I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as KDE, is in fact, KDE/Plasma, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, KDE plus Plasma. KDE is not a window manager unto itself, but rather an organization responsible for the development of the Plasma window manager and other core utilities that make it useful. Many Linux ricers run a modified version of the KDE system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of Plasma which is widely used today is often called “KDE”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the Plasma system, developed by the KDE Project. There really is a Plasma, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Plasma is the window manager: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The window manager is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Plasma is normally used in combination with the KDE applications: the whole system is basically Plasma with KDE utilities added, or KDE/Plasma. All the so-called KDE rice builds are really KDE/Plasma rices.