KDE 2.2beta1: Ready to Roll

It's finally official: KDE 2.2beta has been
announced. "With this release, KDE is in a great position to deliver a very strong KDE 2.2 release," said Waldo Bastian, the KDE 2.2 release coordinator. "With support for IMAP, the totally new printing framework and improved proxy support, KDE 2.2 will be an excellent foundation for the desktop needs of many businesses." Some other goodies: KMail now can send mails without
blocking. Konqueror enhancements include stopping
animated GIFs (thank you, thank you!!), "Send File" and "Send Link"
options, new file previews and lots of new plugins. Noatun boasts
an improved plugin architecture and some new visualization plugins. KWin has Xinerama support. A number of new applications are part of the package, such as KPersonalizer (desktop configuration) and Kooka (scanning).
For a longer list, read the
announcement (also attached below),
and for a really long list of improvements, read the
ChangeLog. As always, enjoy, and thanks to the KDE "we never sleep" Team!

 

DATELINE JULY 4, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New KDE Beta Released for Linux Desktop

KDE Ships Beta of Leading Desktop with Advanced Web Browser, Anti-Aliased Font Capabilities for Linux and Other UNIXes

July 4, 2001 (The INTERNET).
The KDE
Project
today announced the release of KDE 2.2beta1,
a powerful and easy-to-use Internet-enabled desktop for Linux. KDE
features Konqueror, a
state-of-the-art web browser, as an integrated
component of its user-friendly desktop environment, as well as
KDevelop,
an advanced IDE, as a central component of KDE's powerful
development environment. KDE 2.2beta1 completely integrates the
XFree anti-aliased
font extensions
and can provide
a fully anti-aliased font-enabled desktop.

The primary goals of this release, which follows two months after the release
of KDE 2.1.2, are to provide a preview of KDE 2.2 and to involve
users and developers who wish to request/implement missing features or
identify problems. Code development is currently focused on stabilizing
KDE 2.2, scheduled for final release later this quarter.
Despite all the improvements, KDE 2.2 will be binary compatible with KDE 2.0.

Major changes to KDE since the last stable release are
enumerated below. In addition, a
more
thorough list of changes
since the KDE 2.1.1 release,
FAQ about the release, are
-->
as well as information
on using anti-aliased fonts
with KDE, are available at the KDE
website.

KDE 2.2beta1 and all its components are available for free under
Open Source licenses from the KDE
server
and its mirrors (including
many precompiled packages) and can
also be obtained on CD-ROM.
As a result of the dedicated efforts of hundreds of translators,
KDE 2.2beta1 is available in
38 languages and
dialects
. KDE 2.2beta1 ships with the core KDE
libraries, the core desktop environment (including Konqueror), developer
packages (including KDevelop), as well
as the over 100 applications from the other
standard base KDE packages (addons, administration, artwork, bindings, games,
graphics, multimedia, SDK, network, PIM and utilities).

Incremental Changelog

The following are the major improvements, enhancements and fixes since the
KDE 2.1 release earlier this year:

  • KDE has added a new plugin-based printing framework, which features:
    • support for CUPS,
      lpr and rlpr, though support for other printing systems can be
      easily added;
    • a Control Center module for managing printers
      (add/remove/enable/disable/configure), print servers (currently
      only CUPS), and print jobs (cancel/hold/move);
    • a configurable filter mechanism (for setting number of pages per
      sheet, etc.);
    • a print job viewer for the KDE panel's system tray; and
    • support for configurable "pseudo-printers", such as fax machines,
      email, etc.;
  • Konqueror, the KDE file manager and web browser, sports a number of
    new features:
    • HTML and JavaScript handling has been improved and made faster;
    • Ability to stop animated images;
    • New file previews, including PDF, PostScript, and sound files;
    • New "Send File" and "Send Link" options in the Filemenu;
    • Added a number of new plugins:
      • A web archiver for downloading and saving an entire web page, including
        images, in an archive for offline viewing;
      • Babelfish
        translation of web pages;
      • A directory filter for displaying only specified mimetypes (such as
        images);
      • A quick User Agent changer to get Konqueror to work with websites
        that discriminate based on the browser you are using;
      • An HTML validator using W3C to
        validate the XML/HTML of a webpage (useful for web developers);
        and
      • A DOM tree-viewer for viewing the DOM structure of a web page (useful
        for web developers);
    • New configuration for user-defined CSS stylesheets;
    • Saving toolbar layout in the profile;
    • A new "Most Often Visited" URL in the Go menu; and
    • Many other enhancements, usability improvements and bug fixes.
  • KDevelop, the KDE IDE, offers a number of new features:
    • Enhanced user interface with an MDI structure, which supports multiple
      views of the same file;
    • Added new templates for implementing a KDE/Qt style library and Control
      Center modules;
    • Updated the kde-common/admin copy (admin.tar.gz); and
    • Extended the user manual to reflect the new GUI layout and added
      a chapter for using Qt Designer with KDevelop projects;
  • KMail, the KDE mail client, has a number of improvements:
    • Added support for IMAP mail servers;
    • Added support for SSL and TSL for POP3 mail servers;
    • Added configuration of SASL and APOP authentication;
    • Made mail-sending non-blocking;
    • Improved performance for very large folders;
    • Added message scoring;
    • Improved the filter dialog and implemented automatic filter
      creation;
    • Implemented quoting only selected parts of an email on a reply;
    • Implemented forwarding emails as attachments; and
    • Added support for multiple PGP (encryption) identities;
  • New Control Center modules:
    • Listing USB information (attached devices);
    • Configuring window manager decoration;
    • Configuring application startup notification;
    • Configuring user-defined CSS stylesheets;
    • Configuring automatic audio-CD ripping (MP3, Ogg Vorbis); and
    • Configuring key bindings;
  • Added Kandy, a synchronization tool for mobile phones and the KDE address
    book, and improved KPilot address book synchronization;
  • KOrganizer, the KDE personal organizer, has a number of improvements:
    • Added a "What's Next" view;
    • Added a journal feature;
    • Switched to using the industry-standard iCalendar as the default file
      format;
    • Added remote calendar support; and
    • Added ability to send events using KMail, the KDE mail client;
  • Noatun, the KDE multimedia player, sports a number of new features:
    • Improved the plugin architecture and added a number of new plugins:
      • An Alarm plugin for playing music at a specified time;
      • A Blurscope plugin which creates an SDL-based blurred monoscope;
      • A Luckytag plugin for guessing titles based on filenames;
      • A Noatun Madness plugin, which moves the Noatun window in sync with
        the music being played;
      • A Synaescope plugin, based on
        Synaesthesia,
        which provides an impressive SDL-based visualization; and
      • A Tyler plugin, which is similar to
        XMMS's
        Infinity;
    • Added support for pre-amplification; and
    • Added support for hardware mixers;
  • Added a Personalization wizard (KPersonalizer) to configure the desktop
    settings easily;
  • Added KDict,
    a powerful graphical dictionary client;
  • Added KDE-wide scanning support with the application Kooka;
  • Replaced the default editor KWrite with the more advanced editor Kate,
    which provides split views and basic project management;
  • The window manager now supports Xinerama (multi-headed displays);
  • Improved the file dialog, including mimetype-based file previews;
  • Improved the configurability of the KDE panel;
  • Added IPv6 and socks support to the core libraries;
  • Improved application startup:
    • applications are now placed on the desktop from which they were
      launched; and
    • startup notification can be configured with a new Control Center module,
      with options including a busy cursor next to the application's icon;
  • Improved icons and added new 64x64 icons;
  • New window manager decoration styles (quartz, IceWM themes, MWM, Web);
  • Improved the help system, which is now XML-based;
  • Added support for the Meta and AltGr keys for shortcuts; and
  • Made many other usability improvements.

For a much more complete list, please read the
official
ChangeLog
.

Downloading and Compiling KDE

Source Packages.
The source packages for KDE 2.2beta1 are available for free download at
http://ftp.kde.org/unstable/2.2beta1/src/
or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server
mirrors.

Library Requirements.
KDE 2.2beta1 requires at least qt-x11-2.2.4, which is available from
Trolltech at
ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qt/source/
under the name qt-x11-2.2.4.tar.gz,
although
qt-2.3.1is recommended (for anti-aliased fonts,
qt-2.3.0and XFree 4.0.3 or
newer is required).
KDE 2.2beta1 will not work with versions of Qt older than 2.2.4.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that
gcc 3.0 is not
recommended for compilation of KDE 2.2beta1. Several known miscompilations
of production C++ code (such as virtual inheritance, which is used in aRts) occur with this compiler.
The problems are mostly known and the KDE team is working with the gcc team
to fix them.

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

Installing Binary Packages

Binary Packages.
Some distributors choose to provide binary packages of KDE for certain
versions of their distribution. Some of these binary packages for
KDE 2.2beta1 will be available for free download under
http://ftp.kde.org/unstable/2.2beta1/
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 (if you cannot find a binary package for your distribution,
please read the KDE Binary Package
Policy
).

Library Requirements.
The library requirements for a particular binary package vary with the
system on which the package was compiled. Please bear in mind that
some binary packages may require a newer version of Qt and/or KDE
than was included with the particular version of a distribution for
which the binary package is listed below (e.g., LinuxDistro 8.0 may have
shipped with qt-2.2.3 but the packages below may require qt-2.3.x). For
general library requirements for KDE, please see the text at
Source Code - Library
Requirements
above.

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

Please check the servers periodically for pre-compiled packages for other
distributions. More binary packages will become available over the
coming days and weeks. In particular,
RedHat Linux packages should be
available shortly.

About KDE

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers
worldwide to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environmentemploying 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.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the
KDE FAQ,
screenshots,
KOffice information,
developer
information
and
a developer's
KDE 1 - KDE 2 porting guide.
Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's
web site.

Trademarks Notices.
KDE and K Desktop Environment are trademarks of KDE e.V.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Unix is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Trolltech and Qt are trademarks of Trolltech AS.
All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

Press Contacts:

United States:

Kurt Granroth
[email protected]
(1) 480 732 1752 
Andreas Pour
[email protected]
(1) 917 312 3122

Europe (French and English):

David Faure
[email protected]
(44) 1225 837409

Europe (English and German):

Martin Konold
[email protected]
(49) 179 2252249

Dot Categories: 

Comments

by Carbon (not verified)

Code styles do offer several big advantages, including having very precise control over how changes to the color system affect everything, and also adding functionality to a theme as well as looks. For instance, semi-unrelated but take a look at the Be-like window decoration. It would be impossible to do _that_ with pixmaps alone.

by Nomar (not verified)

A windows skinning utility called WindowBlinds does that... And it supports *only* Pixmap themes. (www.windowblinds.net)

by Carbon (not verified)

What I was mostly referring to was the ability by this window decor to automatically (mostly) keep title bars from covering each other if possible. It can't be done with pixmaps alone. WindowBlinds might support it, but it has to have code to sit behind the pretty pixmaps.

Besides, it's for Windows, who cares? :-)

by Jeff Brubaker (not verified)

Take a look at megagradiant. The menus are translucent, that'd be imposssible with a pixmap theme.

by Jon (not verified)

Yes - and this translucent effect should be generalised, so you can apply it to any style (just like you can apply the fading in/rolling effects to any style). That way you could turn it on or off as required.

As far as I can tell, there is very little in the coded styles which couldn't be done in pixmap styles much quicker and easier. Another thing I'd like to look at when I have the time is coding a code style which actually does something interesting - for example, having a button pulse in and out when the mouse is over it :)

by ac (not verified)

You can't reason with Mosfet. He insists on inventing facts of his own and refuses any outside argument, so what is the point.

Good luck, Mosfet.

by dingodonkey (not verified)

As much as I like the KDE project, and am very saddened that you're losing Mosfet's new code, I have to take his side on this one.

I just wish everybody could make up and things go back to normal. Ah well.

by Rick Kreikebaum (not verified)

why can't the kde project let mosfet control his own stuff, the way linus controls the kernel? are pixmap based styles really THAT much better? personally, i'm gonna mosfet's styles. i don't care about them being easier to update and install. what i do care about is speed and flexibility. (and innovation of course, where the kde project will be at a disadvantage cause they can't fork mosfet's new code.)

by ne... (not verified)

The KDE project *does* allow mosfet to control his own stuff. As a matter of fact, he has always been free to do this. However, when codefreeze has been publicly announced for a certain date and that date has arrived, that is *not* the time to announce new features. He had ample opportunity to let the project know what he was up to. Why he chose to use that opportunity unwisely, only he knows. I do wish him well in his endeavors and hope that his new styles integrate easily into KDE.

by Rick Kreikebaum (not verified)

hmm... well that does make it a little harder for me to sympathise with him.

by AC (not verified)

www.mosfet.org is all text... Where do I download his styles from?

by Jeff Brubaker (not verified)

They're included in kde. If you want to see all of them you need a cvs version, since some are disabled for the release because they are incomplete/unstable.

by AC (not verified)

I think the best solution to this problem is lobby mosfit to change his mind. Feel free to write him at [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

Tell him why *YOU* think licensing his own code under the QPL is a bad idea, for himself, the community, and for KDE.

You can explain that the QPL will give mosfet a bad reputation in the community. People in the open source community, simply do not trust software that does not have one of those magic 3 letter licenses -- GPL or BSD.

There will probably be problems including his software in Debian, if it's QPL licensed. Other distros will probably not include it for fears of legality problems or in protest.

KDE developers won't be able to include older versions in their distro. So their version maybe modified to fit into the purpose of KDE, and will be older then the "offical" version, it's not the first time KDE has not had the latest version of programs included. Many of the programs in kdesupport were older then the offical version, and some of them were modified from the orignal version.

At any rate, please be polite, and try to use sensible arguments to help change his mind. I'm sure you can come up with better ones.

I have sent my message to him, have you yet?

by Till (not verified)

i'm just wondering why the binary-RPMs for the RedHat-Distribution are "late"? who is doing the RPMs? the distributors? is redhat lazy?

by ms (not verified)

That's realy annoying... I'm almost switching my distro... maybe Debian and apt is the answer for me.

by David G. Watson (not verified)

Especially since us Debian unstable users have had 2.2beta1 for a week already :).

by Rick Kreikebaum (not verified)

yeah, i'm switching to debian, cause apt with official .debs is supposed to be better than anything rpm. and i heard that unstable isn't really that unstable :).

by Richard (not verified)

I agree.
It's a shame.

Red Hat is one of the largest distributions, if not THE largest.

/Richard

by ne... (not verified)

Er, RH has no obligation to provide you with _beta_ rpms.

by ms (not verified)

>Er, RH has no obligation to provide you with _beta_ rpms.

RH has even no obligation to provide me stable or official rpms since I didn't buy anything from them...

I'm just looking for better options.

by Till (not verified)

> Er, RH has no obligation to provide you with _beta_ rpms

correct. but why ARE there rpms for mandrake and suse? i'm just wondering. is this because it's too complicated to compile kde for redhat? or are suse and mandrake just more customer-focused?

in deed i BOUGHT redhat 6.2, i BOUGHT rh 7 and i BOUGHT rh 7.1. if i wanted i COULD compile kde myself but i don't WANT to. i am a PAYING customer (silly me...), and it seems suse and mandrake are supporting customers better than redhat does.

on the other hand, consumers aren't the "real" customers for redhat, are we? and, of course, industry isn't very hot for beta-versions...

cu
till

by craig (not verified)

Well RH is a gnome based distro so i'm not sure that kde or the desktop is a very big priority for them. If they cared about the desktop they'de be a kde distro.

Craig

by Richard (not verified)

GNOME based?
I've been running KDE on Red Hat for a while now. I have also installed it directly when doing an upgrade och install.

Do you run Red Hat?

If so try to choose KDE during the next install and you'll see that it has KDE as an option just like with GNOME.

Stop this FUD:ing...

/Richard

by Till (not verified)

i'm just wondering why the binary-RPMs for the RedHat-Distribution are "late"? who is doing the RPMs? the distributors? is redhat lazy?

by Chucky (not verified)

Anyone who happens to know when (if?) the FreeBSD port will appear?

by Metrol (not verified)

I wouldn't hold your breath on a FreeBSD port for a beta of KDE. Rarely are any beta apps posted, and I've personally never seen it for something as large as KDE. There's a lot to a port of that size, and usually a couple of days lag time kicks in. For KDE 2.1 the port maintainer had been working early with the KDE folks, so the port came out darn near on release day. This is more the exception than the rule, and Will did a great job with that exception.

Also, I'd caution you to not try upgrading to KDE 2.2 immediately after the port hits the tree. That is, unless you're looking to submit bug reports. Best to let it settle in for at least a few days to get all the bugs worked out. Again, this is a large port involving a number of scripts.

Ahh, but when them bugs do get worked out, the port install of KDE works like a dream. It's too bad there aren't a LOT more ports for KDE apps outside of the core install for FreeBSD. Stuff like KAim and KBear yet to have any ports done up for them. I've attempted porting these myself, but the only thing I managed to get done was to prove that my skills aren't quite yet up to the task. For what ports are there, KDE runs really sweet under FreeBSD.

by darian Lanx (not verified)

Hello ;)
There will be no FreeBSD port for the BETA 1
Yet Will (wca) the maintainer has assure dme, that he will be doing the release port update as soon as the release for KDE 2.2 is scheduled/annouced.
You are free to compile from CVS, it works on FreeBSD too with a few tricks ;)
-d

by Mattias (not verified)

Oh man, I wish I had more synonyms for superlative forms of "good"! :)
Seriously, the KDE project has to be the single most impressive Open Source project ever (rivalled perhaps by GNU), and the one that is likely to inspire the most people to switch to Open Source desktops. If there's any technological reason in the world, everyone should be perfectly able to make a fulltime switch from windows any day. The only exclusion being people wanting to run new games which require DirectX, though that might not be true for a very long time, considering the impressive progress of Wine.
Not only is KDE technically proficient, but it is also perfectly possible to make it look better than commercial desktops (win XP, OS X, etc.), thanks to the incredibly talented artists in the KDE project.
Actually, I can't think of a single desktop "core" task possible in any other desktop environment, be it commercial or non-commercial, closed source or open source, etc, that isn't also possible to do with KDE. A lot of times, the power and freedom of choice are even greater in KDE than in its "counterparts", such as the almost infinite configuration possibilities and incredible flexibility of in particular kicker and konqueror.
And on top of that, we have great apps, of which many are conveniently gathered at apps.kde.com. We have a great office suite with the K in it, we have administration programs, we have nicely integrated utilities for archiving, document viewing, media playing, etc, we have CD burning, scanning... I could go on for ages.

Words shouldn't be needed to counter the argument that desktop linux is dead. Simply showing all the greatness we have should quench all possible doubt to linux desktop viability.

The inevitable conclusion would have to be:
The desktop is ready to be konquered. :)

by Greg Brubaker (not verified)

I installed Tribes 2 on my current computer, a 500mhz Celeron, 128MB ram, Mandrake 8.0, TNT-2 Vanta MX and was very pleased! While I only ran at 640x480, it looked a lot better in that resolution than I would have thought, and ran quite smoothely, except for a slight spike here or there, not often.

I wasn't going to install this baby until I got my 1.4Ghz AMD Athon +mobo+case+power supply, in. I figured that I heard such a game wouldn't run on PC well under windows, so I figgured I might want to be well off with a faster computer... But was quite wrong.

Linux (as long as it has games that can appease you) is ready Now!!!

True, if you run linux on your old garbage box, you won't see much more than old garbage performance, but Linux is ready to dominate the main attraction!!

It's a catch-22... If you don't demand the game for linux, they won't make it, but your not demanding it, because they're not making it...

Well then slap yourself for a minute, be prepared to play a lesser (but good, and often fully satisfactory) set of Titles, cause if you buy it, they will come!

Supply and Demand.

So, what should you for that aging box of yours?

Pick up a Case/Power_supply/Proc/mobo set from somewhere like Pricewatch ($200-$400),

Pick up a Geforce2 MX, or wait for a Geforce 3 MX to come out and be cheap :) (geforce2 MX's can be gotten for as little as $50, but $73 is more likely for 64MB, and even $100+ is descent for a Geforce 2 MX 400 (instead of a 200).

Oh yeah, I don't care how much you pay for it, but pick up a Logitech cordless set (Keyboard + mouse)... Not only is it the best mouse design (for righties) in the world (opinion?), but its optical, and both pieces can run in either PS/2 or USB...

hehe, I've got my usb keyboard hooked up to a PS/2 converter, hooked up to another converter, forgot what its called, but its big, and looks very familiar to the conector on my XT...

Now, on with the Gaming...

IMPORTANT SUGGESTION!!!!

If you are a linux New-bie, which is nothing to be ashamed of, as it's definition is "if you are not coding to advance Linux, GNU, X, Gnome, or KDE..."

Then you might want to stick to games that use Loki's very nice updater... (this does exclude older titles like Quake III Arena, but includes newer titles like Tribes 2).

This updater is very nice, but if a update fails, make sure to see why, instead of keep trying blindly (click details...)

I couldn't isntall the patches to Tribes 2 at first because there wasn't enough room, so I uninstalled it, and reinstalled it under my home directory, but kept the link in the bin directory... because thats where it should be...

Then, for your KDE link, just set it to tribes2, and forget about directories.

My site may not do anything but waste your time, but if it does, your talking about a descent amount to time to waste... which I'll take as a complement:

Check under Linux, or whatever else you want to see... Included is some of the source code for a Tetris game I wrote (mostly just the fucntions, as the game was written in MS Visual C++)

http://www.acs.brockport.edu/~gb7788

Darn, I'm stupid, I forgot to mention the programing Linux games book by Loki. I'll probably review it if I ever get a copy... Man, they should be paying me!

by Greg Brubaker (not verified)

I'm replying to myself... odd...

Anyway, I actualy primarily use Linux for productivity...

Games are just a very, very, very, very nice dessert.

I personaly really like Kdevelop, AbiWord, Gimp, Gphoto, Quanta Plus, KDE (in general), and even Mozilla/Netscape 6.1 [hehe, had to leave Netscape 6.0 out of that one...]

I look very much forward to KDE developement, but also to Mozilla, which once was so young, but now is approaching such maturity (damn, shouldn't have made that comment and given my email address... But I really do like Mozilla, so please forgive me...) ;)

Live free, or Die.

and while you're at it, check out the Penguin Page...

http://lwn.net/Gallery/

Personaly, I like:

http://www.stack.nl/%7efidget/pguin/

by blandry (not verified)

Man, don't worry about that. Two kick-a$$ browsers aren't going to hurt anybody. It's really nice to see them coming along.

(you said:)
but also to Mozilla, which once was so young, but now is approaching such maturity (damn, shouldn't have made that comment and given my email address... But I really do like Mozilla, so please forgive me...) ;)

by Rick Kreikebaum (not verified)

yeah, i can't wait to try out kde and some linux games with a REAL computer, as opposed to my dad's old celeron 266 :) hopefully i'll get a job and save up some money... then i'll get the lowest-clocked athlon 4 they have, for good overclockability, and an n-force mobo with with a geforce2 mx 200 for price reasons, which i'll later upgrade to a geforce 3. man, that's gonna be sweet! dual channel ddr, best sound chip for PCs, integrated into the mobo, super fast bus (amd hypertransport), one driver for the whole mobo/graphics card, and hopefully some significant cost savings (since i won't be buying an sb live.) and have you seen the geforce performance increases in xf86 4.1 with the latest nvidia dfivers? awesome!

by Gregory W. Brubaker (not verified)

sweeeet...

by Mike C. Reynolds (not verified)

Linux gaming will not be very adopted as widely as we wanted because all they are are ports. We need someone (and loki is a good bet) to create games that run natively on linux. Here is a list of games that would be nice on linux.

NFL Superbowl - only on linux

bikeing madness - only on linux

Tux the super-pengiun - only on linux (for the kiddies)

and of course the FPS The Gunman Prophecies - only on linux

RTS would be like Empire Giants - only for linux

Tell me what you think and if you would like these titles tell loki or any other big game developer for these games.

I can't progam games or these would be already created :)

by Jasper (not verified)

Cool !

Has something been done about overall KDE speed ?
(Meaning startup time of KDE and applications)

by Micheal (not verified)

Yeah .. with this beta release there are some speed tweeks .. like starting KDE takes about a third of the time (thank god!) I havnt REALLY noticed a BIG diffrence in launching apps ... but then again i am running the beta off of my laptop! Also .. althougth this IS a beta its very stable compaired to the beta set in kde 2.1. Of course this means that the non-beta is going to rock.

Mike

by Janne (not verified)

Isn't the compiler the major source of that slowness? We can hope that GCC 3.0 is faster (once the bugs gets killed). I guess you could tweak KDE-code to be faster, but I guess it has already been done. There's only so much that you can do.

by Stephan Oehlert (not verified)

No, it's not. It's the linker (ld). There was an article some time ago by one of the core developers, you might want to read it.

GCC 3.0 won't do much about speed.

Latez
Stephan

by lanbo (not verified)

Definitely we need speed.
KDE is very good, but not very usefull because the speed problem.
You could tell me to buy better hard, but one of the motives of KDE is to make people save money.
Anyway, KDE rocks and I only can say Thank You to the KDE team!

by not me (not verified)

Certainly ld affects KDE startup time, but I thought that the kdeinit hack fixed the problem with ld's slowness after that. If so, what is keeping KDE from being fast now?

Also, wouldn't the fact that GCC 3 uses a different ABI mean that ld would have to be re-written? Maybe the new one is faster.

BTW, the article about KDE's speed, ld, and kdeinit is at www.derkarl.org

by Inorog (not verified)

No, didn't fix it, just went around a part of the problem (i.e. made most libs loaded once and used by all programs guaranteed). But according to ld developers (this is what Waldo Bastian - the kdeinit hack maintainer - told me), there is new code for at-start symbol lookup table computation that makes ld like 7-8 times faster for C++ libs. I might be mistaken though. I can't wait and see this :-)

by Sam (not verified)

Yupps, There will be some extra utils for glibc so you can relocate sybols for libraries/binaries so conflicts don't need to be resolved during execution. This _will_ speed up the start of c++ program and save some memory too. I'm not sure if they will start 7-8 times faster though. But it will start faster if you pre-link them.

/Sam

by Henry Stanaland (not verified)

I used to think you people complaining about KDE speed were just nit-picking. But I'm temporarily using a Celeron 450 with 64MB RAM and you guy swere right...very slow. Can't wait till I get back to my good old Athlon 950. Maybe faster computers are the answer to this problem? Just kidding!

by Rikard Anglerud (not verified)

Well, it's not just application startup time. Things like opening a new window in konqueror wa slow in the previous release. (so much so that I'm using blackbox/opera).
Then again, I'm running on a p200.
That said, I hope it's faster, I'm looking forward to getting this beta installed!

by Rick Kreikebaum (not verified)

yeah, and the scrollbar isn't very responsive in most apps.

by Alain (not verified)

> Konqueror enhancements include stopping animated GIFs (thank you, thank you!!)

No irritating animations, oh yes, thank you !

More important : I hope it is possible to shut up sounds !

Also about Konqueror :

- cookies management : I wish it is possible to delete all cookies, excepted for allowed domains (accepted hosts)

- File manager, right button : possibility to copy the path/name of the file (for then pasting elsewhere)

- Ability to delete all favicons, so that they will be generated again (Ok, I know it is already possible by going on the good directory and deleting them, but it would be more easier with a parameter)

- I hope that java and Flash will be installed by default

Bravo for the new and next enhancements !

by Moritz Moeller-... (not verified)

> - cookies management : I wish it is possible to
> delete all cookies, excepted for allowed
> domains (accepted hosts)

You can delete all cookies, but all means all, so: good idea.

> - File manager, right button : possibility to
> copy the path/name of the file (for then
> pasting elsewhere)

Just _copy_ the damn file. Then you can paste the url...

> - Ability to delete all favicons, so that they
> will be generated again (Ok, I know it is
> already possible by going on the good directory
> and deleting them, but it would be more easier
> with a parameter)

Good idea.

> - I hope that java and Flash will be installed > by default

If your JRE-1.3+ is installed correctly (java in PATH) it will work out of the box. Same goes for a correctly installed flash plugin for netscape. No need to installl that stuff again with KDE.

You should add your good ideas (TM) to bugs.kde.org as wishes.

by Alain (not verified)

>> - I hope that java and Flash will be installed > by default
> If your JRE-1.3+ is installed correctly (java in PATH) it will work out of the box. Same goes for a correctly installed flash plugin for netscape. No need to installl that stuff again with KDE.

No, It is difficult, not user-friendly. I had difficulties to install Flash and I did not succeed to install java (however I did what is said in the Konqueror site). And when I see this page http://www.pclinuxonline.com/article.php?sid=174&mode=thread&order=0 I see it is still difficult. (and it is a different install than Konq site !!)

I feel it is a BIG PROBLEM. It seems that for KDE, it is only a distrib problem, however in Mandrake 8.0, nothing was done (even the "netscape-plugings" rpm was not in the 2 CD !)

And I don't think it is a good way to use some Netscape things... Konqui needs Netscape as a tutor ??

So now the BIG LACK of Konqueror is here : Flash and Java are not installed BY DEFAULT, there are manipulations to find and to execute and to execute again because it is not easy... (and many users have these difficulties, see the mailing lists and forums...)

by Julio (not verified)

I have an idea. Someone from KDE could contact Macromedia to do the following: When the URL for Flash's download is opened, the server checks if the browser is Konqueror. If it is, automaticaly starts to send the Netscape plugin file. For they it's easy to do that.

On the Konqueror side, when a plugin is requested, Konqueror opens in background the linked page for the plugin and waits if an automatic download starts. If so, Konqueror installs the plugin automaticaly, and its ready to use!

If there is no download from the site, Konqueror shows the pages as is today.

by Rick Kreikebaum (not verified)

it works fine in suse 7.1