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:

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.

Trademarks Notices.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Unix is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
Trolltech and Qt are trademarks of Trolltech AS.
Java is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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) 718 456 1165

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 Ole (not verified)

Looks pretty cool!!!

... but where's the addressbook (kab)? I'm using the SuSE-RPMs and it's missing.

by Moritz Moeller-... (not verified)

It is called abbrowser now. Maybe the title in the .desktop file sahould be changed...

by Anonymous (not verified)

A press release for every release and you guys call that "bad marketing" ?

by Roberto Alsina (not verified)

Why, do you suggest we should not tell anyone?

by Christian Naeger (not verified)

Are there Qt-2.2.3 packages for SuSE?
Good work!

by Carsten (not verified)

You can get these directly from the SuSE ftp-Server (ftp.suse.com). I read about it in the Xfree4.0.2-folder.

by renaud (not verified)

Is the new theme manager backward compatible with KDE 2.0 and KDE 1.1.2 themes?

by renaud (not verified)

Is the new theme manager backward compatible with KDE 2.0 and KDE 1.1.2 themes?

by SK (not verified)

The RedHat RPMs for the 6x branch don't include the kde-network rpm's. Because I uninstalled all of the kde rpm's, I no longer have kmail, kpm, etc. I tried the old 2.0.1 rpm's, but I get dependency errors.

Is there a place where I can get a good kde-network rpm for RedHat 6.2?

by APW (not verified)

I downloaded kdenetwork source and compiled on RH6.2 -- it's failing all over the place. Kmail, won't compile for sure, but korn did.

e.g.
[pwigg@CR855990-A kmail]$ make
Making all in pics
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics'
Making all in toolbar
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics/toolbar'
Making all in locolor
make[3]: Entering directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics/toolbar/locolor'
make[3]: Nothing to be done for `all'.
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics/toolbar/locolor'
Making all in hicolor
make[3]: Entering directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics/toolbar/hicolor'
make[3]: Nothing to be done for `all'.
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics/toolbar/hicolor'
make[3]: Entering directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics/toolbar'
make[3]: Nothing to be done for `all-am'.
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics/toolbar'
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics/toolbar'
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics'
make[2]: Nothing to be done for `all-am'.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail/pics'
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail'
g++ -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -I/usr/include/kde -I/usr/lib/qt-2.2.3/include -I/usr/X11R6/include -D_REENTRANT -O2 -fno-exceptions -fno-check-new -Wall -pedantic -W -Wpointer-arith -Wmissing-prototypes -Wwrite-strings -Wno-long-long -Wnon-virtual-dtor -fno-builtin -DQT_CLEAN_NAMESPACE -DQT_NO_COMPAT -DQT_NO_ASCII_CAST -frtti -UQT_NO_ASCII_CAST -UQT_NO_COMPAT -c kmmainwin.cpp
In file included from /usr/include/sys/socket.h:34,
from /usr/include/mimelib/protocol.h:29,
from /usr/include/mimelib/smtp.h:35,
from kmsender.h:7,
from kmmainwin.cpp:61:
/usr/include/bits/socket.h:226: warning: ANSI C++ forbids zero-size array `__cmsg_data'
kmmainwin.cpp: In method `void KMMainWin::slotSetEncoding()':
kmmainwin.cpp:440: no matching function for call to `KCharsets::encodingForName (QString)'
kmmainwin.cpp: In method `void KMMainWin::slotMailChecked(bool)':
kmmainwin.cpp:632: `beep' undeclared in namespace `::KNotifyClient'
kmmainwin.cpp: In method `void KMMainWin::setupMenuBar()':
kmmainwin.cpp:1508: no matching function for call to `KCharsets::descriptiveEncodingNames ()'make[1]: *** [kmmainwin.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/pwigg/download/kdenetwork-2.1-beta2/kmail'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
[pwigg@CR855990-A kmail]$ cd ..

by SK (not verified)

I went back and tried the kdenetwork rpm from the 7.0 branch. It didn't complain, but I haven't extensively tested it out. Not surprisingly, it looks like more effort is going into the 7.0 rpm's than the 6.x rpms.

by APW (not verified)

Followup: I downloaded the RPMs for RH6.2, installed and then did a successful compile of kdenetwork from source. There must have been some header files or libraries that were included in the RPMs.

I must admit that I haven't done a compile of all of KDE from source yet.

by David Johnson (not verified)

Since Linux is not the only platform KDE runs on, the LILO tools caught my eye. IMHO, it would be a Good Thing(tm) for KDE to separate out the Linux specific parts into a kdelinux package.

by Matt Newell (not verified)

Who says that Lilo is linux specific?

by Carbon (not verified)

well, it does stand for "linux loader". Also, a grub tool would be nice.

by Anon (not verified)

If you did "man lilo" you'd see that though LILO was desinged for linux specificly, it is a MULTI-OS Loader! What are you using right now to dual boot windoze? "umm... LILO?" yes, LILO, well done.

Thanks KDE Team for an kick-ass Desktop-Enviroment!!!!!

All I seem to do nowadays is "cvs up kde*" WOW!!!!!

by Milos (not verified)

People who multi-boot FreeBSD for instance almost definitely do not use LILO, but BSD's loader.

by Carbon (not verified)

I don't use lilo at all, it is lacking many of the features of grub, including an ultra nifty interface, and an emergency console mode with bash like syntax, allowing you to do some recovery stuff without even having an emergency boot disk!

Also, lilo is part of linux, and although people who use other OSs sometimes use it, it isn't INCLUDED with those OSs, so they will be more likely to use the built in one. Boot selectors, are not particaulary complex pieces of software (at least when compared, to say, KDE) :)

by KDE User (not verified)

If you did "man lilo" you'd see that though LILO was desinged for linux specificly, it is a MULTI-OS Loader!

From my experience, it appears that LILO often
can't boot Linux, not to mention other operating systems. No matter what the manpage says.

What are you using right now to dual boot windoze? "umm... LILO?"

I use BSD boot manager. Works every time.

by Anonymous (not verified)

Maybe, instead of only being a LILO program, it could be something like KBootLoader. It could have compatibility with various bootloaders, including LILO, Grub, and the BSD bootloaders. It would do all the basics (adding/removing an OS or partition, timeouts etc.), and then have a seperate part for bootloader-specific options (ex. LILO's lba32 and prompt options).

That way, it would be a program that would be applicable with more UNIX/UNIX-like systems, rather than being a LILO-only solution.

by Doug Holland (not verified)

Very nice, I'll be downloading the new betas
tonight!.

BTW, are you guys planning on adding text anti-aliasing support to KDE soon, now the XRender extension and patches to Qt are available to do this?

by Moritz Moeller-... (not verified)

AS all KDE apps are qt apps, you just have to recompile your QT with the render extension (you need a new freetype2 and an Xfree-4.02+ with the render extension) and then it just WORKS.
No internal support in KDE needed, though I think in KDE2.1final, the antialiassing will be made configurable by GUI when available...

by Evandro (not verified)

there's a patch to configure whether to use or not aa fonts, but kde was message-freeze so it won't make into 2.1-final.

by Lukas Tinkl (not verified)

I want to assure you the GUI configuration stuff for AA _did_ make it into this beta :-)

It should be under Preferences -> Look & Feel -> Style

Regards,
Lukas Tinkl [[email protected]]

by Evandro (not verified)

that's not in the official kde; however, bero patched redhat rpms to show that.

by gnu128 (not verified)

so which version of:

- xfree do i need? is a self compiled 4.02 ok.

- freetype do i need? is 2.01 enough?

and where can i get the qt-patch?

PS: someone should add a "AA-font" question and answer into the FAQ.

by ne... (not verified)

See http://www.xfree86.org/~keithp/render for further details.

by JC (not verified)

Can I use it to play bridge at www.station.sony.com?

Netscape locks up there faster than you can bid no-trump!

by caatje (not verified)

check the pic

by JC (not verified)

Hallelujiah - I am saved!

I installed beta1 and it pretty much barfed on my existing configuration files from 2.0.1. Should we start over from scratch when upgrading?

by Evandro (not verified)

you shouldn't have any problems. if you have, please report them.

by Bernd (not verified)

I installed the SuSE 7.0 packages. KDE 2.1 beta2 looks very nice and is more stable. But, I miss korganizer. It is not in the bin directory. What is the reason?

by Michael O'Henly (not verified)

Look for "Organizer" under the Office menu.

by Bernd (not verified)

There is no Organizer entry in my Office menu. Also KOrganizer is not in my KDE2 bin directory. Maybe a error in the SuSE 7.0 RPM's?

by steve (not verified)

What about Suse 6.4 RPMs? There weren't any for the last beta. What about this beta?

by steve (not verified)

What about Suse 6.4 RPMs? There weren't any for the last beta. What about this beta?

by gnu128 (not verified)

cool! :-)

but can we expect to have a themable and perhaps shadowed mouse-cursor in the future? or who's task is it to implement that? (xfree,qt or kde).

i really want colored (not just monochrome-cursors) and i would like to change the "hotX-, hotY-position" of the cursor. the best would be cursors with 8bit alphachannel. i see no reason not to implement this!

what i find good is: the new Application-icons! (specially in the Startmenu) the old icons where very bad!!! are there so few people designing the icon? do u need help?

by Justin (not verified)

I believe the mouse cursor is controlled by X, but I'm not sure. On a side note, Qt/Embedded has a nice drop shadow on its mouse cursor.

While we're on the subject of pretty things, another cool effect would be drop shadows on popup menus. I noticed this in ssh.com's client for Windows and it looks quite good. I'm not exactly sure how possible this is though. I know some Qt, and I was thinking a wrapper to the popup menu could do it. But then what if the area under the popup menu changes (ie scrolls or something) ? The shadow would need to redraw. It sounds like an insane amount of work, but the ssh guys pulled it off quite easily with Windows, and it's not even a natural feature there.

Any other Qt programmers here with some insight?

-Justin

by anonymous (not verified)

I've asked for this, too, and this is the answer that I got: X does not support alpha channel (transparency). There fore, shadows are not possible at all. Period. Also, cursors are one bit, meaning they can only be black&white. Not grayscale, black&white. Very sad, but true.

But not too long ago, a hero named Keith Packard created something revolutionary: The XRender extension (which finally makes Anti-Aliased text feasible). I do not know though, whether that has any meaning for general alpha capabilities of X or not. But on Keith's homepage, I HAVE already seen (semi-)transparent windows. So at least, there seems to be somebody working on it!

by Sam (not verified)

He is not working on it. He is _done_ working on it and is just improving it now.
Alpha cursors that you can see in Windows 2000 will be possible through changes in XFree86. Probably this year...

/Sam

by laky (not verified)

as well as faster pcs with more ram.? i think that more stable applications, which are using low system resources, are more necessity than nice icons and transparent cursors and shadows. for, example the most "stable" and usable kde application - konqueror - cannot be still compared with ms ie.

by SK (not verified)

>what i find good is: the new Application-icons! (specially in the Startmenu) the old icons where very bad!!! are there so few people designing the icon? do u need help?

Check out artist.kde.org

by XFree has this ... (not verified)

The latest XFree (4.3) has the UGLY feature of transparent and shadowed mousecursor..

by XFree has this ... (not verified)

The latest XFree (4.3) has the UGLY feature of transparent and shadowed mousecursor..

by great work! (not verified)

Is the KDE team going to come up something like a updater similiar to GNOME's red carpet? Trying to download all the RPMs and then install them isn't the easiest thing to do.

by Stephan Böni (not verified)

When you have downloaded all files, you can create a simple setup-script like this (update only):

echo "rpm -Uvh --nodeps --force *.rpm" > setup.sh
chmod 755 setup.sh

The script must be placed in the same directory where the donwloaded files are stored.

by Stephan Böni (not verified)

second try:

When you have downloaded all files, you can create a simple setup-script like this (update only):

echo "rpm -Uvh --nodeps --force *.rpm" > setup.sh

chmod 755 setup.sh

The script must be placed in the same directory where the donwloaded files are stored.

by Rikard Anglerud (not verified)

Just doing a
rpm -Fvh
might actually work. I use it to upgrade my rsynced Mandrake betas.