Learn how to get a functioning kicker with the KDE4 tutorial "HOW-TO: Kicker".
If you're a user of KDE4 and you want to obtain a proper and functional kicker, this tutorial is for you. The HOW-TO: Kicker on KDE4 is a step-by-step guide that will help you achieve your goal.
First of all, you need to have the KDE3 kicker installed parallel to KDE4. Then, you should edit the plasma configuration file manually to remove the plasma panel. To do this, you can open the file using the following command: nano ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-appletsrc. In a default configuration, you need to find all blocks that start with "[Containments][2]", but check if "[Containments][2]" contains the line "plugin=panel" - if not, you should delete the respective containment and child plasmoids.
After that, apply the configuration by typing the command: killall plasma && plasma && kicker. It's important to note that KDE4 does not recognize kicker in terms of session management, so you have to add kicker to the Autostart apps. However, be careful - if you create a corrupt configuration file in Autostart, KDE4 will not start at all (crashes)! To add the file ~/.kde4/Autostart/kicker.desktop with content, use the following format:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Kicker
Icon=system-run
Type=Link
URL=/opt/kde3/bin/kicker
X-SuSE-translate=false
The URL may be different, depending on the path of KDE3 on your operating system. You can also change all application launchers on Kicker from KDE3 to their KDE4 counterparts by changing the URL from /opt/kde3/bin/appname to /usr/bin/appname (on openSuse).
Overall, Kicker works surprisingly well together with KDE4 as a session, window, and desktop manager. However, there are known issues, such as transparency and 'show desktop background' in minipager not working, and the desktop menu only working for KDE3 apps. Additionally, you should also change text colors in taskbar and clock (which can be found in the respective settings dialogs).
Version 0.2: N/A