KDE.news 

If you haven't heard yet, you've probably been under a rock since Thursday, but openSUSE 11.2 was released with KDE 4.3.1 as the default desktop.

openSUSE 11.2 KDE on a Intel 945GM netbook

As well as all the features KDE 4.3 brings, the openSUSE team and community have worked hard to improve integration with frequently-used non-KDE apps such as Mozilla Firefox and OpenOffice.

The deadline for requesting to give a presentation/talk at Camp KDE 2010 has been set for 0:00 on December 5th.

As indicated in the open registration announcement, if you wish to give a presentation, please indicate this preference when registering for the event. The organizers will look at the topics and handle any duplicates, and then ask for more detailed abstracts.

One of the few utility programs that are used every day on mobile devices is a wireless networking tool, but somehow this is one of the last applications to appear for KDE 4. With the autumn 2009 crop of Linux distributions, a usable client for the widely used NetworkManager system finally makes its debut.

Matthias Ettrich with his shiny new medal.

Today at 4pm CET at the Center for Economics, Technology and Women’s Issues at the Berlin Senate, KDE founder Matthias Ettrich was decorated with the German Federal Cross of Merit for his contributions to Free Software. Matthias was awarded the medal in recognition of his work spurring innovation and spreading knowledge for the common good. The award was presented by state secretary Almuth Nehring-Venus. She mentioned that not only is Matthias among the younger recipients of the award but also that this is the first award ceremony where young children of the family were present. Also attending was Eberhard Gienger, member of the Bundestag for the county Matthias grew up in.

The second Akonadi sprint this year took place in Berlin, Germany on October 16-18. With a confrontation between the local punks and the law simmering on the streets below, the KDE PIM team and others worked to port applications, add polish to the libraries, and complete PIM software that will raise sparks on the desktop without burning out your CPU.

The Amarok team is aiming to raise $10,000 for the coming year and asking users to help the project by making tax-deductible donations during our Rokvember fund raiser.

Kshitij Sobti has written a nice article over at ThinkDigit.com about installing KDE 4 applications on Windows. He takes a look at the installation process and reviews some key applications such as Dolphin and Okular, praising Dolphin's "simple yet rich interface" and suggesting that "Okular can serve as a good replacement for Acrobat Reader". Kopete, Akregator and Kate are also featured. Read the full article.

KDevelop 4 in action

You can find the source packages on the KDE mirrors and there are instructions for compiling. You can also check out a comparison of the KDE 3 and KDE 4 versions of KDevelop.

Like the ticking of a Swiss watch, every month the KDE team brings you a new release. November's edition of KDE is a bugfix and translation update to KDE 4.3. With the KDE 4 series picking up in popularity, we're happy to encourage even more people to give KDE 4 another spin -- or just upgrade your existing KDE to KDE 4.3.3. As the release only contains bugfixes and translation updates, it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone. Users around the world will appreciate that KDE 4.3.3 is more completely translated. KDE 4.4 is already translated into more than 50 languages, with more to come.

Over at openSUSE News, the new KDE features in openSUSE 11.2 come under the spotlight before its release in a few days. KWin stalwart and openSUSE hacker Luboš Luňák bares his soul. See how KDE is presented as the default desktop on openSUSE, and find out how the openSUSE team made Firefox fit in on a KDE desktop.