KDE 4.0.1 is There For You

While the world is still recovering from the work on KDE 4.0.0, we are ready to announce the release of KDE 4.0.1, the first bug fix update of the KDE 4.0 desktop. KDE 4.0.1 contains numerous bugfixes such as stability improvements, performance improvements and, as in every point release, updated translations for most components. Lots of work has been put into shared components making the life of most applications easier. Particularly striking is also the high number of bugfixes in KHTML. Have a look at the change log for a more detailed, if maybe not 100% complete list of improvements. KDE 4.0.1 is already translated into 48 languages with more coming soon.

The KDE 4.0 branch receives regular updates, including bugfixes in trunk/ which are backported to the KDE 4.0 branch and more will appear in our monthly bugfix updates. For those following the development more closely, a shift towards the development tree that is to become KDE 4.1 this summer can be noticed. KDE 4.1 will be based on Qt 4.4 with all its performance and functionality improvements. KDE 4.0.2, with even more of the above goodness, will be released in early March. While KDE 4.0 is still rather young, we hope to be able to address even more issues people encounter while getting used to KDE 4, so make sure to keep your KDE up to date.

For those among us that prefer the more stable and proven KDE 3.5 branch, KDE 3.5.9 will be available later this month (planned for February, 19th) with an updated KDE-PIM from the enterprise branch and of course lots of other improvements.

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Comments

by KDE User (not verified)

Can we have a new release faster than March? I think we need a better KDE4 out now or sooner.

At least when Miguel released GNOME, he did something like weekly releases until GNOME was less broken?

by Troy Unrau (not verified)

One bugfix release per month isn't enough for you? Two major releases a year isn't enough either? There's just no pleasing you folks.

by Anon (not verified)

Heck, we had *daily* updates of almost all of KDE trunk/ on the run-up to 4.0!

http://etotheipiplusone.com/kde4daily/docs/kde4daily.html

by Lee (not verified)

You can have multiple updates per day (if you really want) using the build instructions and svn. It's not rocket science. Might as well, if you're asking for daily builds which would have no testing anyway.

by Jeremy (not verified)

I thought you guys had the perfect roadmap, shouldn't change it. If you want more, then pay the developers/donate or do it yourself.

by Max (not verified)

I love the roadmap as it is.

It's just sad that both distro's: Kubuntu, and openSUSE will miss the major KDE 4.X.Y versions. :(

Guess we'll have to wait for fall releases then. Hopefully they'll both have packages that will integrate the latest versions neatly.

by Kevin Kofler (not verified)

You're saying "both distros" (no apostrophe, it's a plural!) as if there were only 2...

Fedora 9 will ship with KDE 4.0.x (probably 4.0.3). It's quite likely 4.1 will be available in updates.

by Sebastian (not verified)

There is no problem with that. OpenSuse always provided new point-releases in their supplementary repository. I never experiencd any problems with those packages. Other main distros will do so as well. For the average user, it doesn't mind - enterprise customers will stick with 3.5 till 4.1.1 will be out and interested users will find the respective online mirrors.

by whatever noticed (not verified)

Yup, and opensuse comes with new updates every week, sometimes even several times a week.

by winter (not verified)
by jimB (not verified)

Moreover, everybody has the option to build from source. The developers made all needed information available how to achieve this.

by Chaoswind (not verified)

As long as kde4 is such a mess, nothing is enough.

by Sylvester (not verified)

I prefer fewer releases and quicker a stable release. Releases require time that can be spent better by fixing some more bugs. It is a pity KDE 4.0 is not stable but releasing every week won't make KDE4 stable faster, so I really do not see the point in it...

by sebas (not verified)

If you want it faster than that, why not run trunk/ directly from SVN? That way, you can update your copy whenever you want, and feedback can quickly be given for new stuff.

It's actually a lot of fun, running KDE currently. :-)

by Jonathan Thomas (not verified)

If you're that dissatisfied, you could build from source yourself. That being said, I wouldn't call the state of KDE 4 *broken*... A release every month is fine.

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

If I recall, the plan right now is releases every three weeks or so at this point.

KDE 4.x will be stable when it is stable. Releasing more often doesn't bring that date sooner. Upgrading takes time, and it takes its toll on the servers to constantly download packages.

Three weeks seems quite reasonable to me.

by Spike (not verified)

Release early, release often?

by Koko (not verified)

every day? every second?

by Ian Monroe (not verified)

If you use something like Kubuntu they have been backporting the more important bug fixes, with new packages every week or so it seems like.

by Anand Vaidya (not verified)

The communication from KDE team is very good. I am not sure why you are asking for a weekly summary.

I usually keep an eye on the Dot, developer blogs/planet (using RSS feeds), and occasionally bugs.kde.org, That gives me a very good picture of the progress. We have the option of contacting the dev directly too...

There is no point adding more "corporate" style weekly reports. It is a waste of time for the devs.

by Uwe Thiem (not verified)

Weekly releases couldn't be tested thouroughly. No, monthly updates are plenty. I want to *use* my computer and not have it compiling KDE constantly.

Thanks for providing a bugfix update so shortly after the big release!

Uwe

by winter (not verified)

Next time please post using the following name:
whiner

by woogs (not verified)

And a pony! Could we get a pony, too? Ponies for everyone!

by Max (not verified)

lol

Release cycle is fine.

Just try to match it with major Distro's Fedora, opensuse, (K)ubuntu.

by weintor (not verified)

Nice to see a quickly development on KDE4. I'll hope to use it as my diary desktop very soon!!! I see a lot of bugfixes in this realeased. Good work!!!

by pete (not verified)

i am now on the suse live cd with the new and shiny 4.01. and i am impressed . i need to have a deeper second look , but so far i like what i see .
the only crash i had was with gwenview . congratz to all the kde developers for the hard work , and good luck with the further releases ;-)
this is a new milestone on the unixdesktop !

by Jonathan Thomas (not verified)

Plasmoids are now way better at noticing when my mouse is no longer over it. Separating the resize button from the rotate button was also a good idea. Some other really annoying bugs were also fixed. (It was especially annoying when I missed new IMs because the taskbar entry for the app didn't flash...

It's nice to see some Kwin lovin' in there too. Heck, it's good to see bug fixes all over the place, but the two areas I mentioned are where the fixes are most visible. :P

by Kevin Kofler (not verified)

KDE 4.0.1 is already in Fedora Rawhide.

Rex Dieter will have builds for Fedora 7 and 8 available in the unstable section of the kde-redhat repository in the next few days.

by David (not verified)

Very nice work indeed. I built KDE4 from svn yesterday and compared to what It was 2-3 weeks ago, it has improved a LOT in many areas! You can really feel the polish.
It is indeed nice looking (oxygen improved a lot imho, especially in contrast issues) and functional.

Cheers to all involved devs. You really laid the groundstone of something with a bright future here. (at least in my living room, that's for sure.

We all love screens, right?:

http://www.vidsolbach.de/tmp/kde4.png/

David

by Max (not verified)

Yep we do!!!

Screens are awesome, thankx. :-)

I've just 1-clicked it, all seemed to install over 4.0, but now get a perfectly white blank desktop. :(

by Anonymous (not verified)

Try to refresh all packages "if never version is available" in the package manager.

by apokryphos (not verified)

As was mentioned above, the repository format changed, so make sure you are using the new 1-click-install which will always be available on http://opensuse.org/KDE4

Thank you everyone, I refreshed as suggested and using the result now. :)

Are you running compiz?

by Hyperactive Plumber (not verified)

Does it come with a Plasma Microsoft SUSE lizard logo, too?

No thanks, I'll stick with Kubuntu, guilt-free Linux!

Please. Grow up.

Do a little homework, how much work is Canonical doing for KDE/Linux and how much is Novell doing?

Birger

Agreed. Personally, i think there will be a day in the future when ms seriously regrets the Novell-deal. They hoped to get a legal hammer, but will soon discover how they underestimated the power of spreading technology in an OSS world.

Ditto. I am using SuSe for years and I will never change. I have tried Kubuntu (not as polished as openSuse), Mandriva, and PCLinuxOS but I always come back to Suse baby. Just love her :)

by Sebastian (not verified)

The problem with Suse is that applications are not at default UNIX places (eg. /opt vs. /usr/bin). There are systems executables where you may follow a loooong chain of symlinks in order to find the right file. And sax2 is broken in 10.3 - please, never use it.

However, OpenSuse and Fedora are the currently best polished Linux systems, I agree. I tried Kubunto once - never again. I'll stick with Suse

"The problem with Suse is that applications are not at default UNIX places (eg. /opt vs. /usr/bin). There are systems executables where you may follow a loooong chain of symlinks in order to find the right file."

That might interest the technies but for a normal user all that counts is that the distro looks good and works fine and there is where Suse seems to get better every time.

by Sebastian (not verified)

Well, we implement software for cross platform applications in our company. Imagine how people cry sometimes...

It is not just about KDE, it's the rest as well...

I was surprised there was no tool to chase down symlinks. I just googled and found an answer and proposed solution.

http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=594821

(also as Billie noted, KDE4 is under /usr in openSUSE)

by Bille (not verified)

If you try openSUSE KDE 4 packages, you'll notice that KDE4 is in /usr for FHS compliance.

by blacky (not verified)

Same for Gnome. They have completely eliminated /opt AFAIK.

by whatever noticed (not verified)

"The problem with Suse is that applications are not at default UNIX places (eg. /opt vs. /usr/bin)."

this has been changed in suse 10.3: gnome and kde4 are now in /usr, while kde3 will remain in /opt for now.

by The Badger (not verified)

Well, Novell once displayed a "not too specific, but not immediately evil" policy with respect to software patents:

http://www.novell.com/company/policies/patent/
http://www.novell.com/company/policies/patent/european.html

Although they didn't seem to be that bothered to really oppose moves towards patentability of software at that point.

Really, Novell haven't done enough to shake off the bad reputation they've acquired. On the one hand you have stuff like this:

http://www.eff.org/press/releases/2007/05
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about_members.php

On the other, you have stuff like this:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/nov06/11-02MSNovellPR.mspx

Perhaps the latter was just an easy money transaction, but like the situation involving recent events with a certain company and their acquisition, being seen with the wrong kind of people can really damage credibility. At least, depending on various difficult-to-predict factors like the weather and Novell's bottom line, Novell can be credited with a certain amount of goodwill from the community - a lot more that can be said for a certain Finnish organisation...

http://eupat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/nokia0404/index.en.html

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

The Novell MS deal was announced as a means to work cross-platform between the two companies, and yet they aren't doing that in the least.

Novell got a pay day, and a reprieve from possible litigation.

MS got a bargaining chip to hang over everyone else's heads. Look Novell paid to license patents, and anyone else who hasn't might be sued! This deal was classic FUD.