Today the KDE Project released KDE 3.2. It is the result of a combined year-long effort by hundreds of individuals and corporations from around the globe. For packages, please visit the KDE 3.2 info page. At the moment binary packages for Conectiva Linux, Slackware (9.0, 9.1) and SUSE Linux (8.2, 9.0) are listed. Or compile the source either manually or with the help of Konstruct after reading the KDE 3.2 Requirements list. All changes can be found in the detailed KDE 3.2 change log or continue to read about the highlights.
Some of the highlights in KDE 3.2 at a glance:
- Increased performance and standards compliance
- Lowered start up times for applications and hundreds of optimizations
make KDE 3.2 the fastest KDE ever! - Working in concert with Apple Computer Inc.'s Safari web browser team,
KDE's web support has seen huge performance boosts as well as increased
compliance with widely accepted web standards - Increased support for FreeDesktop.org standards in KDE 3.2 strengthens
interoperability with other Linux and UNIX software. - New applications
- JuK: a jukebox-style music player
- Kopete: an instant messenger with support for AOL Instant Messenger,
MSN, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, Jabber, IRC, SMS and WinPopup - KWallet: providing integrated, secure storage of passwords and web form
data - Kontact: a unified interface that draws KDE's email, calendaring,
address book, notes and other PIM features together into a familiar
configuration - KGpg: providing an easy-to-use KDE interface to industry-standard
encryption tools - KIG: an interactive geometry program
- KSVG: a viewer for SVG files
- KMag, KMouseTool and KMouth: accessibility tools for KDE
- KGoldRunner: a new riff on a classic game
- ... and many more!
- Thousands of incremental improvements and bug fixes
- During the development of KDE 3.2 nearly 10,000 bug reports were
processed via the KDE Bug Tracking System - Approximately 2,000 feature requests were also processed, with hundreds
of requested features added to KDE applications and components - An improved configuration system that opens the door to new
installation management possibilities, improved roaming support and
many improvements to the "KDE Kiosk" environment management system - Inline spell checking for web forms and emails
- Improved email and calendaring support
- Powerful tabbed interface for the Konqueror file manager and web
browser - Support for Microsoft Windows desktop sharing protocol (RDP)
- Improved Usability
- Reduced clutter in many menus and toolbars
- Many applications, dialogs and control panels reworked for clarity and
utility - Enhanced appearance
- Plastik, a tastefully understated new look, debuts in KDE 3.2
- Hundreds of new icons improve the consistency and beauty of KDE
- Tweaks to the default look including new splash screens, (optionally)
animated progress bars, styled panels and more! - New Tools for Software Developers
- Comprehensive API documentation extended for 3.2
- Language bindings for ECMAScript (aka Javascript), Python, Java and
Ruby - New versions of the powerful KDevelop IDE and Quanta web development
suite - Umbrello brings UML modeling for 11 different languages including C++,
Java, SQL, PHP, Python and Perl to KDE
More information and why you should use KDE 3.2 can be found in the KDE 3.2 announcement.
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Comments
Your Qt is beta. You should expect errors.
Try with Qt 3.2.X
KDE developers cannot tst future Qt versions. It is possible (but unlikely?) that the new Qt 3.3 does not work with KDE 3.2.0. For this, there is KDE 3.2.1.
Hmmm... KDE developers CAN develop using beta versions (or how could this ifdef get into the code), but they CAN NOT test using them ;)... I agree with you completely that it would be wise on developers' hand not to use code which is dependent on future Qt versions and their features. But what happend is that the code DOES depend on them - and i regard this as a bug.
Anyway, my whole point is this: there ARE bugs in the distributed packages, which are due to haste. I fully understand that some bugs cannot be eliminated without re-designing and/or re-hacking a lot of code. But bugs such as mentioned can be stamped out in no time (well, less time than it takes to answer my posts ;) ). And it's a pity that such bugs made it into the "stable" release...
Nobody hinders you and anyone else to actually fix any bug right away. The problem is not "haste" but rather the lack of human resource actually tackling all the issues right away.
Exactly! How would you call a release, for which you EXPECT users to do testing and bug fixing? IMHO it should be called "release candidate" or "beta".
There has been a nearly half a year freeze, two betas and one release candidate already, and the system's stability as well as the balance between quickly fixable serious bugs and the kind of newly reported bug was showing that it was a pretty fine time to do a release.
If you think software with bugs should never be released or even *gasp* used you might prefer stopping using computers altogether.
> 2. Library requirements say Qt >= 3.2.3. So, either requirements page is wrong or my configuration is supported.
Well the reason is pretty simple. The enum entry PM_MenuBarItemSpacing was introduced after Beta1. It would have compiled with qt-copy or a later snapshot (>20031220).
Also if you see a requirement like Qt>=3.2.3 than we are talking about released stuff and you shouldn't except it to work flawless with some beta version you are using.
> If autoconf is absent or is old enough (like 2.13)
Compiling with an absent or old autoconf (<2.5) isn't supported so you shouldn't expect it work. (see http://developer.kde.org/build/compile_kde3_1.html)
> May be I'm wrong and had done something stupid myself
very tempting....
2. IMHO, making code dependent on future Qt versions is not a good idea. And Qt 3.3 was still beta at the point where KDE-3.2 was released.
1. Is the end-user supposed to have autoconf installed just to run configure? And BTW it does not work with 2.53 either which is greater than 2.5, isn't it?
Again, i'm not asking for workarounds - it was not hard for me to find them. I'm saying that "Fast turnaround between RC1 and actual release" lead to simple glitches. Where the turnaround not so fast, there would be more time for testing QA and the release would be better polished.
I'm impressed by everything i've seen in the new version of kde.. has anyone however got the same problem as me, in that as soon as any item appear in the recently used application list at the top of the kmenu, the kmenu become several pixels too thin?
bugs.kde.org seems to be down for me otherwise i'd check there!
Apart from this, its a great improvement over 3.1.5
It's on bugs.kde.org already. Bugs.kde.org is giving it's CPU time to downloaders.
/me is waiting happily for the dpkgs ... :)
Great job, good work.
This won't keep me stickin' on my win2k any longer ... hehe
- d
/me has already apt-get'ed KDE 3.2 on ArkLinux
excellent!
Is KDE 3.2 will be available for woody? Hmmm? Ralf?
Sahin
Oh yessssss!
Debian also available!
Thx!
Sahin
post URL plz
You could go to the KDE 3.2 info page (http://www.kde.org/info/3.2.php) like described in the article and search for Debian.
Yes, sometimes it's that simple! ;-)
Or Unstable - url would be nice if someone has already packaged it :)
http://wiki.debian.net/?DebianKDE
There's packages for woody distributed via kde.org.
I did install these packages last night, they work well. Except that I can't choose plastik style? In which package is it supposed to be?
apt-cache search plastik didn't find anything..
Try looking for kde-artwork.
Hey I am a complete noob to debian after adding deb http://download.kde.org/stable/3.2/Debian stable main
to my source list what exactly do I do to load kde. apt-get install kde? THX
See http://wiki.debian.net/DebianKDE
Benjamin.
What is the default theme for KDE 3.2? Just in case I need to make some screenshots for documentation.
Steinchen
Same as before AFAIK.
Keramik.
The default theme for KDE 3.2.0 is Plastik, IIRC.
Bob
you don't recall correctly, it's Keramik. Plastik is included in kdeartwork.
Yep, it is Keramik due to screenshot policy etc. I would imagine. Plastik should be there though for all you people out there, and hopefully it will improve and may be the default in the future.
Thank you very much!
I can't get into bugs but I was wondering if the KHTML problem with the and tags getting rendered in some nasty and unconfigurable font ever got fixed?
some CSS Bugs are not fixed with kde3.2 but available in bugs.kde.org since some weeks. No problems with kde3.1 but now with kde3.2 :((
There is a new html tsting framework, and many bugs fixes did not make into the release yet. This is a .0 release, so small bugs are expected.
For everyone who wants to try KDE 3.2 the easy way, just get the latest version of ArkLinux:
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/arklinux/dockyard/iso/arklinux...
It has KDE 3.2 as default alreday :) Also features an easy installer, good config tools and software updating with apt/synaptic
Can some one advise me on where to grap Mandrake 9.2 binaries? I'd also like to know whether kde 3.1.4 and the latest kde can co-exist on the same machine...or does the newly installed one overwrite the old one?
Cb..
I downloaded it and on install I selected the first option which is to delete OS, and ltitle did I know that it would delete Windows XP, Xandros, and my BACKUP partition! Damn this OS jsut has to fuck you up like this and not even a warning that it would not delete one OS, but rather all of them and also once you clcik the button you are done for, no confirmation request like in SUSE so if someone accidentally selects the wrong one, bye bye.
Now I have lost most of my data forever and just setting up everything again will take a few weekends. If your wodnering why I didn't select the other options, it's because they didnt work, couldn't resize or anything.
I never want to touch this piece of shit for at least 2 years, I'm aware it's alpha and it could be super buggy for all I know but at least it can be super buggy on its own partition!
Mmm, sounds pretty typical of someone how dosnt grasp the concept of what Alpha means, and what should be done before installing an Alpha like actually reading the all the arnings on the website and talking with the development team. Brilliant genius.
Will there be a cool feature guide (s. http://www.kde.org/info/3.1/feature_guide_1.html) like there was for KDE 3.1?
I think it was a nice walk-through the new features and apps.
For new applications see http://kde.ground.cz/tiki-index.php?page=KDE+3.2+Applications+Difference
I think aseigo was working on that -- might take a day or two as I think he's pretty busy atm.
Don't forget the release party on IRC at irc.kde.org in #kde
Troy
(bored? http://tblog.ath.cx/troy/)
Hi,
I looked forward to try this new release of my favorite DE, and I'm a little bit disaponted with the speed on my SuSE 8.2 Xeon 2Ghz 1Gb RAM.
When I launch an app, it takes 15-20 sec and X takes 90% of CPU..
What's the problem?
PV
Takes a cuple of seconds here with a pentium III 350 laptop.
It must be a problem with your machine, since no app takes more than about 5 seconds to start on my K6-II 533 with 192MB of RAM running Slackware 9.1.
> It must be a problem with your machine
You're fast...
> no app takes more than about 5 seconds to start on my K6-II 533 with 192MB of RAM running Slackware 9.1
He's slow...
> I'm a little bit disaponted with the speed on my SuSE 8.2 Xeon 2Ghz 1Gb RAM.
> When I launch an app, it takes 15-20 sec and X takes 90% of CPU.
It's not his machine. It's a problem in his setup, possibly fam related.
People here's a clue... if launching an application brings your light speed workstation to it's knees you can bet that the developers would not be releasing it and it's another problem related to your set up.
My setup ? Maybe.
What makes me doubt is that my setup is an *out of the box* SuSE. (It's the workstation I use at ...work, so no fantasy here...)
I thought it may be the problem with X and antialiased fonts..
Any help?
PV
Probably a configuration anomaly with your machine, and could be due to how you built, installed it etc. or the fact that you have a Xeon. "X takes 90% of the CPU" is somewhat vague.
I didn't built it but installed from Suse 8.2 rpms', satisfiying religiously all the dependencies...
PV
one more thing:
> "X takes 90% of the CPU" is somewhat vague <
That's what top shows, what should I do? Run X and kde in debug mode, and follow the execution step by step?!
:)
PV
I've got a similar problem using Debian stable with a backported X Version 4.2.1.1. I think i'll try downgrading and see how it goes. Another problem i run into was that KDE caused a relocation error with my backported version of libfreetype6 (kdeinit: relocation error: /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3: undefined symbol: FT_Seek_Stream) and had to downgrade it to the woody version. Any hints on what might be the problem with X cpu usage?
Cheers,
Cirrus
Hmm what could be wrong?
I downgraded to XFree 4.1.0.1, disable anti-aliasing, and updated my nvidia drivers? Oh and 3.2 look so nice. I am really dissapointed that I can't play around with it
To me it sounds like it might be a packaging problem, given that its a Xenon and so not as tested. You might ask around forums and mailing lists devoted to SUSE.
No i'm using debian stable. Just removed almost everything and reinstalled. Same thing again. damn