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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New KDE Desktop Ready for the Enterprise
KDE Ships Leading Desktop with Advanced Web Browser for
Linux and Other UNIXes
February 26, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today
announced the release of KDE 2.1, 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. This release marks a leap forward in Linux
desktop stability, usability and maturity and is suitable
for enterprise deployment. The KDE Project strongly
encourages all users to upgrade to KDE 2.1.
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. KDE 2.1 is available in
33 languages and 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).
"This second major release of the KDE 2 series is a real
improvement in terms of stability, performance and
features," said David Faure, release manager for KDE 2.1
and KDE Representative at Mandrakesoft. "KDE 2 has now
matured into a solid, intuitive and complete desktop for
daily use. Konqueror is a full-featured and robust web
browser and important applications like the mail client
(KMail) have greatly improved. The multimedia architecture
has made great strides and this release inaugurates the new
media player noatun, which has a modular, plugin design for
playing the latest audio and video formats. For
development, KDE 2.1 for the first time is bundled with
KDevelop, an outstanding IDE/RAD which will be comfortably
familiar to developers with Windows development
backgrounds. In short, KDE 2.1 is a state-of-the-art
desktop and development environment, and positions
Linux/Unix to make significant inroads in the home and
enterprise."
"KDE 2.1 opens the door to widespread adoption of the Linux
desktop and will help provide the success on the desktop
that Linux already enjoys in the server space," added Dirk
Hohndel, CTO of Suse AG. "With its intuitive interface,
code maturity and excellent development tools and
environment, I am confident that enterprises and third
party developers will realize the enormous potential KDE
offers and will migrate their workstations and applications
to Linux/KDE."
"KDE boasts an outstanding graphical design and robust
functionality," said Sheila Harnett, Senior Technical Staff
Member for IBM's Linux Technology Center. "KDE 2.1
significantly raises the bar for Linux desktop
functionality, usability and quality in virtually every
aspect of the desktop."
KDE 2: The K Desktop Environment. Konqueror is KDE 2's
next-generation web browser, file manager and document
viewer. The standards-compliant Konqueror has a
component-based architecture which combines the features
and functionality of Internet Explorer/Netscape
Communicator and Windows Explorer. Konqueror supports the
full gamut of current Internet technologies, including
JavaScript, Java, XML, HTML 4.0, CSS-1 and -2 (Cascading
Style Sheets), SSL (Secure Socket Layer for secure
communications) and Netscape Communicator plug-ins (for
Flash, RealAudio, RealVideo and similar technologies).
In addition, KDE offers seamless network transparency for
accessing or browsing files on Linux, NFS shares, MS
Windows SMB shares, HTTP pages, FTP directories, LDAP
directories and audio CDs. The modular, plug-in nature of
KDE's file architecture makes it simple to add additional
protocols (such as IPX, WebDAV or digital cameras) to KDE,
which would then automatically be available to all KDE
applications.
KDE's configurability and customizability touches every
aspect of the desktop. KDE offers a unique cascading
customization feature where customization settings are
inherited through different layers, from global to
per-user, permitting enterprise-wide and group-based
configurations. KDE's sophisticated theme support starts
with Qt's style engine, which permits developers and
artists to create their own widget designs. KDE 2.1 ships
with over 14 of these styles, some of which emulate the
look of various operating systems. Additionally KDE
includes a new theme manager and does an excellent job of
importing themes from GTK and GNOME. Moreover, KDE 2 fully
supports Unicode and KHTML is the only free HTML rendering
engine on Linux/X11 that features nascent support for BiDi
scripts such as Arabic and Hebrew.
KDE 2 features an advanced, network-transparent multimedia
architecture based on aRts, the Analog Realtime
Synthesizer. ARts is a full-featured sound system which
includes a number of effects and filters, a modular analog
synthesizer and a mixer. The aRts sound server provides
network transparent sound support for both input and output
using MCOP, a CORBA-like network design, enabling
applications running on remote computers to output sound
and receive input from the local workstation. This
architecture provides a much-needed complement to the
network transparency provided by X and for the first time
permits users to run their applications remotely with sound
enabled. Moreover, aRts enables multiple applications
(local or remote) to output sound and/or video
concurrently. Video support is available for MPEG versions
1, 2 and 4 (experimental), as well as the AVI and DivX
formats. Using the aRts component technology, it is very
easy to develop multimedia applications.
Besides the exceptional compliance with Internet and
file-sharing standards mentioned above, KDE 2 is a leader
in compliance with the available Linux desktop standards.
KWin, KDE's new re-engineered window manager, complies to
the new Window Manager Specification. Konqueror and KDE
comply with the Desktop Entry Standard. Konqueror uses the
XBEL standard for its bookmarks. KDE 2 largely complies
with the X Drag-and-Drop (XDND) protocol as well as with
the X11R6 session management protocol (XSMP).
KDE 2: The K Development Environment. KDE 2.1 offers
developers a sophisticated IDE as well as a rich set of
major technological improvements over the critically
acclaimed KDE 1 series. Chief among the technologies are
the Desktop COmmunication Protocol (DCOP), the I/O
libraries (KIO), the component object model (KParts), an
XML-based GUI class, and a standards-compliant HTML
rendering engine (KHTML).
KDevelop is a leading Linux IDE with numerous features for
rapid application development, including a GUI dialog
builder, integrated debugging, project management,
documentation and translation facilities, built-in
concurrent development support, and much more.
KParts, KDE 2's proven component object model, handles all
aspects of application embedding, such as positioning
toolbars and insertingthe proper menus when the embedded
component is activated or deactivated. KParts can also
interface with the KIO trader to locate available handlers
for specific mimetypes or services/protocols. This
technology is used extensively by the KOffice suite and
Konqueror.
KIO implements application I/O in a separate process to
enable a non-blocking GUI without the use of threads. The
class is network and protocol transparent and hence can be
used seamlessly to access HTTP, FTP, POP, IMAP, NFS, SMB,
LDAP and local files. Moreover, its modular and extensible
design permits developers to "drop in" additional
protocols, such as WebDAV, which will then automatically be
available to all KDE applications. KIO also implements a
trader which can locate handlers for specified mimetypes;
these handlers can then be embedded within the requesting
application using the KParts technology.
The XML GUI employs XML to create and position menus,
toolbars and possibly other aspects of the GUI. This
technology offers developers and users the advantage of
simplified configurability of these user interface elements
across applications and automatic compliance with the KDE
Standards and Style Guide irrespective of modifications to
the standards.
DCOP is a client-to-client communications protocol
intermediated by a server over the standard X11 ICE
library. The protocol supports both message passing and
remote procedure calls using an XML-RPC to DCOP "gateway".
Bindings for C, C++ and Python, as well as experimental
Java bindings, are available.
KHTML is an HTML 4.0 compliant rendering and drawing
engine. The class will support the full gamut of current
Internet technologies, including JavaScript, Java, HTML
4.0, CSS-2 (Cascading Style Sheets), SSL (Secure Socket
Layer for secure communications) and Netscape Communicator
plugins (for viewing Flash, RealAudio, RealVideo and
similar technologies). The KHTML class can easily be used
by an application as either a widget (using normal window
parenting) or as a component (using the KParts technology).
KHTML, in turn, has the capacity to embed components within
itself using the KParts technology.
Downloading and Compiling KDE 2.1
The source packages for KDE 2.1 are available for free
download at
http://ftp.kde.org/stable/2.1/distribution/tar/generic/src/
or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp
server mirrors. KDE 2.1 requires qt-2.2.4, which is
available in source code from Trolltech as
qt-x11-2.2.4.tar.gz. KDE 2.1 should work with Qt-2.2.3 but
Qt-2.2.4 is recommended.
For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE
2.1, 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 will be available for free
download under http://ftp.kde.org/stable/2.1/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 requires qt-2.2.4, the free version of which is
available from the above locations usually under the name
qt-x11-2.2.4. KDE 2.1 should work with Qt-2.2.3 but
Qt-2.2.4 is recommended.
At the time of this release, pre-compiled packages are
available for:
* Caldera eDesktop 2.4: i386
* Debian GNU/Linux:
o Potato (2.2): i386, Sparc and PPC; please also
check the main directory for common files
o Stable (2.3): i386, Sparc and PPC; please also
check the main directory for common files
* Linux-Mandrake 7.2: i586
* RedHat Linux:
o Wolverine: i386; please also check the common
directory for common files
o 7.0: i386 and Alpha; please also check the common
directory for common files
o 6.x: i386, Alpha and Sparc; please also check the
common directory for common files
* SuSE Linux:
o 7.1: i386 and Sparc; please also check the i18n
or noarch directory for common files
o 7.0: i386 and PPC; please also check the i18n or
noarch directory for common files
o 6.4: i386; please also check the i18n or noarch
directory for common files
o 6.3: i386; please also check the i18n or noarch
directory for common files
* Tru64 Systems
* FreeBSD
Please check the servers periodically for pre-compiled
packages for other distributions. More binary packages will
become available over the coming days and weeks.
What Others Are Saying
KDE 2.1 has already earned accolades from industry leaders
worldwide. A sampling of comments follows.
"We are very excited about the enhancements in KDE 2.1 and
we are pleased to be able to contribute to the project,"
said Rene Schmidt, Corel's Executive Vice-President, Linux
Products. "KDE continues to improve with each release, and
these enhancements will make our easy-to-use Linux
distribution for the desktop even better."
"A greater number and availability of Linux applications is
an important factor that will determine if Linux permeates
the enterprise desktop," said Drew Spencer, Chief
Technology Officer for Caldera Systems, Inc. "KDE 2.1
addresses this issue with the integration of the Konqueror
browser and KDevelop, a tool that allows developers to
create applications in C++ for all kinds of environments.
Together with the existing tools available for KDE,
KDevelop is a one-stop solution for developers."
"With the 2.1 release, KDE again demonstrates its capacity
to offer rich software and provide a complete and stable
environment for everyday use", added Gaël Duval, co-founder
of Mandrakesoft. "This latest release has paved the way for
KDE on user's desktops in the enterprise as well as at
home. From the full-featured web browser to the friendly
configuration center, it provides all the common facilities
many computers users need to abandon Windows entirely."
About KDE
KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of
developers worldwide to create a sophisticated,
customizable and stable desktop environmentemploying 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, 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. MS
Windows, Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation. Netscape and Netscape Communicator are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Netscape
Communications Corporation in the United States and other
countries and JavaScript is a trademark of Netscape
Communications Corporation. Java is a trademark of Sun
Microsystems, Inc. Flash is a trademark or registered
trademark of Macromedia, Inc. in the United States and/or
other countries. RealAudio and RealVideo are trademarks or
registered trademarks of RealNetworks, Inc. 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) 718 456 1165
Europe (French and English): David Faure
faure@kde.org
(44) 1225 837409
Europe (English and German): Martin Konold
konold@kde.org
(49) 179 2252249