KDE.news 

Rob Kaper has graciously fulfilled the oft-heard request for screenshots of the upcoming KDE 3.0 release. Take a trip to KDE.org and have a look at the screenshots featuring (1) the cool dotNet style (my personal favorite after Liquid) (large SS), (2) KOnCD, now a part of the KDE base distribution (large SS), (3) a desktop shot with the really cool iKons icon set (large SS), and (4) the Media Peach color theme and Quartz window decorations (large SS). This might be a good time to remind everyone: for more information on the amazing themes and icons available for KDE, check out KDE-Look.org, the Themes section at APPS.KDE.com, and the newly redesigned KDE section at Themes.org (while a spiffy design, this new site is still <cough>somewhat bare bones</cough>, visit the "classic" pages for some actual content). P.S. Themes.org is running a "favorite desktop" poll on their frontpage, let your voice be heard!

The Annual (ex-Atlanta) Linux Showcase and XFree86 Conference took place last Thursday through Saturday in Oakland, California. Representing KDE at the event were Ralf Nolden, Ellis Whitehead, Roland Krause, Paul Campbell, and Charles Samuels. Ralf and Charles, who took photos, have made them available in a picture gallery (made especially interesting by Charles' colorful commentary). Ralf provided a well-attended presentation on KDevelop, and Ellis provided one on KDE's "hidden features". Charles had a CVS edition of KDE 3 running on KDE 2.2 using Xnest. A large number of the attendees visited the KDE booth, and, according to Charles, the most common questions were "What's new in KDE3" (which, as we have reported, mainly has to do with the new features of Qt 3), and when the initial stable KDE 3 release is planned (February 2002). Charles further reports, "An Afterstep developer approached and asked about implementing a DCOP interface to his project. We wowed a few visitors with Noatun and Arts Builder. Several company representatives also expressed interest in moving their office to KDE (and appeared to be sold on the prospect when they left)." Way to go, guys, thanks for representing KDE at the ALS!

The KDE Project today received three Editors' Choice Awards in this year's round of the Linux Journal Editor's Choice awards. The KDE Web Browser Konqueror received the award for the best web client thanks to its high quality and for its very good integration into the desktop. KDevelop was awarded the prize for the best development tool, with its flexibility and broad adoption by the industry being mentioned as the primary reasons. KDE was selected as the best desktop environment for its "improved architecture" and the "very active development". Whole hearted congratulations to the dedicated KDE developers. And many thanks to the editorial team of the Linux Journal, for their annually refreshed vote of confidence.

Issue #24 of KC KDE is available. Summaries include coverage of KDE language bindings, Synchronous KIO, ALSA and aRts, KPilot, CSS Media support, the new DCOP tools and more.

Trolltech and Sharp have announced a really spiffy-looking Linux palmtop, named "Zaurus". The device itself features a sliding (retractable) keyboard, a color display, a CF expansion slot (for memory or peripherals), an SD expansion slot (for secure memory storage or other peripherals), an IR port, a USB connector and a headset port. On the software side, the Zaurus uses Lineo's Embedix Linux; Trolltech's Qt/Embedded, Qt/Palmtop and Qt AWT GUI technologies; Insignia Solution's Jeode PDA Edition; and Opera Software's embedded web browser. Sharp is accepting pre-orders from the developer community for the SL-5000D developer unit (register here). With the continuing additions to kdenox, this might just be a great platform for KOffice/embedded.

Harri Porten is one of the most active KDE developers (working, amongst other things, on the Javascript part in Konqueror) and is also a Trolltech employee. In this interview, Harri talks to OSNews covering topics such as Qt 3, licensing, KDE, and more. "Vector graphics support is already present in Qt 3.0. The QPicture class is able to read and write static SVG files. Plug those pictures into QIconView and be done."

PC World New Zealand compares WinXP, MacOS X, and Linux/KDE2 and concludes that Linux/KDE2 offers the best usability, tieing XP in features/support. XP does win overall, but we should be proud that our little free operating system/environment built out of passion and dedication has come so far in so short a time.

Aaron J. Seigo wrote in to point out that a new issue of the worthy Kernel Cousin KDE is out. This week, read updates on multimedia in KDE3, future plans for Noatun, the elusive PyKDE2, a brand new JavaScript engine, and more. Hopefully, we'll also get some details on the new DCOP drooliness (more, more, more) soon. :-)

In the latest news batch, Per Wigren wrote in to inform us that the worthy KonCD has been added to KDE CVS. I've used this CD burner front-end successfully in the distant past, and it has evidently progressed in leaps and bounds since then -- screenies ici. On the less fun side of things, we have had news of legal wranglings between Future Technologies (site no longer accessible -- this is the FTKDE company) and KDE developer Mosfet who wrote the popular Liquid style, also named FTLiquid at some point. See Mosfet.org, Slashdot and LinuxToday to get some of the story. On a happier note, Benjamin Meyer gleefully points out that Kinkatta 1.00 is out. He has worked hard to provide a fully functional and stable (not to mention purty) AOL(TM) chat client. Finally, for those of you having trouble with concurrent KDE installations, Pupeno has nicely written up his experiences on installing another KDE (such as KDE CVS) alongside a stable KDE installation. He uses Mandrake 8.1, but the experience should be useful to anyone having trouble with the regular instructions.

I have just added our second interview with a business to KDE::Enterprise. This time the focus is on Internet security company SecureONE, who tell us just why they have chosen to use KDE on their Red Hat workstations. "Our understanding of KDE's backend technologies helps us appreciate the framework and end-user interface even more. The ability to drag and drop between pretty much all applications, common dialogs, etc.... makes it a more usable desktop for our users. "