Announcing KDE 3.2 Beta 1 "Rudi"

With the new year fast approaching, beta testing of the upcoming KDE 3.2 release has begun. The KDE Project is excited to announce the immediate availability of "Rudi", the first beta version of KDE 3.2. Sharing its name with the Kastle conference's host coordinator, Rudi represents the culmination of the KDE Project's efforts to date.

As no further features will be added between the release of Rudi and KDE 3.2, this is an excellent opportunity to preview the most advanced and powerful KDE yet. Packages may be downloaded from download.kde.org. As of this writing there are sources and binaries for SuSE and Conectiva, but other distributions will follow. The Konstruct build toolkit was updated.

With its 25 page feature plan, nearly 10,000 bugs closed and over 2,000 user wishes processed a complete report on what one can expect from Rudi would be so long that by the time you finished reading it, there would probably be a more current KDE release to try out. The only way to truly appreciate this release is to experience it first hand, but here are a few of the highlights anyways...

Read on in the full announcement.

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Comments

Had the same problems. I downloaded
kdemultimedia3-common-3.2......rpm and
noatun-3.2.0....rpm.
(both not from SuSE ??) This solved my dependencies problem but now i have
another problem:
I can´t play any sound

Any suggestions?

philipp

Because right now it's too slow to be usefull....

See [Bug 39693] loading images blocks konqueror

From the bug report:

[...]
I made a 6000x6000 jpeg with GIMP that was filled completely black with a few
lines drawn in the middle (~750k).

gqview took 3 seconds to load it - using /tmp/test.jpg
xv took 4 seconds to load it - using /tmp/test.jpg
kuickshow took 7 seconds to load it - using /tmp/test.jpg
konq-HEAD took 24 seconds to load it - using /tmp/test.jpg
konq-HEAD took 49 seconds to load it - using http://localhost/test.jpg
MozillaFirebird took 4 seconds to load it - using /tmp/test.jpg
MozillaFirebird took 5 seconds to load it - using http://localhost/test.jpg
opera 6.12 took 3 seconds to load it - using /tmp/test.jpg
opera 6.12 took 3 seconds to load it - using http://localhost/test.jpg
[...]

Let's all vote for this one people!

For my part, I offer ten euros (in an envelope, including a nice
card) to the guy who fixes it!

John

See

http://lists.kde.org/?t=106773453700001&r=1&w=2

It apparently has to do with Konq's progressive image loading code and fast(er) connections

by Debian User (not verified)

As a translator for kde I need to try the work done before final release. As a Debian User I need packages to install because konstruct report problems (after a daily "cvs -l update"). Someone can help me?

by cies (not verified)

use orths kdecvs .deb's, see:
"ggl: orth kdecvs"

there great!

by Ruediger Knoerig (not verified)

with my nickname! I'm famous!!!!

by Manux (not verified)

What about Apple improvements? I cannot see any information about any KDE3.2 improvements "promised" by Apple some months ago.

Manux

by anon (not verified)

Many changes have already Replybeen merged. Some have not been.

by Thomas (not verified)

no joke

http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/11/pr03069.html

with SuSE as a big supporter of KDE now being merged into Novell. Does this affect KDE? I'm still not quite sure what to think of it...
Novell baught Ximian which is clearly focused on gnome... SuSE will have to drop support for KDE to concentrate on the server (My guess is it's Ximian for the desktop and SuSE for the server)

by Waldo Bastian (not verified)

This was actually the first question that was asked after the merger was announced to the SUSE personnel. The response was along the lines that Novell and its customers value choice and that there is demand from the market for both solutions.

It will certainly be interesting to see how things will work out in practice. For me personally I think this will offer a great opportunity to work closer with Ximian and GNOME via for example the FreeDesktop.org initiative to provide better integration of technologies from the two different desktops so that we can present independant software developers with a unified set of standards for the Linux desktop.

Cheers,
Waldo
SUSE/Novell

by Thomas (not verified)

So it's good news after all...
I'd be delighted to see something like the red carpet technology delivering the newest and freshest KDE ;) to the enterprise desktop. (I'll still be able to use konstruct at home...)

by jmk (not verified)

> So it's good news after all...

Let's not swallow just yet. This is what always gets said, and then all of a sudden,
track two is discarded in silence.

by The Badger (not verified)

If I were a GNOME advocate, I'd be more worried that Novell really bought Ximian for the Red Carpet stuff (noting that many of their "big wins" seemed to be Red Carpet roll-outs) and bought SuSE for the KDE desktop expertise. However, this gives both camps a real opportunity to work together and integrate the desktops in a more sophisticated way than Red Hat managed to do.

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

Hmmm, that doesn't sound like much of a reply from Novell.

Btw, didn't the company used to be called SuSE? Why is it now SUSE all of a sudden?

by Datschge (not verified)

Well, SuSE is/was a German acronym (Gesellschaft für *S*oftware- *u*nd *S*ystem-*E*ntwicklung mbH) nearly noone even in Germany really understood while Suse is a nice femal name and SUSE all in caps makes it look really important, so Novell noticed them finally. Other than that I've no idea. =P

PS: I however do like their new chameleon better than the old one.

by Roberto Alsina (not verified)

Do germans really use words like "Gesellschaft" and "Entwicklung mbH"? Man, if I were german, I would have to untie my tongue every noght before going to bed :-)

by ac (not verified)

You don't want to say that these words are long, right? Because they aren't ;)
And BTW, "mbH" is not a word but an abreviation for "mit beschraenkter Haftung" (with limited liability).

by Roberto Alsina (not verified)

It's not a matter of length, but of low vowel density :-)

For example, the spanish equivalent of mbH would be "de responsabilidad limitada". it's actually longer (25 letters vs 22, and each one has to be pronounced ;-)

by ac (not verified)

"It's not a matter of length, but of low vowel density :-)"

Ah, ok. But it looks a bit worse than it actually is, because, for example "sch" is only one sound (like the "sh" in english "shoe"), same goes for the "ll" before it, and "ck" is also only a special kind of "k". ;)

"...and each one has to be pronounced"
I guess that's the difference ;)

by Thomas (not verified)

> Man, if I were german, I would have to untie my tongue every noght before going to bed

Well, yes, that's exactly what we're doing over here. It might be a bit uncomfortable to untie your tongue every evening but ýou get used to it ;-)

by Waldo Bastian (not verified)

> Why is it now SUSE all of a sudden?

It's part of the new branding that was introduced a few weeks ago. We also have shiny new pictures on the website.

by Roberto J. Dohnert (not verified)

Im going to be very blunt and very honest in my feelings here. I think this whole deal is bullshit. SUSE should never have even considered selling to Novell. SUSE was my main desktop and Linux distro since version 6.4 anytime I ever developed anything for Linux I made sure it was SuSE compliant. Now, you expect me to get googoo eyed over having to more and likely change my GUI tools and learn GTK. GTK sucks KDE and QT are the best, asking Novell, a GNOME company, to sell KDE is like asking Ford to sell a Toyota car off of their lot. Its not going to happen. But i of course being as faithful as I am to SuSE will stay and see whats happening, if everything backfires and starts to go south i will then go back to Windows I guess. If Novell pulls the retail box sets of SUSE Linux, I will be going with Windows because I like having a box with manuals, screw that download ISO off the web and burn it crap. Thats for the dogs.

by anon (not verified)

Who said that Novell was a GNOME company? Novell was in talks to buy SuSE a while before they bought Ximian. Their initial offers were quite low ($140 million), and as such, were rejected by SuSE. With the help of IBM, and their $50 million investment in Novell, they were able to finally buy SuSE for $210 mill, who they obviously desperatly wanted.

If Novell had succeded in buying SuSE _before_ they bought Ximian, people would be sitting on news.gnome.org talking about Novell is going to pull the plug on Ximian's GNOME support and the world was going to be blown apart and such. Guess what, they're wrong too.

by Roberto J. Dohnert (not verified)

<< Who said that Novell was a GNOME company? >>

Novell owns Xiamian, a GNOME company

<< people would be sitting on news.gnome.org talking about Novell is going to pull the plug on Ximian's GNOME support and the world was going to be blown apart and such. Guess what, they're wrong too. >>

Kind of brings up the old question. Is the enemy of my enemy my friend? or my enemy? I dont trust Novell and I say this the letters N-O-V-E-L-L spell
D-O-O-M for KDE and SUSE

by anon (not verified)

> Novell owns Xiamian, a GNOME company

So, now that they own SuSE, they are now a KDE company too?

Erm, you missed my point COMPLETELY. My point is that Novell was actually trying to buy SuSE _first_, before Ximian, but couldn't do so because of market conditions. They aren't tied to KDE nor GNOME, and aren't a KDE nor GNOME company. They own subsidiaries that certainly are though.

by anon2 (not verified)

Mod's note: I'm deleting all these trolls with extreme prejudice, given that they are from the wiggle troll. Someone I have already warned and effectively banned. -N.

by Thomas (not verified)

hm... ;) don't know why, but your comment made me smile somehow. Well, I guess it's simply my elitist arrogance...

by anon2 (not verified)

Mod's note: I'm deleting all these trolls with extreme prejudice, given that they are from the wiggle troll. Someone I have already warned and effectively banned. -N.

by anon2 (not verified)

Mod's note: baleeted!

by jmk (not verified)

> It will certainly be interesting to see how things will work out in practice. For me personally I
> think this will offer a great opportunity to work closer with Ximian and GNOME via for example
> the FreeDesktop.org

As a longtime KDE and SuSE user I truly hope that this will be possible. However, as a corporate junkie myself, i don't think any large corporation at times like this will include two units one way or the other competing with each other. In the long run, other one will be ditched. It's just a matter of choosing which one.

There's no-one surely saying either way, but if it was KDE that got selected to be number one priority, ximian purchase wouldn't still be void - just a trick to 'buy out' competition.

by Debian User (not verified)

Hi,

I am convinced that Novell doesn't care that much for the desktop at this point. SUSE was in my opinion picked for the Server applications that have come out of SUSE lately. I hope that more SUSE work will now focus on integration of LDAP-everything-server-world into a KDE worthy and integrated Free Software (not Yast licence if we dare hope so) frontend.

It will be interesting to see wether Yast will remain non-free. Yast is still unique, nothing from Redhat (or anybody I am aware of) comes even close. I hope Novell shall release Yast as Free Software to push GNU/Linux as a whole over competing systems.

If I were Novell, I would take Ximian Connector and integrate it into Kontact. That would be a great thing too.

Yours, Kay

by anon (not verified)

Don't be so sure. From /.:

I have recently listened to some talks inside the GNOME Irc channel where I heard some Ximian employees mentioning that Novell told them to work on KDE stuff now. From the internals of Novell it sounds like their employees are more interested to work with KDE rather than GNOME because that employee listed a long list of complaints that the Novell people raised which they found in GNOME to be totally out of use.
----------------

Don't forget that many buy SuSE /for/ KDE. Novell would be silly not to recognize that.

by Anonymous (not verified)

That would make sense, because when you want to beat RedHat in U.S. you have to make something different - like using another desktop environment.

by Datschge (not verified)

Red Hat never offered a product targeted to the home desktop computer, they're getting rid of their entry level server distribution right now. And using a different *desktop* environment on a *server* product doesn't sound like something which would achieve more market shares.

by Ian Monroe (not verified)

Your forgetting about the server admins who need a desktop environment to run a server. But your right, most folks don't really care.

by anon2 (not verified)

Mod's note: I'm deleting all these trolls with extreme prejudice, given that they are from the wiggle troll. Someone I have already warned and effectively banned. -N.

by anon (not verified)

novell employees==outsourced indian contracters in bangalore.. I remember when Sun did the same thing with wipro. The more this happens the better for kde actually ;)

Novell's strategy looks like using a KDE-based desktop (SuSE Linux) and GNOME-based tools (Evolution, mono) to create a nice balance =)

Of the two companies, though, Novell's investment in SuSE is much larger than their investment in Ximian-- remember that Ximian is still a pretty small company compared to SuSE (about 1/4th-1/5th the size)

Their "desktop" is neither GNOME nor KDE, but solutions based on both. That's where the money is. Capitalism talks, zealotry and old UNIX-style flame wars don't.

by anon2 (not verified)

Mod's note: I'm deleting all these trolls with extreme prejudice, given that they are from the wiggle troll. Someone I have already warned and effectively banned. -N.

by Thomas (not verified)

> Evolution touches every single part of the GNOME desktop, with the exception of
> the panel. It was the biggest driving force behind the design and development of > GNOME 2.x

? Don't think, any gnome developer needs to post on the dot as "anon2" just to make statements like that... plz spare us further interpretations of "driving forces" behind gnome or kde...

by anon2 (not verified)

Mod's note: I'm deleting all these trolls with extreme prejudice, given that they are from the wiggle troll. Someone I have already warned and effectively banned. -N.

by Datschge (not verified)

Your sheer stunning technical knowledge makes me afraid already...

...afraid, that you don't know what you are talking about. =P Help out 'your' community instead wasting everyone's and your own time with this kind of repetitive child's plays.

by anon2 (not verified)

Mod's note: I'm deleting all these trolls with extreme prejudice, given that they are from the wiggle troll. Someone I have already warned and effectively banned. -N.

by Datschge (not verified)

You are at the wrong place, this is not a Gnome news site so everything you were writing here so far is simply irrelevant.

Regarding the SUSE purchase everything we heard so far is that SUSE will keep its brand, keep its own head office in Nuremberg and continue their current line of Linux products which will be offered and supported by Novell's retail chain as well, additionally they'll obviously add several new Linux product for Novell related solutions as well as support additional IBM server hardware. Regarding the support of open source projects Novell states "From advocacy and development resources to events and support of open source efforts like kernel projects, XFree86, ReiserFS, KDE, GNOME and Mono, Novell stands side-by-side with the open source community." The order of the mentioned project may be interesting as well, but nothing specific has been said regarding changes in SUSE's product development policy. In doubt they'll just be allowed to continue their current already proven policy while being able to dramatically expand with the help of Novell's existing retail chain.

Nothing more has been said so far, neither with regard to Gnome nor KDE (it shouldn't matter for any of both projects anyway). End of the story as for now.

by Datschge (not verified)

http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/press_releases/archive03/novell_sus...

"From advocacy and development resources to events and support of open source efforts like kernel projects, XFree86, ReiserFS, KDE, GNOME and Mono, Novell stands side-by-side with the open source community."

We'll see. Perhaps they'll want to merge KDE, GNOME and Mono? =P

by Sven Langkamp (not verified)

I don't think they'll try to merge KDE and GNOME, but an integration of Mono would be really cool. If Mono would be integrated into both desktops it would be easy to port an app from one desktop to the other.
Perhaps Mono will be a part of KDE 4.0...

by anon (not verified)

The issue with mono is that it has got a huge patent problem. Microsoft has a nice package of patents: When they start to dislike Mono, they will find a patent infringement and stop it. That's why no sane Linux vendor will distribute it.

by Anonymous (not verified)

> with SuSE as a big supporter of KDE now being merged into Novell. Does this affect KDE?

I'm sure that it affects KDE somehow. But I wouldn't expect it to affect much, eg it will not kill either GNOME or KDE.

by anon (not verified)

It's going to be tough since GNOME now has a strong foothold at Novell already:

http://nat.org/2003/october/#16-October-2003
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid...

by Mario (not verified)

If that happens than Novell will have to pay attention and face demand. Besides, i think it would be a bad business decision to focus only on GNOME since what would really differentiate them and after all there are special needs and SUSE would have to change everything.

by James Richard Tyrer (not verified)

Forget ROCKing.

What we need is a commercial quality application.

Perhaps we can finally get some commercial support to help make a stable product.

Also: RedHat is discontinuing consumer products:

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,86827...

--
JRT