Of course there may be times when you do want to start over and revert all of the changes you have made to your KDE Desktop back to the defaults. There are two ways to do this.
Targeted Changes
The first method is easy and it allows you to select only those portions of the configuration you wish to revert to the defaults. If you noticed in each of the sections of the KDE Control Center, there is a button that says Defaults. Simply click on that button and then click on the Apply button. You could also click on the OK button instead of the Apply button.
So if you want to revert back to the default colors for your KDE desktop, go to the Colors page of the KDE Control Center, then click on Defaults and either Apply or OK. This will get you back to the default color scheme.
This method leaves intact all of the configuration for the various application programs you may be using. I recommend this method for most people.
Changing Everything
Warning: Do NOT use this method unless your desktop has become at least partially unusable.
The second method changes everything back to the defaults. There is a hidden directory, a folder, named .kde which is where all of the configuration for your desktop and many programs is stored. This folder is located in your home directory. Delete this folder and everything reverts to defaults. Unfortunately this can include some configuration and even data for individual KDE desktop application programs such as the PIM so use this option very carefully.
To delete the .kde directory and all of its contents, you can start a terminal session and use the command:
rm -rf .kde
Be extremely careful with this command. If you get it wrong you can delete everything in your home directory including all of the files you really wanted to save such as documents, photos and music.
After issuing the above command log out of your desktop session and then log back in. KDE will create a new .kde directory and you can start over. I do not recommend this method except in extreme circumstances when your desktop has become so corrupted as to be unusable.
Another option for deleting the .kde directory is to use the Konqueror file manager to locate and delete this file. See Chapter 4 – Using Konqueror for details on how to use Konqueror to delete files and folders.