo icon theme.
Go back to Overview and enter Workspace Appearance:
Inside Window Decorations select Descartes Breeze. Inside Cursor Theme select Breeze. Inside Desktop Theme select Dynamo Plasma.
There you go, a beautiful KDE desktop!
