Enable Anti-Aliasing For Better KDE App Integration In GNOME

In Linux, you have a wide variety of desktop environments to choose from. GNOME, KDE and Xfce are among the more popular choice. Each has its own set of default applications. As an example, Xfce uses Mousepad as its text editor (or Leafpad, depending upon the distro), while KDE distros generally use Kate and GNOME uses Gedit. Each of those programs, however can be used in the other environments. KDE applications in GNOME, however, have the habit of not quite blending in. For one, they will generally use a KDE-specific icon theme, their own visual style, as well as their own font settings.

Selecting an icon and visual theme that matches isn't too difficult. There are KDE icon themes, for instance, such as KFaenza or Humanity PNG, which are ports of their GNOME icon them counterparts. Similarly, installing the qtcurve theme means it's possible to have identical themes in both GNOME and KDE, while choosing the GTK option will often be "close enough" upon basic scrutiny.

Fonts, on the other hand, are a bit different. Installing a KDE application means using the KDE font settings, at least at first. We can change this, and although it will take a bit of work (we'll need to install the KDE System Settings Manager, and change some font choices to match the GNOME settings), it will definitely help "disguise" KDE apps, making them appear more native to the GNOME environment.

The first thing we'll do is install the KDE System Settings Manager, which was likely not installed when you installed your KDE program.

First, open your Terminal.

Now, type sudo apt-get install systemsettings into it.

This will install the System Settings Manager, along with any other required libraries. Once installed, you can launch it by typing systemsettings into a Terminal or Run Dialog, or searching for it in the Dash.

Note: as you can see from the above image, we typed systemsettings to find the control panel. Had we typed system settings we would have seen both the GNOME and KDE settings managers. Leaving out the space between the words matches the KDE program exactly, which is why there is only the one option shown. You could also start typing KDE System Settings to achieve the same result.

Once the KDE System Settings loads, click the Application Appearance control panel.

When this control panel loads, choose the Fonts tab, turn Anti-Aliasing on from the pop-up menu, and click the Configure button.

Now make sure your anti-aliasing settings match what you see below.

At this point, return to the main KDE System Settings window and click the Apply button.

You'll be shown a notice that informs you that only newly-launched applications will use your new settings. So go ahead and re-launch your program and you should see some big changes.

At this point you're pretty much done. You could make other changes discussed earlier such as a new visual or icon theme, or choose different fonts to use, or you may find that simply getting your fonts to match helps the blending in enough. Regardless, your KDE applications should now blend in quite a bit better than before, making the process of using them not so visually jarring.