Trixie, but not a KDE setup: sysvinit, startx, icewm.

Other KDE applications like Okular work, but…

tg@tgb1:~ $ systemsettings
QQmlComponent: Component is not ready
"qrc:/qt/qml/org/kde/systemsettings/Main.qml:25:5: Type SideBarItem unavailable"
"qrc:/qt/qml/org/kde/systemsettings/SideBarItem.qml:12:1: Type Kirigami.ApplicationItem unavailable"
"file:///usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt6/qml/org/kde/kirigami/ApplicationItem.qml:75:1: Type Kirigami.AbstractApplicationItem unavailable"
"file:///usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt6/qml/org/kde/kirigami/AbstractApplicationItem.qml:107:5: Type KT.AbstractApplicationHeader unavailable"
"file:///usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt6/qml/org/kde/kirigami/templates/AbstractApplicationHeader.qml: module \"windows\" is not installed"
Fatal error while loading the sidebar view qml component
Aborted (core dumped)

I was trying to start it because I read there is an option to disable
telemetry (why is this not disabled by default, or even omitted from
compilation?) as I noticed that kate records things like how often it
is started (which is both bad for flash storage and privacy so *why*
does the Debian package even do that?)

Hej Thorsten,

Am Dienstag, 12. August 2025, 21:49:06 CEST schrieb Thorsten Glaser:
[...]

First, there seems to be a slight misunderstanding about the telemetry.
It is true that some KDE components have a telemetry function, but such
a function is always opt-in and thus always disabled by default. KDE
components do not send any telemetry unless the user explicitly enables
it. See also https://kde.org/privacypolicy-apps/.

Second, the telemetry you can control in systemsettings is only about
the Plasma desktop itself, not about any apps such as kate or okular.
Those telemetry settings do also not propagate any telemtry settings to
other components.

Third, I'm not sure how much sense systemsettings makes outside of a
Plasma context.

In your case, there is nothing to disable in systemsettings as
everything is already disabled by default and you're not using Plasma
either. Any relevant telemetry setting for kate is handled by kate
itself.