KDE 2.1-Beta2 Is Out

Coinciding with the start of the LinuxWorld Expo here in New York, the KDE Team has announced today that KDE 2.1-beta2 is ready for your enjoyment. The attached press release goes into the details (and I can't help but throw in this cool screenshot of the new Konqueror splash page), and lists a number of pre-compiled packages. This all in prelude to the scheduled release of KDE 2.1 in mid-February. So what are you waiting for -- startcha 'loadin'. Update: 02/02 10:39 AM by N: Link to Debian packages now included.

DATELINE JANUARY 31, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Beta KDE Release for Linux Desktop Ships

New Beta Version of Leading Linux Desktop Offers New Theme Manager, Image Viewer and IDE

January 31, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Team today announced the release of KDE 2.1-beta2, a powerful, modular, Internet-enabled desktop. KDE 2.1 constitutes the second major release of the KDE 2 series, which is the next generation of the award-winning KDE 1 series. KDE is the work product of hundreds of dedicated developers originating from over 30 countries.

This is the last planned beta release before the scheduled release of KDE 2.1 on February 19, 2001. KDE 2.1 offers a number of additions, enhancements and fixes over KDE 2.0.1, the last stable KDE release which shipped on December 5, 2000. The major additions and improvements are:

• Konqueror, the modular, standards-compliant file manager and web browser, has improved significantly:
• It can now be configured to provide thumbnail previews for text and HTML files.
• KHTML, the HTML widget, now has a special 'transitional mode' which greatly improves its handling of malformed HTML pages.
• In additon, KHTML now has greatly improved Java support. Support for Java security (JDK 1.2 or compatible is now required) as well as Java over SSL using the JSSE classes have been added.
• Drag'n'drop has been improved; now a URL can be dropped on a web page and the Location label can be dragged.
• "Favorite icon" support has been added, for displaying a website's icon in the Location bar, in bookmarks and in the taskbar.
• Devices can be displayed in the directory view and mounted on demand.
• File-name completion has been improved and in-place file renaming added.
• Additional protocols supported include a LAN browser (lan:/ and rlan:/), a floppy browser (floppy:/) and a CD browser (cd:/), which includes CDDB support.
• It now stores bookmarks using the standard XBEL bookmark format; a new bookmark editor complements the new standard.
• Auto-proxy configuration and support for proxies requiring authentication have been implemented.
• KDevelop, a C/C++ integrated development environment, has been added to the core KDE distribution. The version being shipped, 1.4beta2, is the first version of KDevelop to make use of the KDE 2 libraries and integrate completely with the KDE 2 desktop.
• A new and much-anticipated theme manager, as well as a LILO configuration tool, have been added to KControl, the KDE control panel. The control panel now lists all available I/O slaves.
• Many icons have been improved. In addition, semi-transparency (alpha-blending) has been implemented on small images and icons.
• The panel (Kicker) has enjoyed significant improvements. An external taskbar has been included (familiar to KDE 1 users), support for sub-panels has been added (which can be separately sized and positioned), an improved external pager (Kasbar) has been added, and support for applets has been improved (including support for WindowMaker dock applets).
• ARts, the KDE 2 multimedia architecture, now offers a control module to configure sampling rate and output devices, increased performance, improved user interfaces and a number of additional effects and filters.
• Pixie, an image viewer/editor, has been added to the Graphics package.
• KAB, the KDE address book, now provides regular expression searching of the address database and can export the database to HTML files.
• For developers, a number of classes have been added to the core libraries, including a class for undo/redo support (KCommand) and a class for editing list boxes (KEditListBox).
• Many additional improvements, particularly to KMail, the mail client, and KNode, the news reader. A more complete list of changes is available here.

KDE 2.1-beta2 includes the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, as well as the over 100 applications from the other standard base KDE packages: Administration, Games, Graphics, Multimedia, Network, Personal Information Management (PIM), Toys and Utilities. In addition, this release includes the development packages KDevelop, Bindings, an SDK and Documentation. KOffice is not included in this release.

All of KDE 2.1-beta2 is available for free under an Open Source license. Likewise, Trolltech's Qt 2.2.x, the GUI toolkit on which KDE is based, is also available for free under two Open Source licenses: the QPublic License and the GNU General Public License.

A more complete list of major changes, a FAQ about the release and the KDE 2.1 release plan are available at the KDE website. More information about KDE 2 is available in a slideshow presentation and on KDE's web site, including a number of screenshots, developer information and a developer's KDE 1 - KDE 2 porting guide.

Downloading and Compiling KDE

The source packages for KDE 2.1-beta2 are available for free download at http://ftp.kde.org/unstable/distribution/2.1beta2/tar/generic/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors. KDE 2.1-beta2 requires qt-2.2.1, which is available from the above locations under the name qt-x11-2.2.1.tar.gz, although qt-2.2.3 is recommended. KDE 2.1-beta2 will not work with versions of Qt older than 2.2.1.

For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE, please consult the installation instructions and, if you encounter problems, the compilation FAQ.

Installing Binary Packages

Some distributors choose to provide binary packages of KDE for certain versions of their distribution. Some of these binary packages for KDE 2.1-beta2 will be available for free download under http://ftp.kde.org/unstable/distribution/2.1-beta2/rpm/ or under the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors. Please note that the KDE team is not responsible for these packages as they are provided by third parties -- typically, but not always, the distributor of the relevant distribution.

KDE 2.1-beta2 requires qt-2.2.1, the free version of which is available from the above locations usually under the name qt-x11-2.2.1, although qt-2.2.3 is recommended. KDE 2.1-beta2 will not work with versions of Qt older than 2.2.1.

At the time of this release, pre-compiled packages are available for:

• Caldera OpenLinux 2.4 (i386)
• Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (potato): i386/powerpc
• Tru64 Systems
• Linux-Mandrake 7.2: i586
• RedHat Linux:
  • 7.0: i386, Alpha, IA64, Sparc and S390
  • 6.x: i386, Alpha and Sparc
• SuSE Linux 7.0: i386

Please check the servers periodically for pre-compiled packages for other distributions. More binary packages will become available over the coming days and weeks.

About KDE

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE is working proof of the power of the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model to create first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software.

For more information about KDE, please visit KDE's web site.