KDE 4.1 Released, Dedicated to Uwe Thiem

6 months after the release of KDE 4.0, the KDE community today announced the released of the second feature release in the KDE 4 era. Lots of changes have gone into this release and the KDE community hopes to be able to make most early-adopting users happy with this release. Lots of feedback from people trying out KDE 4.0 has gone into KDE 4.1, filling most of the gaps people experienced with the 4.0 releases. Highlights of KDE 4.1 are the KDE PIM suite, which has returned in its KDE 4 incarnation, a more mature Plasma desktop and many, many new features and applications. Make sure to take some time to read through the high-level changelog or even the more detailed feature plan on Techbase. Before you try KDE 4.1, please read the KDE4 End User FAQ and make an educated guess whether KDE 4.1 is for you.

The release is dedicated to KDE's contact in Africa, Uwe Thiem. Uwe passed away after a kidney failure two weeks ago. Africa's new press contact for KDE is AJ Venter, a friend of Uwe's who stepped up on short notice to help with filling the gap Uwe's death leaves in the KDE community.

Meanwhile, KDE's Release Team scheduled a number of bugfix and translation updates. KDE 4.1.1 will be made available on September 3rd, 4.1.2 will be out on October 1st, and 4.1.3 will be there on November 5th. KDE 4.2.0 will in 6 months, the release date is set to January 27th 2009.

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Comments

Actually, the LGPL requires that any changes have to be published if you redistribute your modified code. Maybe you are thinking about (one of) the BSD licence.

by Random Guy 3 (not verified)

I think he's referring to the fact the GTK+ is LGPL means that proprietry software can use that framework.

However, kdelibs is also LGPL. So I think that proprietry software can, in theory, purchase a Qt license and develop stuff on top of KDE. Also, if TT/N (TrollTech: a Nokia company) ever crumbles and falls (and I sincerely hope it doesn't, simply because that would make the burden of maintaining it fall to the community), Qt will be released under a BSD license, and kdelibs+Qt will be LGPL as a whole.

Right, but that was not my point. He said that "unscrupulous ISVs can use their LGPL'ed framework without sharing anything back". This is only true to a certain extent as they can use LGPL code in closed source projects but can't make changes to the LGPL code without publishing the changes.

by Kevin Kofler (not verified)

Those "sellouts" as you're calling them are paying 2 developers (Than Ngo and Lukáš Tinkl) to work on KDE packaging, who played an important part in making Fedora the first major distribution to move entirely to KDE 4 (not just as a non-default option next to KDE 3). Fedora will also be offering KDE 4.1.0 as an official update for Fedora 9, not just a backport, it is already queued for updates-testing. The Red Hat engineers are playing an important role in keeping Fedora's KDE that up to date (and this is one of the community, i.e. non-Red-Hat, Fedora KDE packagers speaking).

It's Red Hat's loss. When they start trying to create management tools for virtualisation and other things it's going to leave them short of where their competitors are, as theirs' and others' desktop efforts have been thus far.

by Kevin Kofler (not verified)

What "management tools for virtualization" do you have to offer which can compare with Red Hat's virt-manager? http://virt-manager.org/

Unfortunately, they're nowhere near what VMware's and Microsoft's are (and that's being polite), and if you're running multiple operating systems those kinds of tools are things where it makes sense to be able to run them cross-platform - properly that is. I'd love to see Red Hat try and do that with the tools they're using.

You also only need to look through the graphical management tools they have with a cursory glance through RHEL, even after all these years. At best they're going to be a Unix replacement with what they have there, but they're never in a month of Sundays going to convince an administrator looking primarily for good management tools to use RHEL over Windows 2003. Who knows? Maybe they think the 'low hanging fruit' is enough? It won't be.

Like I said, it's their loss and the argument still stands.

Ah, the last resort of all KDE-trolls: GNOME-bashing. Why is it that you people just can't discuss your precious project -- even on this KDE-centric website -- without it devolving into GTK/GNOME-bashing?

by Karim (not verified)

Amazing team making an amazing product! I have been exclusively using kde since 1.1. My appreciation goes to the entire team of software developers, graphic designers, translators etc. etc. and also the user feedback. I have seen alot of creative ideas bouncing around from every-day users, and they are sometimes impressively ingenious!

Congrats to all.

by Adrian Baugh (not verified)

I've been using 4.1-RC since its release and have read the release notes etc. but does anyone have a list of key bugfixes between -RC and -final?

by sebas (not verified)

Not really, but you can obtain a list of the changes by paging through the output of

svn log svn+ssh://svn.kde.org/home/kde/branches/KDE/4.1

by Pocho de la Polla (not verified)

congratulations!!

pd. don't forget the panel autohiding!

by Tom (not verified)

I especially like the new "Stable Version" page ( Download section on the kde.org )
The old sucked really bad. It only mentioned KDE4 ( even as rock solid tested release .. WTF? )
The new explains that KDE4 is for early adoptors and that 3.5 is still around and maintained! That is the way better aproach. ( Do that again for 5.0 ;) )

Very well done! Congrats&Thank you!

by sebas (not verified)

That "4.0 as rock stable" was actually a dumb mistake (most probably by me even). While the link pointed to 3.5.9, the label said 4.0.x. So the intention was good, at least ;-)

I've noticed it today while updating the webpages for 4.1.0 and fixed it immediately.

by Anon (not verified)

Reading the announcement for 4.1 and the utils.kde.org announcement, it does seem a shame the 4.1 announcement talks about kscd, lokalize and krdc but none of these excellent apps seem to have online homes.

by Martin (not verified)

Good call on the dedication!

by kdeuser (not verified)

for your hard work.

by Mig83 (not verified)

A question:
is there an application that helps with the migration of some data as shortcuts, bookmarks, mails, contacts,... ?

by Mig83 (not verified)

Thanks a lot!

by Grósz Dániel (not verified)

You can try copying applications' config files from KDE3's to KDE4's .kde directory, or use KDE 3's .kde with KDE 4 (though this might cause problems). Applications, in contrast to the desktop, are mostly ports and improvements of the KDE 3 version, and not complete rewrites, so with some luck you may be able to use the old config files with them. (Application config files are normally .kde/share/config/*rc and .kde/share/apps/*/* .)

by Kevin Kofler (not verified)

If you use Fedora, no migration is needed, as KDE 4 uses the same .kde settings directory as KDE 3. This is also the default for vanilla KDE, but most distributions use patches or environment variable hacks to enforce use of a separate .kde4, which is why there's a need to "migrate" settings in the first place (actually just copy them to the new directory so KDE 4 picks them up).

by rockmen1 (not verified)

Congratulation KDE team!!!
Thanks you all for great work!!!

by tomas (not verified)

Anyone able to help me with this problem?

"CMake Error: Did not find automoc4 (part of kdesupport)."

http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started/Build/KDE4 does not mention it.

by John Tapsell (not verified)

You need to build and install kdesupport. I don't know why that link doesn't tell you that. Maybe someone more knowledgeable could fix the wiki

by tomas (not verified)

Thanks for your help but where can I find or download kdesupport?

I see the mirror:

kdeaccessibility-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdeadmin-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdeartwork-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdebase-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdebase-runtime-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdebase-workspace-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdebindings-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdeedu-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdegames-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdegraphics-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdelibs-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdemultimedia-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdenetwork-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdepim-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdepimlibs-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdeplasma-addons-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdesdk-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdetoys-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdeutils-4.0.99.tar.bz2
kdewebdev-4.0.99.tar.bz2

by Random Guy 3 (not verified)

kdesupport is not really part of KDE, it's a grouping of dependencies for KDE that are all developed in KDE svn.

So, you either need to pester your distribution to make an automoc package, or grab it from KDE svn. I'm not sure if there's really been a release of automoc.

by tomas (not verified)

Ah thanks.

I will try to fetch it with svn.

I really think that the wiki should mention this.

by tomas (not verified)

I just realized that a guide specific to Gentoo mentions more of it

http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Gentoo

I think it should be a more distro agnostic guide because commands such as:

"The Recipe for Automoc

cd
cs
cd kdesupport
svn checkout svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/kdesupport/automoc
cd automoc
cmakekde"

Could work on most (sourced based) distributions yet not everyone that likes source builds uses gentoo

by Random Guy 3 (not verified)

You can also download the source from http://kde.mirrors.tds.net/pub/kde/unstable/automoc4/0.9.84/automoc4-0.9...

There is a section for building from source, but most distros have their own section because they provide some or all of their own packages.

by Hein (not verified)

These commands are not Gentoo specific.
They come from a script to build kde4 from sources.
Look at http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started/Increased_Productivity_in_KDE4_w...
It 's mentioned as "this special .bashrc"

by Raul (not verified)

I'm using opensuse's KDE 4.1 RC packages since last week and they are great. Looking into the future, this is what I would like to see for 4.2 (disclaimer: I know some of this items are already in the road map, but I'm not sure about all of them, maybe some developer can tell me which ones are planed?)

-An Akonadi-based KDE-PIM

-A Decibel based Kopete

-Being able to rename a picture in gwenview by just hitting F2

-Digikam with kick ass nepomuk integration

-Amarok 2

-Koffice 2

-A kDE 4 version of Kaffeine

-A completely functional folder view containment

-Google widgets in plasma

-Windows Vista widgets in plasma

-More work in the ZUI

-Some kind of animation when moving widgets in the taskbar

-Autohide for the taskbar

-Correction of the rendering problems in the tray icons

-Something new and exciting ;)

And that's it :) Congratulations to all KDE developers for this great release, keep up the good work.

by Milian Wolff (not verified)

I'm no developer, yet I read the dot and planet regularly. Here's what I think is planned:

-An Akonadi-based KDE-PIM
Afair that is planned, though I'm not sure wether _all_ PIM applications will leverage Akonadi in KDE 4.2.

-Amarok 2
The alphas just started to roll out. Imo a stable release could be done in half a year.

-Koffice 2
Until 4.2 a stable Koffice 2.0 could be released. Half a year for just a few more alphas (we are already at #8 or something) then some betas + RCs. Should work. I'm confident here.

-A completely functional folder view containment
yep, is planned.

-Google widgets in plasma
afair it's already working in trunk, I saw screenshots on the planet.

-Some kind of animation when moving widgets in the taskbar
If I'm not mistaken someone on the planet (i.e. one of the developers) mentioned that this bugs him as well and he wanted to fix it.

-Autohide for the taskbar
I'm totally sure that this will be included, since it's right now one of the most mentioned complain in regard to KDE 4.1

by Mark Kretschmann (not verified)

> -Amarok 2
> The alphas just started to roll out. Imo a stable release could be done in half a year.

Actually sooner than that, if our plan works out. Stay tuned :)

by Aaron (not verified)

"Actually sooner than that, if our plan works out. Stay tuned :)"

Ahhh! You're just teasing me now. I've been using the amarok alphas for the last month and this one program is equally as exciting to me as almost all of KDE4. I trust you guys to make it amazing and I don't (terribly) mind waiting for it, but statements like this make it really hard.

Can't wait for the (next alpha or beta or release candidate or) final release. Thanks for making the best audio player period.

by Aaron Seigo (not verified)

i'll just comment on the plasma ones:

> -A completely functional folder view containment

you'll have to be more specific for me to answer this one =)

> -Google widgets in plasma

already working; will be in trunk soon

> -Windows Vista widgets in plasma

would require someone stepping up to write support for them. i'm willing to help with guidance and question answering, though =)

> -More work in the ZUI

planned for 4.2, yes.

> -Some kind of animation when moving widgets in the taskbar

do you mean the taskbar itself or the whole panel? and right now it does follow the mouse as you move ..... what kind of animation are you thinking of in specific?

> -Autohide for the taskbar

will be in 4.2, yes.

> -Correction of the rendering problems in the tray icons

likely to not be in 4.2. to do this right requires either fixing GTK+ (whose developers have said they won't fix the crash in their toolkit when a widget is XEmbed'd into an app with a different colourmap; Qt works properly, so it is possible.. *shrug*) or changing the systray spec completely.

thankfully there are other reasons to change the systray spec completely (as in "the current one is a design that may have made sense 10 years ago but ceased making any sense a few years back"), and that's something i've got on my hit list.

however, i'm only thinking about getting a spec together by the time 4.2 is out, i'm not delusional in thinking i can also get an implementation of it and in wide-spread use before 4.3.

by Stefan Majewsky (not verified)

>> -A completely functional folder view containment
> you'll have to be more specific for me to answer this one =)

I cannot speak for the OP, of course; but I think what most people are missing are that

1. folder view can not be used as containment
2. folder view does AFAIK not remember the positions when you dragged items to different positions inside the applet

1. is fixed in trunk as all readers of the commit digest know; and I hope that 2. will also make it to 4.2.

by Ian (not verified)

I'd add a wish for the folder view.....

Adapt it to allow just the folder name be displayed so that when mousing over it temporarily expands to show the files or when clicking it permanently expands to show the files. the size it expands to would be the "previous size".

Great work guys and gals.

by Aaron Seigo (not verified)

> 1. is fixed in trunk

that was actually fixed in trunk quite a while ago, long ago enough that it is even in 4.1.0.

by christoph (not verified)

Regarding systray, what are the technical reasons that it works perfectly in 3.5 but somehow requires a different approach now? Does Qt4 work differently? And thanks for your work :) When autohide is in, I will rm -rf /opt/kde3

by Sebastian Sauer (not verified)

Afaik we don't used alpha-channels in KDE3. Beside that thing there are multiple other technical and design limitations, see there the matching bugreports in bugs.kde.org which also provide future links and informations, why the systray-logic could really need a rework. Also it seems there is already work going on to improve the current (4.1) systray - we will see :)

by Aaron Seigo (not verified)

a) argb visual (where the 'a' is for alpha)

b) allowing widgets on the desktop, panel, dashboard

c) multiple widgets of the same type allowed

d) rendering directly to a canvas versus embedding lots of widgets

there is no reason a systray system needs to fail due to the above, but the current one falls flat on all of them. =/

by Iuri Fiedoruk (not verified)

One little annoying bug I've noticed is that some apps appear out of the systray while plasma loads, then just go to it after a while. A bit confusing for users who do not know it is a bug.

by Sebastian Sauer (not verified)

This is actual a bugfix to prevent some other more annoying bugs. The systray-specs and implementations using it do a lot to make sure that there are tons of problems and other weird things the systray needs to special case.

by Jonathan Thomas (not verified)

Is there a way you could make the systray icons not take focus when they appear? It's really #$%* annoying, especially when you're trying to type in passwords and such. ;-)

by Sebastian Sauer (not verified)

May I suggest to create a report for this one to prevent to have it lost within this thread? And yes, it's really #$%* annoying :)

by Jonathan Thomas (not verified)

Sure.
/me should have known better.

by Iuri Fiedoruk (not verified)

I want to add this on the wish-list:
- optimizations

The reason is that KDE4 is way more slower on my eeePC 701 than KDE3. For now running KDE3 is OK, but soon I'll start missing a lot of new features, and it is sad if KDE cannot run well on this machine, because it is not a bad one in hardware terms. Software is getting eager for more and more resources, it's sad for non-rich people :-P

by Alex (not verified)

Please be more specific which things are slow for you.
There is a known graphics problem. What else feels slow for you ?

Alex

by Iuri Fiedoruk (not verified)

I did not had enabled special graphic effects, so that's probally not the case.
Everything seems slow, you know, opening dolhin takes a good while, after open navigating to folrders seems a bit fat... It does not seem anything in particular, but think about running vista on a duron machine with 512 ram and you'll get the picture :)

Sure I plan to add more RAM in the eee, but this does not mean optimizations cannot be done in KDE code already, and the 3.5 series is an extraordinary example that focusing on this can give great results :)