Notes on Linux Layout Customization

These are some additional KDE customizations that you can set before first login. I figured out how to change these settings by making changes through the GUI and studying the configuration files. Newer versions of KDE may not use the same configurations. If you do this before first login, you will need to create the directories and files.

The autostart script runs when you login. You can start multiple Konsole tabs with each one running a different program. Note you might want to use ‘sh’ instead, which probably points to your login shell.

# write to ~/.kde/Autostart/konsole.sh
if ! pidof konsole > /dev/null; then
    konsole --workdir ~/ --new-tab -e bash -c "some_command; exec bash" &
    sleep .2
    konsole --workdir ~/ --new-tab -e bash -c "another_command; exec bash" &
fi

The default font was giving me some trouble. Sometimes the cursor would appear under the wrong character. I changed to this mono space font, and the problem went away.

# write to ~/.kde/share/apps/konsole/Shell.profile
[Appearance]
Font=Liberation Mono,10,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0

[General]
Name=Shell
Parent=FALLBACK/

Open Konsole maximized.

# append to ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc
[Windows]
Placement=Maximizing

I don’t recall exactly why I needed this. I believe KDE attempts to be smart about remembering applications that were running when you shutdown so that it can automatically reopen them. But I don’t want it to reopen anything. I just want Konsole to open as above.

# append to ~/.kde/share/config/ksmserverrc
[General]
confirmLogout=true
excludeApps=
loginMode=default
offerShutdown=true
shutdownType=0