You can install KDE in every directory you want. What you have to do depends on the kind of packages you want to install:
Source packages
To configure, use a command like:
configure --prefix=/users/myhome/kde; make; make install |
to install into /users/myhome/kde.
After you have installed the packages in the user directory, you should add the following to your init files. Please note that if it isn't necessary for you to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH, it's better to leave it out.
For csh or tcsh:
setenv KDEDIR /users/myhome/kde if ( $?LD_LIBRARY_PATH ) then setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH $KDEDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH else setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH $KDEDIR/lib endif if ( ! $?LIBRARY_PATH ) then setenv LIBRARY_PATH $LD_LIBRARY_PATH endif |
For bash, please use:
KDEDIR=/users/myhome/kde PATH=$KDEDIR/bin:$PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$KDEDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH |
export KDEDIR PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH LIBRARY_PATH
RPM packages
rpm allows you to use the -prefix option to select the directory to for installtion, e.g.
rpm -i -prefix=/users/myhome/kde package.rpm |
Problems to expect
KDE will run from the users directory. There are some problems with programs that require SUID root, e.g. the programs in the kdeadmin package, but they are not meant to be run by users, so this is nothing to worry about.
However, on systems using shadow passwords, the screensavers have to be run SUID root to enable password access for unlocking the screen, so this option will not work.