DATELINE FEBRUARY 13, 2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Third Generation KDE Desktop in Second Round Beta Stage

The KDE Project Ships Second Beta of the Leading Desktop for Linux/UNIX

February 13, 2002 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KDE 3.0beta2, the third pre-release of the third generation of KDE's free, powerful, easy-to-use, Internet-enabled desktop for Linux and other UNIXes. This KDE 3.0 beta ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, and over 100 applications from the other base KDE packages (administration, games, multimedia, network, PIM, utilities, artwork, addons, development, edutainment, bindings, etc.). KDE 3.0 is scheduled for final release early in the second quarter 2002, with one or more intervening "RC" releases preceding the final release.

"Beta2 has come a long way since beta1", explained Dirk Mueller, the KDE 3 release coordinator. "At this juncture a lot of user testing would be very beneficial, as a large group of KDE developers are meeting for a week at the end of February in Nürnberg, Germany to ready the KDE 3.0 final release. In addition, this release provides one of the last great opportunities for developers to port KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 prior to the final release.
We're especially interested in feedback about the support for right-to-left languages and about the new KDE 3 features. For developers, now is a great time to complete porting your applications to KDE 3, or to pitch in and help implement the still-incomplete planned features."

The primary goals of the 3.0beta2 release are to:

Additional information about KDE 3, including instructions for setting up a KDE 3 system side-by-side with a KDE 2 system, tentative KDE 3.0 release plan, a KDE 3 info page, a list of planned features, as well as a list of open tasks containing interesting projects for both users and developers who wish to contribute to KDE, is available at the KDE websites. Please use the KDE bugs database to report bugs or make feature requests.

KDE and all its components (including the IDE KDevelop) are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE ftp server and its mirrors.

Improvements

"One of the major improvements brought by KDE 3.0 over KDE 2.2 is the Javascript/DHTML support in Konqueror," stated David Faure, a Konqueror and KOffice developer. "The DOM 2 model, used to render an HTML page, is now mostly implemented, and changes to the DOM tree are handled much better. The Javascript bindings and support is almost complete, faster and more stable than in KDE 2. These changes result in a much-improved rendering of dynamic websites and is something users will immediately appreciate."

Besides the improvements to the underlying Qt library noted in the KDE 3.0alpha1 announcement and the improvements to KDE noted in the KDE 3.0beta1 announcement, this release offers the following additional improvements compared to the KDE 2 series:

Few additional feature enhancements to the KDE libraries and applications are planned prior to the first stable KDE 3.0.

Porting to KDE 3

Since KDE 3 is mostly source compatible with KDE 2, porting applications from KDE 2 to KDE 3 can usually be done with relative ease and comfort. The process is substantially easier than the one for porting KDE 1 applications to KDE 2; even very complicated applications have been ported in a matter of hours.

Instructions for porting KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 are available separately for the KDE libraries and the Qt libraries. Most of the changes required for the port applications pertain to changes in the Qt API. Although the KDE 3 API is not yet frozen, a few changes are still anticipated for the final release of KDE 3.0.

Installing KDE 3.0beta2 Binary Packages

Binary Packages. Some Linux distributors and some Unix distributors have provided binary packages of KDE 3.0beta2 for recent versions of their distribution. Some of these binary packages are available for free download under http://download.kde.org/unstable/kde-3.0-beta2/ or under the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors, and additional binary packages, as well as updates to the packages now available, may become available over the coming weeks.

Please note that the KDE team makes these packages available from the KDE web site as a convenience to KDE users. The KDE project is not responsible for these packages as they are provided by third parties -- typically, but not always, the distributor of the relevant distribution. If you cannot find a binary package for your distribution, please check again later or read the KDE Binary Package Policy.

Library Requirements. The library requirements for a particular binary package vary with the system on which the package was compiled. Please bear in mind that some binary packages may require a newer version of Qt and other libraries than was included with the applicable distribution (e.g., LinuxDistro 8.0 may have shipped with Qt-3.0beta6 but the packages below may require Qt-3.0.1). For general library requirements for KDE, please see the text at Source Code - Library Requirements below.

Package Locations. At the time of this release, pre-compiled packages are available for:

All of the above packages can also be obtained from the /pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-beta2/ directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors. Please check the servers periodically for pre-compiled packages for other distributions. More binary packages will likely become available over the coming days and weeks.

Downloading and Compiling KDE 3.0beta2

Library Requirements. KDE 3.0beta2 requires the following libraries:

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KDE 3.0beta2 might not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. To be on the safe side, gcc-2.95 is required as minimum. In addition, some components of KDE 3.0beta2 (such as the multimedia backbone of KDE, aRts) will be miscompiled by gcc 3.0.x (this problem is being addressed, but no time frame is available for the fix. We heard rumors that it works with the GCC 3.1 branch but can not confirm this yet. We discourage the use of a gcc CVS snapshot for compiling KDE.).

Source Code/SRPMs. The complete source code for KDE 3.0beta2 is available for download (KDevelop):

The internationalisation packages (you only need either the complete kde-i18n package or the subpackage for your language):

KDevelop:

Additionally, source rpms are available for the following distributions:

All of the above packages can also be obtained from the /pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-beta2/ directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors.

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.0beta2, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter problems, the compilation FAQ.

About KDE

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide working over the Internet to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, an office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools, and an efficient and intuitive development environment, including an excellent IDE (KDevelop). 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.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the KDE FAQ, screenshots (KDE 2, KDE 3), KOffice information and developer information. Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's family of web sites.

Corporate KDE Sponsors

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the KDE developers themselves, significant support for KDE development has been provided by MandrakeSoft and SuSE. In addition, the members of the KDE League provide significant support for promoting KDE. Thanks!

Trademarks Notices. KDE, K Desktop Environment, KDevelop and KOffice are trademarks of KDE e.V. Compaq, Alpha, iPAQ and Tru64 are either trademarks and/or service marks or registered trademarks and/or service marks of Compaq Computer Corporation. HP is a registered trademark of Hewlett-Packard Company. IBM and PowerPC are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation. Intel, i386 and i586 are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Netscape Communicator is a trademark or registered trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation in the United States and other countries. Java and Sun are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Trolltech and Qt are trademarks of Trolltech AS. UNIX and Motif are registered trademarks of The Open Group. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.
Press Contacts:
United States: Eunice Kim
The Terpin Group
ekim@terpin.com
(1) 650 344 4944 ext. 105
 
Andreas Pour
KDE League, Inc.
pour@kde.org
(1) 917 312 3122
Europe (French and English): David Faure
faure@kde.org
(33) 4 3250 1445
Europe (German and English): Ralf Nolden
nolden@kde.org
(49) 2421 502758