KDE 2.0 is Out!

It's official! KDE 2.0 has been released! Run, don't walk, to your nearest mirror or go directly to the source.
The full press release is below.

DATELINE OCTOBER 23, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New KDE Release Is a Major Advance for Linux®
Desktop

Next Generation of Leading Desktop for Linux®
and Other UNIXes® Ships

October 23, 2000 (The INTERNET). The KDE
Team
today announced the release of KDE 2.0 (named Kopernicus),
KDE's powerful, modular, Internet-enabled desktop. This highly anticipated
release constitutes the next generation of the
award-winning KDE 1
series, which culminated in the
release of
KDE 1.1.2
just over a year ago. Kopernicus is the work product
of hundreds of dedicated developers originating from over 30 countries.

"With the experience gained from developing KDE 1, we
almost completely re-engineered KDE 2 to make it even more intuitive,
powerful and user friendly," explained
Matthias Ettrich,
founder of the KDE project.
"We think that current KDE users will be pleasantly surprised with the
remarkable improvements we have achieved. KDE 2 offers
the desktop user the benefit of standards compliance and an array of
new technologies, from
Konqueror, a full featured web browser and
file manager, to KOffice, an integrated
office suite, as well as a slew of usability enhancements, such as KDE's
expanded themeability and configurability and a new KDE Help Center.
It also offers developers an assortment of powerful new tools -- from
KParts, KDE's component object technology,
to KIO, KDE's network transparent I/O architecture
-- for rapid development and deployment of first-rate free or
proprietary software."

"KDE 2.0 is an important release," stated Ransom Love, president and
CEO of Caldera Systems, Inc.
"Our customers are anxious to migrate not only their servers but also
their desktops to the Linux technology. KDE 2.0 will be a key component
of OpenLinux eDesktop, our solution for a seamless and cost-effective
transition strategy."

"SuSE Linux views KDE 2 as one of
the key milestones to vault Linux to the same landslide success on the
desktop that it already has in the server space," added Dirk Hohndel,
CTO of Suse AG. "We are excited to
be able to offer KDE 2.0 as the
default desktop with our next version of the SuSE Linux OS. I am
confident that third party developers will realize the enormous
potential KDE 2 offers and will migrate their applications
to Linux/KDE."

"As Linux-Mandrake focuses on making Linux easy to use, we are very
pleased to include KDE 2, a major evolution of the already superb KDE 1,
in our upcoming Linux-Mandrake 7.2 release", added
Gaël Duval,
co-founder of Mandrakesoft.
"With KDE 2 and KOffice, the KDE team demonstrates again their deep
commitment to make Linux a viable desktop alternative for all users."

"Corel has had a long, successful relationship with the KDE project, and
the release of KDE 2.0 is an important milestone for Linux," said Rene
Schmidt, Executive Vice President for Linux Products,
Corel Corporation.
"We believe that our customers will be ecstatic over the improvements
and new features of this landmark version. The enhancements to the
framework provide power for the desktop in the simple and elegant
fashion that our customers have grown to expect."

Kopernicus includes the core KDE libraries,
the core desktop environment, the initial release of the KOffice suite, 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. Kopernicus is currently available in 15 languages
and translations into 20 additional languages will be available in the
coming weeks.

All of KDE 2.0 is available for free under an Open Source license.
Likewise,
Trolltech'stm
Qt® 2.2.1, the GUI toolkit on which KDE is based,
is now available for free under two Open Source licenses: the
Q
Public License
and the GNU
General Public License
.

More information about KDE 2 is available in a
slideshow
presentation
and on
KDE's web site, including an evolving
FAQ to answer questions about
migrating to KDE 2.0 from KDE 1.x, a number of
screenshots, developer information and
a developer's
KDE 1 - KDE 2 porting guide.

KDE 2: The K Desktop Environment.
Konqueror
is KDE 2's next-generation web browser,
file manager and document viewer. Widely heralded as a
technological break-through for the Linux desktop, the standards-compliant
Konqueror has a component-based architecture which combines the features and
functionality of Internet Explorer®/Netscape
Communicator® and Windows Explorer®.
Konqueror will support the full gamut of current Internet technologies,
including JavaScript, Java®, HTML 4.0, CSS-1 and -2
(Cascading Style Sheets), SSL (Secure Socket Layer for secure communications)
and Netscape Communicator® plug-ins (for
playing FlashTM, RealAudioTM, RealVideoTM
and similar technologies). The great bulk of this technology is already
in place and functional for KDE 2.0.

KDE 2 also ships with the highly anticipated initial release of
the KOffice
suite
. The integrated
suite consists of a spreadsheet application (KSpread), a vector drawing
application (KIllustrator), a frame-based word-processing application
(KWord), a presentation program
(KPresenter), and a chart and diagram application (KChart). Native file
formats are XML-based, and work on filters for proprietary binary file
formats is progressing. Combined with a powerful scripting language and the
ability to embed individuals components within each other using KDE's
component technology (KParts), the free KOffice suite will soon provide
all the necessary functionality to all but the most demanding power users.

In addition, KIO's network transparency offers
seamless support for accessing
or browsing files on Linux, NFS shares, MS Windows®
SMB shares, HTTP pages, FTP directories and LDAP directories. The modular,
plug-in nature of KDE's file architecture makes it simple to add additional
protocols (such as IPX or WebDAV) to KDE, which would then automatically be
available to all KDE applications.

KDE 2 introduces a new multimedia architecture based on aRts, the Analog Realtime Synthesizer. ARts enables
playing multiple audio or video streams concurrently, whether on the
desktop or over a network. ARts is a full-featured sound system, and
includes filters, a modular analog synthesizer and a mixer. Its
architecture allows developers to create additional filter plugins and
users to apply sequences of filters using a graphical drag-n-drop
approach. Video support is available for MPEG versions
1, 2 and 4 (experimental), as well as the AVI and DivX formats.

KDE's customizability touches every
aspect of this next-generation
desktop. KDE's sophisticated theme support starts with Qt's
style engine, which permits developers and artists to create their
own widget designs. KDE 2.0 ships with over 14 of these styles,
some of which emulate the look of various operating systems, and additionally
does an excellent job of
importing themes
from GTK and GNOME. Other configuration options permit users to: choose among
icon themes and system sounds (using a simple drop-and-replace approach);
configure key bindings; select from over 30 languages; customize toolbar
layouts and entries and menu composition; employ single-click or double-click
to activate desktop items; navigate the desktop using a keyboard
instead of a mouse; and much, much more. Moreover, KDE 2 fully
supports Unicode and KHTML is the only free HTML rendering engine on
Linux/X11 that features nascent support for BiDi scripts
such as Arabic and Hebrew.

Besides the exceptional compliance with Internet and file-sharing standards
mentioned above, KDE 2 achieves exceptional
compliance with the available Linux desktop standards. KWin, KDE's new
re-engineered window manager, complies to the new
Window Manager
Specification
. Konqueror and KDE comply to the Desktop
Entry Standard
. KDE 2 generally complies with the
X Drag-and-Drop (XDND)
protocol
as well as with the
X11R6 session management protocol (XSMP).

KDE 2: The K Development Environment.
Kopernicus offers developers a rich set of major technological improvements overthe critically acclaimed KDE 1 series. Chief among these are
the Desktop COmmunication Protocol (DCOP), the
I/O libraries (KIO), the component
object model (KParts)
, an XML-based GUI class, and
a standards-compliant HTML rendering engine (KHTML).

DCOP is a client-to-client communications
protocol intermediated by a
server over the standard X11 ICE library. The protocol supports both
message passing and remote procedure calls using an XML-RPC to DCOP "gateway".
Bindings for C, C++ and Python, as well as experimental Java bindings, are
available.

KIO implements application I/O in a separate
process to enable a
non-blocking GUI without the use of threads. The class is network transparent
and hence can be used seamlessly to access HTTP, FTP, POP, IMAP,
NFS, SMB, LDAP and local files. Moreover, its modular
and extensible design permits developers to "drop in" additional protocols,
such as WebDAV, which will then automatically be available to all KDE
applications. KIO also implements a trader which can locate handlers
for specified mimetypes; these handlers can then be embedded within
the requesting application using the KParts technology.

KParts, KDE 2's component object model, allows
an application to embed another within itself. The technology handles
all aspects of the embedding, such as positioning toolbars and inserting
the proper menus when the embedded component is activated or deactivated.
KParts can also interface with the KIO trader to locate available handlers for
specific mimetypes or services/protocols.
This technology is used extensively by the KOffice suite and
Konqueror.

The XML GUI employs XML to create and position
menus, toolbars and possibly
other aspects of the GUI. This technology offers developers and users
the advantage of simplified configurability of these user interface elements
across applications and automatic compliance with the
KDE Standards
and Style Guide
irrespective of modifications to the standards.

KHTML is an HTML 4.0 compliant rendering
and drawing engine. The class
will support the full gamut of current Internet technologies, including
JavaScriptTM, Java®, HTML 4.0, CSS-2
(Cascading Style Sheets), SSL (Secure Socket Layer for secure communications)
and Netscape Communicator® plugins (for
viewing FlashTM,
RealAudioTM, RealVideoTM and similar technologies).
The KHTML class can easily
be used by an application as either a widget (using normal X Window
parenting) or as a component (using the KParts technology).
KHTML, in turn, has the capacity to embed components within itself
using the KParts technology.

Downloading and Compiling Kopernicus

The source packages for Kopernicus are available for free download at
http://ftp.kde.org/stable/2.0/distribution/tar/generic/src/ or in the
equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server
mirrors. Kopernicus requires
qt-2.2.1, which is available from the above locations under the name
qt-x11-2.2.1.tar.gz. Kopernicus will not work with
older versions of Qt.

For further instructions on compiling and installing Kopernicus, 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 Kopernicus
will be available for free download under
http://ftp.kde.org/stable/2.0/distribution/
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.

Kopernicus 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. Kopernicus
will not work with older versions of Qt.

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 environmentemploying 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.

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 jamal (not verified)

Sorry guys,

I don't know what happened yesterday, but now it can start to KDE2. But I didn't fix anything. I haven't try the change the backgroung image though. It seems I still can display jpg on konqueror. Is there anybody has the same problem like mine before?

This written in konqueror.
Very cool............

Jamal

by tritone (not verified)

Did you you configure QT with these flags: -shared -gif -sm -system-zlib -system-libpng -system-jpeg
This will include gif/jpeg/png support in the lib.

by jamal (not verified)

I have compile QT with the flags you mentioned above, but still I can't see the jpeg or gif image. png image works just fine. Do I have to compile all the KDE2 sources again?

Jamal

by jamal (not verified)

I still can't view jpg and gif file even though I already compile QT and the source again with flags you mention above. I don't know why. Do you know something wrong?
Thanks

Jamal

Hi,

I am a fisrt time user. I have installed Mandriva linux, It sarts with the shell. I want to login to KDE or GNOME desktops.

Any kind of help is appreciated.

Regards,
Vivek

by pierre (not verified)

Anyone else get an error on startup about dcopserver? It does that then nothing else. At the prompt it also give some errors about my sockets.

by Jesse Dosher (not verified)

Yes, I have this problem also. I initially read it was (or might have been) due to having su to root then installing/upgrading the packages. I re-did the install as root (not su'ed to root) and it fixed it....for a while. Now I get it about 75% of login attempts (as non-root). NOW though, I get booted back to the log in screen if I log in as anyone but root. Arg!! I'm installed KDE2 before with out trouble.

by Okeo (not verified)

Anybody else sees "2.0pre" as the version in Control Center?

This looks weird. Please tell me I have the right version (I *did* download it from the right directory).

by ac (not verified)

Yeah, you have the right version. It's just a quirk that didn't get fixed in the release.

by phawthorne (not verified)

I too have been awaiting KDE2 for a long time. I am running RH 6.1 and decided to compile from source. I'd say I'm a mid-level linux user at this point. The process took pretty much all day on my PIII-450, so I didn't have much time to play with it. However, my first impressions of the look and feel of it are great. Great job KDE team.

I am having a problem with Koffice though. Kword since to be the only app that will run for me. None of the others (Kspread, etc.) will run. Sometimes the spinning disk may flash quickly, but then nothing. Anybody else have this problem, or can anyone give me any clues? I am anxious to try Koffice as well.

Again, kudos to the developers. This is a great day for the KDE community.

Paul.....

by phawthorne (not verified)

I too have been awaiting KDE2 for a long time. I am running RH 6.1 and decided to compile from source. I'd say I'm a mid-level linux user at this point. The process took pretty much all day on my PIII-450, so I didn't have much time to play with it. However, my first impressions of the look and feel of it are great. Great job KDE team.

I am having a problem with Koffice though. Kword since to be the only app that will run for me. None of the others (Kspread, etc.) will run. Sometimes the spinning disk may flash quickly, but then nothing. Anybody else have this problem, or can anyone give me any clues? I am anxious to try Koffice as well.

Again, kudos to the developers. This is a great day for the KDE community.

Paul.....

by Janne (not verified)

i'm running SuSE Linux 7.0 Professional. I did a fresh install yesterday (had some problems with previous installation), I upgraded to Xfree 4.0.1 and I upgraded my video-cards drivers, so I could get X up & running. It works now.

Then I downloaded & installed QT 2.2.1 with exception handling disabled. Everything works so far.

Then I installed KDE1 with Yast to see that does it work. Yep, it does.

Then I install KDE2 SuSE7.0 RPM's with Yast. First, I install Kde2supp, then kde2libs, then everything else (except Koffice, didn't have the time to download it). Everything went fine.

When I reboot, I go to the KDE Login Manager, and both KDE1 and KDE2 are available as desktop environment. I choose KDE2 and login.... The screen goes black and.... I go back to the login screen =(!

What am I doing wrong? KDE1 works fine.

When I ran SuSE 6.4 I tried one of the KDE2 betas. I simply installed it from KDE, and typed KDE2 in shell, and it booted up fine (of course it was unstable and slow since it was beta desktop running inside another desktop, but I just wanted to see that what it looks like). I tried that with KDE2 final, and I got these error-messages:

ksplash: error in loading sharedlibraries: /opt/kde2/lib/libkdeui.so.3: undefined symbol: minimumSizeHint__C7QDialog

kdeinit: error in loading shared libraries: /opt/kde2/lib/libkdecore.so.3:
undefined symbol: startsWith__C7QStringRC7QString

knotify: error in loading shared libraries: /opt/kde2/lib/libkdeui.so.3: undefin
ed symbol: minimumSizeHint__C7QDialog

ktip: error in loading shared libraries: /opt/kde2/lib/libkdeui.so.3: undefined
symbol: event__9QLineEditP6QEvent

Session management error: networkIdsList argument is NULL

ksmserver: error in loading shared libraries: /opt/kde2/lib/libkdecore.so.3: und
efined symbol: new_metaaccess__11QMetaObjecti

Plese be patient with me, I'm not actually a Linux-guru yet...

by Oliver Eichhorn (not verified)

>I choose KDE2 and login.... The screen goes black and.... I go back to the login screen

Exactly the same happens on my machine. Any idea? Someone?

by Oliver Eichhorn (not verified)

Remark: I heard of someone who had the same problem and solved it. He compiled the qtlib with the no-opengl option and it worked. I guess it has something to do with the graphics card.

by Paul Leopardi (not verified)

Have you downloaded and installed all of the relevant SuSE 7.0 RPMs including libs, qt2, localized and kde2?

Here is the way I installed KDE 2.0 on my machine. This may or may not work for you. I am still using the old KDE kdm and not the new one and I have yet to figure out all the post-installation steps.

1. Start with an up-to-date SuSE 7.0 with KDE 1.1.2 installed (in /opt/kde) and working. Update all relevant packages using
http://www.suse.com/en/support/download/updates/70_update.html
2. Read ftp://ftp.kde.org/stable/2.0/distribution/rpm/SuSE/README
3. Obtain all relevant RPMs including libs/*.rpm qt2/*.rpm andkde2/*.rpm from
ftp://ftp.kde.org/stable/2.0/distribution/rpm/SuSE/7.0-i386/
or a mirror as per http://www.kde.org/mirrors.html
For SuSE 6.4, the libs/*.rpm update ALSA as needed by KDE 2.0
4. Make sure to also obtain your language RPMs from
ftp://ftp.kde.org/stable/2.0/distribution/rpm/SuSE/localized
5. Leave KDE: su to root and then run init 2 to go back to shell mode.
6. Run yast as root.
7. In YAST, go to Choose/Install Packages -> Install Packages and install all packages obtained in steps 3 and 4, starting with libs, qt2, localized then kde2. KDE2 installs into /opt/kde2. The original KDE packages are left untouched. YAST will automatically run SuSEconfig. For more details, especially if you are installing KDE 2.0 for the first time, see YAST details below.
8. Init 3 to get back to kdm.
9. If kde2 appears as a choice in kdm, log in using kde2 and enjoy. If not:
9.1. Using kdm, login as root using kde (ie. KDE 1.1.2)
9.2. In KDE, in kcontrol, go to Applications -> Login Manager
9.3. In Login Manager, add the choice kde2 and leave kde as is.
9.4. Log out.
9.5. You should now be able to log in using kde, kde2 or other window managers.
10. KDE2 may not know your old KDE settings. You can import settings from KDE to KDE2 by running old and new programs side by side.
11. You may need to edit .bash, etc. When I determine what you must change, I will add this to the instructions.

YAST details
Based on http://lists.suse.com/archives/suse-linux-e/2000-Oct/1703.html by Jerry L Kreps ([email protected])

1 Run YAST without a CD in the CDROM. When the 'SOURCE:" prompt comes up
press the return key. You are presented with several sources. Choose 'Directory' and select the directory where you have your downloaded RPMs.

2 If you are installing KDE 2.0 for the first time, you need to take account of dependencies.
You can discover the dependencies by using kpackage.
First load all RPMs that were listed as dependencies in the main RPMs.
In using YAST, if you select some RPMs into install and then go to another directory or subdirectory you lose those prior selections.
This turns out to be a good thing because the only way you can control the sequence of installation is to do them in groups

Here is the sequence Jerry discovered.
Mark:
libmng.rpm
liblcms.rpm
openssl.rpm
Press F10
Mark:
qtlib2.rpm (It may show as already being installed. If so, reinstall it anyway)
Press F10
Mark:
qtman2.rpm
qtext2.rpm
Press F10
Mark:
qtdevel2.rpm
Press F10
Mark:
ksupp2.rpm
Press F10
Mark:
klibs2.rpm
Press F10
Mark:
kbase2.rpm
Press F10
Mark:
kde2dn.rpm
and all the other k*.rpms
Press F10
When the files are done installing press 'ESC' to the previous screen and select "Main Menu"
When the installation scripts (SuSEConfig, etc.) finsh, press 'Exit"

Please let me know if these instructions work, and if not, where they fail.

by Oliver Eichhorn (not verified)

Thanks alot, my problems are gone now :-)

I forgot the ibmng.rpm and liblcms.rpm, shame on me!

by Malcolm Agnew (not verified)

The KDE2 binaries for SuSE 7.0 (as did the beta's) install without any problems. But...

The old bugs are mostly still there and some new ones too.

1. Kcontrol crashes immediately (this has been reported many times on the KDE bug pages)

2. Konqueror and Netscape malfunction with a html submit button (i.e. kwm problem) (reported).

3.KDM login window doesn't accept shutdown - the button is disabled (new bug - the beta's worked).

4.kspread doesn't crash as often as it did but makes an extremely unfinished impression.

But ...
Yes certainly very [very++] impressive. Pity that the PR work is only self congratulating and that there is apparently no one ever who is willing to answer problems as is common with other open source projects beginning with UNIX itself in the early 70's.

Malcolm

Of course KDE2 was not released with a KControl that crashes immediately. Your problems must be related to your system. Try deleting your .kde, it may have been corrupted by the betas you put on your system.

The KDE2 binaries for SuSE 7.0 (as did the beta's) install without any problems. But... The old bugs are mostly still there and some new ones too. 1. Kcontrol crashes immediately (this has been reported many times on the KDE bug pages)

You might try installing another libpng package (compile from source) -- some people have had problems with the one that shipped with SuSE 7.0. Compiling Qt with the libpng that comes with Qt is supposed to work, too.

by Malcolm Agnew (not verified)

Tried that - but kcontrol still crashes.

Also removed all kde kde2 .kde* files but kcontrol still crashes.

Also tried making qt from source.

I can change my preferences by avoiding kcontrol of course

by Jason (not verified)

I have to agree, especially about Konqueror. I had high hopes of finally being able to ditch Netscape, but I don't think it's quite good enough yet. I've only been using it a couple of days and I've already encountered several problems.

You can't use it to view and save images reliably. If you follow a link to download an image that's not embedded in HTML, there's no popup menu, so you can't save it. Using Save Link doesn't seem to work all the time. I've had it include the http headers about the file type at the top, so it's not a valid graphics file.

I also tried to use it to access a site that requires a password to log in. For some reason it needed me to enter my username and password about 6 times rather than just once. When I finally got in the javascript didn't work properly either.

And I've had it SIGSEGV about twice already.

Don't get me wrong, I like the program. It just doesn't feel finished to me. It's quicker than Netscape. It's probably more stable than Netscape, on Linux at least. But it's not as stable as IE5 on my NT box at work, and that's what we should be aiming for.

I guess I'll have to wait until 2.1.

by Geir Kielland (not verified)

Congratulations to the brilliant KDE-team for delivering a magnificent and beautiful desktop. I use it and I love it!!

Thanks guys!

Geir K

by John Davis (not verified)

Will it work with Xfree 4.0..?

I would like to install it on my laptop that has XFree 4.0 on it already. I've heard there are problems.. Is that true?

Regards,
John

by Richard Kunze (not verified)

I haven't installed the final yet, but RC2 runs just fine on XFree86 4.01

Bye,
Richard

by Anonymous (not verified)

First I though: "Finally, KDE 2 is stable."
So I downloaded all those KDE RPMs.
But then I realize there are tons of dependancies.
Even Gnome doesn't have that much!

A few hours later, KDE is finally installed (with some --force and --nodeps).
First I tried to run Konqueror from Gnome 1.2.
I see Konqueror's main window, but then it gave an error message about wrong directory and crashes.
I tried it again, but this time it instantly crashes without showing the main window at all!

So I tried some apps from kdeutils.
They are definitely better than KDE 1's kdeutils, but not great.
kdeaddutils is probably the worst software package available!
KPaint is still unfinished.

Then I tried KWord.
It doesn't work: it crashes instantly.
Same story for the rest of KOffice.

Thank you for so many apps but I will stick to Gnome with some KDE apps around.

I just don't see why the press release is saying so many things that are too good to be true.
It looks like a merge of M$-style advertisements and spam.

No, this is not flame.

by gis (not verified)

A few hours later, KDE is finally installed (with some --force and --nodeps).
This clearly indicates some installation problems, you should never use --force and --nodeps unless you really know that you have the right stuff installed manually (without RPM noticing), also respecting the used compiler.

KPaint is still unfinished.

KPaint isn't even released as part of KDE2!
Then I tried KWord.
It doesn't work: it crashes instantly.
Same story for the rest of KOffice.

Well, you should really try to install KDE2 properly. No apps are supposed to crash and for sure not right on startup.

by Anonymous (not verified)

KPaint *is* part of KDE 2 (part of kdeaddutils).
Unless if kdeaddutils isn't part of KDE 2.

> Well, you should really try to install KDE2 properly.
> No apps are supposed to crash and for sure not right on startup.

Everything is in the right place.
QT 2.2.1, kdelibs, kdelibs-sound, kdebase, koffice, etc.
Everything just crash.
Or is it because I run it from Gnome? (very unlikely)

by ac (not verified)

kdeaddutils isn't part of KDE 2, so there.

by Anonymous (not verified)

HTML test. Please ignore.

quote
line1

line3
><

by Paul Leopardi (not verified)

You didn't say which distribution you are using.
Is it Red Hat? SuSE?

What exactly was your starting point? Which version of which distribution? Which KDE and QT packages did you already have installed?

Which RPMs did you install? What was the URL? Did you install everything from all relevant subdirectories (eg. qt2, libs, localized, kde2 for SuSE RPMs) ?

How did you install the packages? Did you deinstall anything before you started?

Are you running kdm?

I have written some very detailed instructions for installing SuSE 6.4 and SuSE 7.0 RPMs for KDE 2.0 and would be willing to share them with you if you want to test them.

by Adi Wibowo (not verified)

Hi, I download tar source from http://ftp.sourceforge.net/pub/mirrors/kde/stable/2.0/distribution/tar/g... today (25/10) and build it. It work well.

But when I open KDE Control Center, the front page tell me that KDE Version is 2.0pre. Is it true? Did I download the wrong version?

And several times, when i close some programs (kcontrol, kfmclient) they raise box that told me about SIGSEVS or anything like that (sorry =)) randomly.

I also change my background, but suddenly everything was gone (panel, icon) just plain white background. I exit from xserver using ctrl-alt-Bkspace and restart it (startx), it still white background and no box telling me that initialization is in progress as usually.

How could all of this happened?

by Okeo (not verified)

The "2.0pre" string is just something they forgot to change for the release. I noticed the same thing yesterday, and I was relieved to find that this is indeed the case.

I have the same problems with kcontrol on exit...

Weird, isn't it?

Okeo

by Jerome Kalifa (not verified)

I don't know if you guys are running a time to market race or something, or if you were simply tired of waiting, yet KDE 2.0 "stable" is amazingly unstable (Gnome 1.0 style, if you see what I mean...), and would have been much less unstable if bugfixing development and beta testing had been going on for at least one more month. Oh, I know, you may answer: "at some point you got to release", but it was just too early.

I'm personally very disappointed.

by James Alan Brow... (not verified)

I aggree fully with your comments

Read my comments October 29 and maybe others can add to it!

Regards,
James

by Zank Frappa (not verified)

I have built KDE 2 from sources and I find it very stable. You people comparing it to Gnome 1.0 must be insane, they shouldn't be mentioned on the same day.

A tip for newbies:
To see what's going on when you run
KDE you can do this:

1. shut down any xdm/kdm/gdm
2. from a terminal run "xinit" (rename any .xinitrc or .xserverrc files in your homedir)
3. You should now have started X with just an xterm window
4. type "startkde"
5. KDE should start up and you can see all messages in the xterm

by Jerome Kalifa (not verified)

I'm not a newbie, it ain't Gnome FUD (Emacs is my desktop anyway), and here we observe the unstability on several different linux distros, including RH, MdK, Slack and Debian, with both packaged binaries or recompiled versions (on Slack), and the conclusion is unanymous: interesting, but _not usable yet_. Period. This is true at least for the desktop, konqueror, and the graphics tools.

Now, sorry if you think it's just an anti-KDE worldwide conspiracy.

by jd (not verified)

I don't understand how you can claim "unanimous" with so many people saying it's great. Your "GNOME 1.0" remark really borders on flame-bait in my book. The KDE2 pre-alpha builds from back in March were better than my impression of GNOME 1.0.

I'm compiling from source on Mandrake 7.1 and, so far (only gotten the base KDE built so far), I'm stunned! The improvement over beta-5 is simply amazing (and I thought beta-5 was pretty good).

Personally, I feel the KDE team has delivered far more than I ever expected and I am *really* pleased with the results. Now, with so many more people using and testing KDE, I wouldn't be surprised if the remaining problems are fixed very soon. (If you don't remember KDE 1.0, it was good but KDE 1.1.2 was a lot better.)

by Richard (not verified)

Hi guys and gals,

I think I am making the right decision to wait untill Mandrake 7.2 is released.

I wonder if the KDE teams were testing this
"stable" release for bugs and such on which
kernel version?? For them to have worked as
hard as they did, and even delayed it and all,
that they would throw up their hands and say
"whatever, give it to them anyway". I want to
believe that it was/is as stable and polished
as it can be and possibly the 2.2.17 kernel and updated libraries will give KDE 2.0 that stablized edge that everyone was expecting. I hope I am right, though I have been downloading the KDE 2.0 off and on all day, maybe I will abort and see what the KDE 1.99 (?) is like with the enhancements for the Mandrake 7.2 release for the retail stores.

If it is buggy, I'm sure the team will have a patch real soon for us all. I have faith.

Richard : )~

by Configure (not verified)

Where's Slackware package? (.tgz)

by Fernando Sancho (not verified)

I have installed the rpm packages for RH7 and qt2.2.1 rpm packages. When i login from gdm the Xserver restarts and return to login screen. The extrange thing is thtat all KDE applications works fine if they're called from Gnome or other WM. I have 2.2.16 kernel, XFree4.0.1 with TNT2 drivers v0.9.5

by Janne (not verified)

Exacly the same problem I have! Make sure that you have all the necessary files. I don't have libmng.so.0 (just downloaded it), and that might be causing problems for me. I know more tomorrow that does it work or not. Beta-KDE2 on my computer works though.

by Fernando Sancho (not verified)

Nop, i have installed libmng. i had not any dependencies problem installing the rpm packages.

by Janne (not verified)

Have you tried compiling qtlib with no-opengl setting? Someone mentioned that here, so I can't take credit for it.

by Fernando Sancho (not verified)

I'll try it. it seems to be my last resort ;-)

by Nandagopal Kiru... (not verified)

Make sure that gdm is launching the right script
for kde2. In my fresh installation of RH7, it
was trying to launch exec "/usr/bin/startkde2"
which of course doesn't work

check the file
/usr/share/apps/switchdesk/Xclients.kde2

and make sure that it says something like

#!/bin/sh
# Created by Red Hat Desktop Switcher
export PATH=$PATH
export KDEDIR=/usr/lib
exec /usr/bin/startkde

Hope that this helps

by Fernando Sancho (not verified)

ok, i have changed switcdesk's XClient file, and now it seems to work, but I only get the initial KDE's splashscreen. The system doesn't hangs but KDE doesn't starts, i have to press Crtl-Alt-BackSpace to restart X. I cant understand it.

by Marcie (not verified)

You may have a problem with qt-2.2.1. If you build it by hand with the gcc provided with RH7, it will not work. See Troll Tech's boards for comments.

by Fernando Sancho (not verified)

Ok, i have installed all packages from RPM, qt, libmbg and KDE, i have modified switchpanel scripts, and KDE still doesn't work. I only get the KDE's splashscreen. Looking in a console with ps command i can see variuos kdeinit process, one of them is "kdeinit: Starting up..." but KDE never starts up. My system doesn't hangs. If I start another WM i can run KDE applications, except kfm and KDE help pages.

by eXtremist (not verified)

Dude..Don't feel so bad.. I couldn't get KDE to work either. Exact same problem you have (I'm running RH7 too).

There should be better documentation on the KDE webpage, if you ask me.
Now, not only can I not use KDE 2, but I can't use the older version of KDE (yeah, the RPMs broke that too).

Guess I'll be a GNOME user from here on in.. :) Good old friendly GNOME.. GNOME hasn't broken my system. To hell with KDE!!