KDE.news 

CRN today published an article destined to give KDE/Linux naysayers food for thought regarding the viability of KDE as enterprise desktop software. In this well-researched article by Frank J. Ohlhorst, the CRN Test Center built a Linux network consisting of a server and five workstations, with the goal of creating a reliable network that could be used in a typical small-business environment. The Test Center's insightful conclusion: "Linux and associated Linux applications can accomplish many of the same tasks as the Wintel standard at a much lower initial cost, in this case, for 93 percent less than the software cost of a similar Windows-based network, and without many of the licensing hassles presented by traditional software platforms".
As to choosing between the two major Linux desktop environments, the article reports that "Test Center engineers found KDE the friendliest and were impressed with the array of KDE-compatible software . . . KDE is the most actively developed Linux desktop and has the most tools. Solution providers seeking KDE desktop open-source development tools should go to www.apps.kde.com, which has ratings on each product, including feedback from the user community". Good to see such a well-researched article, and more importantly that the non-Linux media is starting to realize the capabilities of our very own KDE <grin>.

KDevelop's programmer extraordinaire Ralf Nolden has added cross-compilation support to KDevelop. As his initial motivation was to support development for the Zaurus (as we reported earlier this month, Trolltech and Sharp have collaborated on this Linux palmtop), KDevelop can now be used for developing applications for ARM processors (both the Zaurus and Compaq's iPaq are based on the StrongARM). Screenshots of the new KDevelop features are available here, and information about using this new feature to prevail in TrollTech's and Sharp's developers' contest for the Zaurus, as well as the KDevelop announcement, are below.

For this week's edition of "People of KDE", Tink interviews Rob Kaper, author of Atlantik, all-round KDE evangelist and one of the few KDE developers marked "up for adoption" (and he kindly includes his dishes in the for-adoption kit :-). Say hi to Rob.

This week, Aaron J. Seigo, Juergen Appel and Rob Kaper present the jam-packed Kernel Cousin KDE #26. Read about how Linux father, Linus Torvalds, is also a model KDE user and bug reporter, LISa the new Lan Browsing Wizard, Kinkatta plugins, the Boson real-time strategy game, a KDE Script Interface, news of a kdeedu module, the KDE3 beta1 week delay, and much more. Thanks, guys!

David Sweet wrote in to tell us that the updated, German version of the excellent (and free) KDE 2 development book, KDE 2.0 Development, is now available online at Andamooka. David extends his thanks to Petra Alm and Dirk Louis (translation), Karl Heinz Zimmer and Carsten Pfeiffer (tech editing) and Boris Karnikowski (Andamooka version). For those of you who missed it, a dead tree version of the book can also be purchased (Amazon.de, Markt+Technik). This might be an opportune time to point out that the KDE website features a nice listing of available KDE books.

Let the drums roll, there is reason to rejoice. Tink is back with her insightful interviews with the People of KDE. Tink has updated the set of questions, and notes that she has prepared an impressive list of future interviews. The launch of the new interview season features Kalle (yes, the one and only Matthias "Kalle" Dalheimer). Thanks to Tink for her great work. We hope you enjoy the new series.

Guillaume Laurent was the first of many to point out that the KDE on Cygwin project has successfully ported KDE 2.2.1 to Cygwin. What this basically means is that you can now have a recent KDE running under Windows with the help of Cygwin and Cygwin/XFree86. The full announcement is here. This is an early port in pre-alpha form so there are still problems, but a large part of the issue has been tackled. Many congratulations and kudos to the hackers involved. Now who's going to use this? Will there be a native windows port? Check out the faq for the answers to the most common questions.

The KDE Project has announced the release of KDE 2.2.2, a service and security release. A fairly complete list of changes from KDE 2.2.1, released two months ago, is available here. If you are using KDE in a multi-user environment, you are strongly encouraged to upgrade for the security enhancements incorporated into the release. If not, you are still encouraged to enjoy the many improvements. This may well be the last release of the KDE 2 series, given that the first stable KDE 3 release is scheduled in about 3 months. Happy Thanksgiving!

Daniel Naber wrote in some time ago to inform us of a new XML plugin for Kate. "The plugin gives hints about what's allowed at a certain position in an XML file, according to the file's DTD. It will list possible elements, attributes, attribute values or entities, depending on the cursor position. You can also close an open element with a keyboard shortcut. DocBook is also supported, so hopefully people will use Kate + XML plugin to write KDE documentation." This should be useful to the tons of us working with structured data in XML. I gave KXMLEditor a whirl the other day but although it looks nice, it basically ignored my DTD. I hear Richard Moore also has XMElegance in the making. Yup.

The latest KC KDE, number 25, is out. Aaron J. Seigo sums up some exciting news about KMail integration with the German-government-funded Aegypten security project, a revamp of the KConfig network, a discussion about registering KDE mime types with the IANA, and a lot more regarding the dawning KDE 3 beta release. Get it while it's hot.