This is all explained in the docs under:
Maya : Reference : Installation and licensing : Installing Maya :
From the docs:
KDE desktop configuration
For Maya to work properly with KDE, some modifications should be made to the mouse control using the Control Center. The default bindings of the Alt key and mouse buttons do not work well with Maya. We recommend turning off the Alt+mouse buttons in the KDE configuration panel.
Different versions of KDE have different methods of selecting the key bindings. See the KDE documentation for specific instructions on how to configure them. Since Maya uses the Alt+mouse buttons for viewport tumbling, you need to ensure the bindings don't conflict.
KDE 3.0
Open the KDE Control Center.
Select Look & Feel and then select Window Behavior.
To navigate the windows without clicking each one to set its focus, open the Focus tab and:
Select Focus follows mouse from the Focus policy pull-down menu.
Turn off Click Raise.
To use the Alt + Left Button and Alt + Middle Button keystroke combinations for Maya's camera tools, open the Actions tab and:
In the Inactive Inner Window section, select Left Button > Activate and pass Click.
In the Inner window, title bar and frame section, select Modifier Key > Alt from the pull-down menu for both keystroke combinations. Set the remaining buttons to nothing.
Click Apply and close the Control Center.
Gnome/Sawfish desktop configuration
If you are using Gnome/Sawfish, you can configure the window manager to help your workflow. The following outlines some of the customization you can do. Different versions of the Sawfish Window Manager have different options and placements.
Suggested setups include:
Enter/Exit for window focus.
Don't raise window on focus.
Pass mouse click to window.
Maya navigation for Default Red Hat 7.3 Installation (Gnome/Sawfish)
Click the Gnome control center (tool box icon).
Select Window Manager in the left pane.
Select Sawfish, and then click the Run Configuration Tool for Sawfish button.
In the Sawfish Configuration window, select Bindings in the left panel.
In the right panel, change the context from Global to Window.
Change the key commands for the commands Move window Interactively and Popup window menu to something other than M-buttonX-ClickX (for example, you could set one to the F11 key and one to the F10 key).
Select Sawfish, and then click the Run the Configuration Tool for Sawfish button. The Sawfish Configuration window opens.
Select Focus in the left pane, then select enter-exit from the pull-down menu for When does the mouse pointer affect the input focus.
Click OK and close the Control Center.