DATELINE MARCH 27, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New KDE Release for Linux Desktop Ready for Enterprise

KDE Ships Leading Desktop with Advanced Web Browser, Anti-Aliased Font Capabilities for Linux and Other UNIXes

March 27, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the release of KDE 2.1.1, a powerful and easy-to-use Internet-enabled desktop for Linux. KDE features Konqueror, a state-of-the-art web browser, as an integrated component of its user-friendly desktop environment, as well as KDevelop, an advanced IDE, as a central component of KDE's powerful development environment. KDE 2.1 is the first stable Linux desktop completely to integrate the new XFree anti-aliased font extensions and can provide a fully anti-aliased font-enabled desktop.

This release follows four weeks after the release of the industry-acclaimed KDE 2.1, which marked a leap forward in Linux desktop stability, usability and maturity. KDE 2.1.1 is suitable for enterprise deployment and the KDE Project strongly encourages all users of the award-winning KDE 1.x series and of the KDE 2.0 series to upgrade to KDE 2.1.1.

The primary goals of the 2.1.1 release are to improve documentation and provide additional language translations for the user interface, although the release includes a few bugfixes, and improvements to the HTML rendering engine. A list of these changes and a FAQ about the release are available at the KDE website. Code development is currently focused on the branch that will lead to KDE 2.2, scheduled for its first beta release in two weeks.

KDE and all its components are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE server and its mirrors and can also be obtained on CD-ROM. As a result of the dedicated efforts of hundreds of translators, KDE 2.1.1 is available in 34 languages and dialects, including the addition of Lithuanian in this release. KDE 2.1.1 ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment (including Konqueror), developer packages (including KDevelop), as well as the over 100 applications from the other standard base KDE packages (administration, games, graphics, multimedia, network, PIM and utilities).

For more information about the KDE 2.1 series, please see the KDE 2.1 press release and the KDE 2.1.1 Info Page, which is an evolving FAQ about the release. Information on using anti-aliased fonts with KDE is available here.

Downloading and Compiling KDE

The source packages for KDE 2.1.1 are available for free download at http://ftp.kde.org/stable/2.1.1/distribution/tar/generic/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors (diffs are also available). KDE 2.1.1 requires qt-2.2.3, which is available from Trolltech at ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qt/source/ under the name qt-x11-2.2.3.tar.gz, although qt-2.2.4 or qt-2.3.0 is recommended (for anti-aliased fonts, qt-2.3.0 and XFree 4.0.3 or newer is required). KDE 2.1.1 will not work with versions of Qt older than 2.2.3.

For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE, 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 KDE 2.1.1 will be available for free download under http://ftp.kde.org/stable/2.1.1/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.

KDE 2.1.1 requires qt-2.2.3, the free version of which is available from the above locations usually under the name qt-x11-2.2.3, although qt-2.2.4 or qt-2.3.0 is recommended (for anti-aliased fonts, qt-2.3.0 and XFree 4.0.3 or newer is required). KDE 2.1.1 will not work with versions of Qt older than 2.2.3.

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. In particular RedHat packages are expected soon.

About KDE

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing 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. More information about KDE 2 is available in two (1, 2) slideshow presentations and on KDE's web site, including an evolving FAQ to answer questions about migrating to KDE 2.1 from KDE 1.x, anti-aliased font tutorials, a number of screenshots, developer information and a developer's KDE 1 - KDE 2 porting guide.


Trademarks Notices. KDE and K Desktop Environment are trademarks of KDE e.V. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Unix is a registered trademark of The Open Group. Trolltech and Qt are trademarks of Trolltech AS. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.


Press Contacts:
United States: Kurt Granroth
granroth@kde.org
(1) 480 732 1752
 
Andreas Pour
pour@kde.org
(1) 917 312 3122
Europe (French and English): David Faure
faure@kde.org
(44) 1225 837409
Europe (English and German): Martin Konold
konold@kde.org
(49) 179 2252249