I'm using emacs v24 [GNU Emacs 24.0.94.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.3.20) of 2012-03-26 on meitnerium, modified by Debian] on Kubuntu 12.04.

My basic problem is that emacs is not behaving the same as the tutorials I'm reading. I either need different tutorials or I need to make my emacs work as described in the tutorials. Being new to emacs and KDE, I don't know where to start because of this incongruence.

My specific problem is this:

When I shift-left-mouse-click, I get a buffer dialog popup. That differs from my understanding of the documenation:

shift mouse-1 Draws lines, rectangles or poly-lines, erases, cuts, copies or pastes.

I also want to use CUA mode. The CUA mode documents seem to indicate that shift-left-mouse-click produces:

rectangle highlighting by dragging the mouse while holding down the shift key.

I don't get that result either. In fact, I can't select using any modifier keys together with a drag action. Maybe this is a KDE issue. I don't know.