KDE 3.0: A New Era In Desktop Choice

Today the KDE Project proudly announces the release of KDE 3.0 (fully mirrored below), a release which marks a new era of choice on the desktop. Every advance opens the door to a group of new adopters, and KDE 3 is set to tear the doors asunder. In celebration of the release, the KDE League has posted the text KDE: The Complete Enterprise Desktop Solution, a work-in-progress but already something useful to show those who are considering the migration to freedom. Enough talk, time to download.

 


[Full Announcement Available Here]

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Comments

by me (not verified)

of course noone can say for sure what is the leading desktop for unix/linux etc., but most polls indicate kde is far ahead. Polls are obviously not reliable and vary depending on where/what site they are, but i haven't seen a poll in the last two years where gnome was ahead of kde.

also, i think kde got a lot more awards (from magazines and fairs) than gnome.

You might also want to look at the number of posts in the mailing lists. Might give you an impression where development is more active. To be honest, i never compared that cause i'm quite sure i know what i'd see ;)

by me (not verified)

ummm... why not gnome, it works well for me and many others.

by David Johnson (not verified)

And Blackbox works for me, so maybe it's the "leading desktop".

But of course, Blackbox isn't the leading desktop, despite its sublime elegance. KDE is.

by Justin (not verified)

KDE is the default desktop environment on almost every major Linux distribution except for RedHat (which, ironically, is the most popular distro, but anyway). I think this is good justification to say that KDE is the leading Linux desktop.

by ac (not verified)

Ironically most of the time I hear about desktop deployments running Red Hat... they use KDE.

by Rob (not verified)

Is anyone else seeing this?

Xconfigurator < 4.9.42-1 conflicts with hwdata-0.9-1

Are people ignoring and simply --force(ing) the issue? The conflict is only the matter of one file: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/Cards and I assume the format hasn't changed?

Apart from that, I'd just like to thank all the KDE developers and packagers(Bero in particular for the RH packages) for the best desktop(I've been running CVS on my home machine, but don't have the time/resources to compile here).

by Uri Shohet (not verified)

I got the Xconfigurator-4.10.1-1 RPM from RawHide and it solved the problem. Try rpmfind.net or one of the RH mirrors

by Rob (not verified)

Thanks, I was considering that, but I think I'll either use --force or uninstall Xconfigurator(I don't *really* need it). I've been bitten before using Rawhide packages...

by shiva (not verified)

looks great. only problem: i cant seem to get anti-aliasing to work, even after i configure it in the control panel->look and feel->fonts.this worked well in 2.2.2.
i deleted the old kde packages on RH 7.2 ,as per redhat instructions, and had to do a --no-deps install since there was a dependency problem with Xconfigurator.

by Androgynous Howard (not verified)

It is hard to express in words how much I like the new KDE3. I am running it since yesterday when there was that premature announcement on heise.de, and I am really, really impressed. From the little time I had to test it, it seems much more stable than the KDE2.0 release. In fact, it does not feel like a .0 release at all.

There are some minor rendering bugs (I will of course post them on bugs.kde.org), but nothing drastic such as konqueror crashing. The performance is really improved. I am using a 256 meg machine, so I can not really say how fast it is on low memory machines. But on my machine konqueror is now overall the fastest browser. It outperforms mozilla on windows and even sometimes IE on windows. Other applications also come up much faster than before.

I also really enjoy the new kmail. It looks much better, and (most important for me) it finally supports SMTP AUTH, so I can remove that horrible SMTP after POP script from my mail server. The PGP/GPG integration also looks nice, but I did not have time to test it yet.

The new printing system, especially in conjuntion with CUPS, is a much needed addition. Printing was always some kind of weak spot for the UNIX office. It does not affect me much, since I do not see the point of putting information on paper anyway :-), but some people just love printing out documents and web pages and reading them on paper. I guess that is what they mean when they say paperless office...

So to all the KDE developers reading this: You guys are cool. Seeing a project like KDE growing gives me back some faith in humanity.

regards,

A.H.

p.s. is there a way to donate to the KDE project so that the donation can be written off from the income tax (in germany)?

by anonymous (not verified)

You can support KDE e.v.

http://www.kde.de/contact/support.php

by Carsten Pfeiffer (not verified)

> p.s. is there a way to donate to the KDE project so that the donation can be > written off from the income tax (in germany)?

Yes, see http://www.kde.org/support.html

by dave (not verified)

I look forward to trying kde3, but that probably won't be until i upgrade do a distribution upgrade because i've wasted enough time sorting out rpm dependencies. In gnome i use red-carpet, and that makes installing/removing/upgrading software easy, so i have gnome2 snapshots running already. What i really want to know is if there is any similar utility planned for kde? (even just a kde channel on red-carpet would do) - otherwise i, along with most other users (excluding debian), will never upgrade kde by hand so will always be using an old version.

by ian geiser (not verified)

What the heck dist are you using?!
LFS?!

urpmi, Yast2 AND dpackage ALL have upgraded my KDE between releases of the dists and i have never had problems.

By far Mandrakes is the most strait forward, followed by Yast2 and dpkg.

I would look into it, and you will see why no-one has ever desired to implement this.

-ian reinhart geiser

by dave (not verified)

Redhat (the only distribution apart from debian that's worked relaibly and stably for me, and i've tried mandrake, suse(when they had isos available, their net installer failed miserably for me), caldera, lycoris...) - it does have it's own updater (up2date) but i very much doubt they'll put kde3 packages on there any time soon (of course i could be wrong).
The other reason i think it would be a good thing is so there is a standard way of doing installs/updates, you just named 3 different distros each with there own way of updating - this means that you can't tell someone how to update software with kde (or non-ximian gnome) without asking which distribution they're using. This doesn't sound like much of a problem, but it means that people don't know how to use linux, they know how to use suse, or mandrake, or redhat or...
I think the best way to deal with this is to incorporate standard (useful) config tools and a software installer/updater into kde and gnome (preferably with some similarities between the two)

Anyway that's all getting a bit offtopic, well done on releasing kde3, i'll give it a go next time i upgrade.

by ian geiser (not verified)

well on the off chance you actually bought software you would find both Mandrake and SuSE install very easily and work very reliably.

The only difference is that both Mandrake and SuSE seem to put more effort into makeing KDE work.

My advice to you is to upgrade, or at least try bero's packages.

I have found you never get more than what you pay for, and for me the $60 USD to SuSE was well worth it. In fact I am all ready to preorder my next one. Yes as a shocker I am a Linux user and I do _pay_ for software ;)

-ian reinhart geiser

by dave (not verified)

I have also paid for linux software - my most recent purchase being codewarrior for linux (they normally produce great software, at a decent price, and have been very responsive to my emails about problems i have found with the linux version).

The problem with suse linux is that the last time i tried it it crashed on me, regularly (every few hours, and no it wasn't just x) so i wanted to try a newer version, tried the network install and that failed miserably - maybe it is worth the money now, but i am a sudent so i hold onto my money tightly and i'd rather stick with a distro i know to be stable rather than pay for one that was useless last time i tried it.
I think it is a real shame that suse have stopped free downloads of iso's, i would love to try it again, but need to be convinced that they have made a distro that works well on my computer before i part with money. i have also had unreliable installs of mandrake in the past(basically the config tools seem to start failing after a few weeks) but will download the latest version soon and see if it is any better.
The system i have now is redhat 7.2 with a custom built 2.4.18 kernel, and gnome2 snapdhots from red-carpet and it works pretty well, but it would be nice to find a distribution that sets everything up as nice as i have it out of the box (doesn't really matter if it's kde or gnome) i just need something that doesn't crash, doesn't grind to a halt with lots of programs open (as the default redhat kernel does because o fmy lack of ram 96M not enough these days) and a nice extra would be easy to ue setup tools. If suse met all those criteria on my p2 266 96M ram i'd happily pay for it. If you happen to know anyone running it on low end sytems like this i'd be happy to here if it's suitable.

by fault (not verified)

I'd love a red-carpet installer and all, but the thing is that it is a nightmare implementing one (and supporting all major distros), without something like Ximian's resources.

Notice that GNOME itself only officially releases source packages, just like KDE. It is only a third party (ximian), that makes it available. If a few of the KDE developers formed a company, then it might be possible, but that's rather doubtful.

OTOH, why not a straight-forward port of red-carpet to qt/kde (pretty easy, red-carpet isn't that big), or a KDE channel in red-carpet (if Ximian doesn't want to, use a thirdparty server).

by Jimmy (not verified)

A Red Carpet type download management program for KDE would be wonderful - at least for me anyway.

by Richard Bos (not verified)

Well for suse-7.3 it is possible to apt-get kde3.
More info at http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net follow
the link marked 'Apt-rpm reps'

by SilvereX (not verified)

Cool! A very good work guys! This will begin a new era in UNIX desktop computing.

by Nassos Koyrendas (not verified)

Everybody did a marvellous job. Congratulations!!!!!!!!

by Namar Gonzales (not verified)

Anyone had problems with aRts not starting? It complains about not being able to autodetect Input/output method or something like that...
I'm running this on a Compaq armada m700 with a ESS Maestro 2E sound.

by Justin T. (not verified)

Try downloading the rpm from ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/contrib/texstar/Mandrake-8...

This is the ftp server attached to http://pclinuxonline.com

They often have updated or interesting files there and interesting tips and tricks for Mandrake.

Justin T.

by Iuri Fiedoruk (not verified)

I have! The same problem with a mad16 board.
Maybe the mdk rpms are a bit broken?

by crazycrusoe (not verified)

hope this helps
go to ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/contrib/texstar/Mandrake-8...
and download libarts...rpm and arts...rpm
use --force --nodeps in rpm to install them
rpm --nodeps --force libarts and arts.. rpms
i am assuming mdk8.2
then restart kde and it worked for me
those 2 rpms are updated ones
if u want in kcontrol(kde control centre) unser sound->soundserver in the General tab uncheck and click apply then check the start aRts soundserver on kde startup and apply as root, then restart kde, should work. worked here

hth
crazycrusoe

by Iuri Fiedoruk (not verified)

Worked here, thank you very much.
I already had heard about texstar rpms for mandrake but I was a redhat user until last week, and now as a happy (even that kernel 2.4 sucks in hardware support, and because that I don't have ext3) mdk 8.2 user I'm just learning how to operate this new spaceship :)

by peter (not verified)

these directories do not excist anymore

i still have no sound, and i have a ess maestro soundcard, on a Gateway Solo 2550

by rongie isip (not verified)

could you send me some art peroblems, their causes and how it is solve?

by Iuri Fiedoruk (not verified)

I installed KDE3 on mdk 8.0 with old kdelibs to keep old kde 2.x apps working.
My problem is that every time I start kde kpersonalizer starts.
How do I tell it I already have configured all?
I tryied finishing it, canceling it, but always it comes back.
Probally there is some file on .kde that should point that kpersonalizer should not start, what file is it? Does someone know?

by Justin T. (not verified)

Heya,

~/.kde3/share/config/kpersonalizerrc needs to look like:

[General]
FirstLogin=false

Then you shouldn't see this popping up anymore.

Justin T.

by Einar Larsen (not verified)

So why doesn't kpersonalizer do that itself? Not very user friendly, is it?

by Iuri Fiedoruk (not verified)

Worked, thank you very much.

by Coomsie (not verified)

Hay, Thanks for your help Justin!!!

I saw their was that file there but i dint know what should be in it.

Thanks Again

Coomsie :3)

by Eric Thibodeau (not verified)

I accidently started Kpersonalize and it started showing up at each subsequent logins. The kpersonalizerrc file was existant but empty... could this be a bug or a file access issue which is silently discarded by the software?

by William H. (not verified)

Thanks! I use Kubuntu, and upgraded from KDE 3.5.2 to 3.5.4. Upon realizing I still did not have the "extras" (games, toys, etc.), I installed the kdebase metapackage. Kpersonalizer kept popping up on boot, and this fixed it. :-)

by swongy (not verified)

good work guys, anyone know the schedule for the Solaris 8 binaries?

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

I heard Slowlaris packages were coming next week... :)

by Redingofish (not verified)

Please please make it work before Gnome 2.0 comes standard with Solaris 9.

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

To my knowledge KDE has always worked well with Solaris. Sun just doesn't care. So why would this make a difference?

Are there really that many Sun desktop users?

by Amit (not verified)

Hi Navindra,

where can i download Kde 3.x packages (pkg format )for solaris 7 and 8?

TIA.
Amit

by Marcos Tolentino (not verified)

Is there any APT repository to get kde 3?? (RedHat 7.2)

by Richard Bos (not verified)

For SuSE-7.3 there is, for RedHat I don't know.
But if there is one for RH, you should be able
to find it at the http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net
website. Follow the link marked 'apt-rpm reps'

After installing kde3 rpms on mandrake 8.1, i am unable to access the program
menu or the control panel..can somebody help?

I know that Mandrake 8.2 has menudrake that can be used to fix the problem. I dont remember if 8.1 has the menudrake. It it does, use menudrake to create the kmenu.

Thanks a lot! menudrake is available on mdk8.1.
I have to change /opt/kde3/share/applnk-mdk-simplified to /opt/kde3/share/applnk-mdk as menudrake seems to be looking for this file.
Just in case, somebody else have similar problems.

Thanks again! kde rocks!!!

by Dieter Nützel (not verified)

What did you get?

Apart from that KDE 3.0 is GREAT.
Especially KDEPrint.

Cheers,
Dieter

by Moritz Moeller-... (not verified)

I have the same problem.

I use a self-compiled kernel with OSS drivers, maybe that is the problem?
Well, I can live without KDE sound for a while.

Ironically arts works with xmms and arts-output plugin, so I think the SuSE package kdemultimedia3 is broken in some way.

Yes, I think so.
Same problem occurs to me...
If someone knows how to fix it, please tell me!
Thanx!

On the kde-ftp server there are some new SuSE-RPMs (arts/base/qt). I'll give them a try to see if they fix my problems...