News Archive for January 1999

Luc I. Suryo announces:

Donnie Cranford and I are pleased to announce the KDE-1.1pre2 package for Solaris 7 X86.

Since this is test version please do stress it and report any problems to us and the KDE dev. team thanks.

NB: the package will **ONLY** be available at ftp.patriots.net since this is beta and we do not want to overload ftp.kde.org.

Location: ftp://ftp.patriots.net/pub/solaris_packages/7-x86/KDE
File: kde-1.1pre2-2.Solaris-7-X86.pkg.gz Size: 18700396

From Troll Tech AS:

TROLL TECH ANNOUNCES NEW Qt BETA RELEASE

Troll Tech AS today announced that pre-releases of the next major version of Qt, version 2.0, are now accessible to software developers around the world.

This new version of Qt, the popular cross-platform Graphical User Interface toolkit for application development, is extended with many new features. For easy internationalization of Qt-based applications, support has been added for Unicode international character sets and message translation. To allow seamless integration in any graphical environment, the new version provides adaptable look-and-feel with sample styles including the Platinum look. The new version also includes many small improvements such as support for the "wheel mouse", and is faster, smoother and more memory-efficient than earlier Qt versions.

The new Qt version is currently in beta testing state. The pre-release versions, known as Qt 2.0-beta, give developers the chance to try the hundreds of new features and provide critical comment to help the final Qt 2.0 release meet all the expectations and requirements of both commercial and free software developers.

Developers seeking access to the pre-release versions can register for free, online at the Troll Tech web site - see http://www.troll.no/dl/qtfree-cvs.cgi

The electronic distribution system used to provide access to the Qt 2.0 beta releases is CVS, the widely-used version control software. This arrangement will allow developers to easily upgrade to the latest pre-release version of Qt as it is fine-tuned.

The Qt beta releases are available to both Qt Professional Edition and Qt Free Edition users. Qt Professional Edition owners will receive free upgrade to the final Qt 2.0 version when it is released.

Qt is a trademark of Troll Tech AS.

Matthias Hölzer-Klüpfel created RPM packages of KDE-1.1pre2 for Caldera OpenLinux-1.3. These packages are available by FTP at:

ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/1.1pre2/distribution/rpm/COL-1.3/RPMS

as well as on Caldera's FTP site: ftp.caldera.com

Please note that the package kdenetwork-1.1pre2-1 has been replaced by kdenetwork-1.1pre1-2, which is basically a kdenetwork-1.1pre2 with a better working kmail.

Duncan Haldane announces, in the name of the KDE Packaging Team:

RPM packages for KDE-1.1pre2 (the beta release) have been uploaded to ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/Incoming, and will shortly move to their correct location at

ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/1.1pre2/distribution/rpm/RedHat-5.1/i386 If you dont like /opt/kde/, these RPMs are now fully relocatable with

rpm ... --prefix=<your preferred location>

They are accompanied by readme-redhat-rpms.txt and readme-redhat-rpms.html which are explaining the simple installation procedure.

qt-1.42-3rh51.i386.rpm (also supplied) is the preferred qt release; it now contains the qimageio library that some of you requested.

Please note that, if you're using the KDE-1.0 "rh51" series RPMS, you must first uninstall them (rpm -e ...; sorry for the inconvenience, this is because of kdesupport which no more duplicates libraries for which Red Hat packages already exist: libjpeg-6b, gdbm etc.

Martin Konold announces:

"On 25 January 1999, ftp.kde.org delivered 32.5 gigabytes to people interested in having KDE-1.1pre2 within the first 10 hours after the initial announcement.

This accounts for 1350 downloads only from the main site, which was used up to the maximum limit for a long period (there are many mirror sites around the world). It is also to notice that we discuss here about a beta release in source code form only".

We consider this a pleasant success and we thank to our supportive users and to the incredible team of developers.

Everybody's hero Linus Torvalds released today the two-years-awaited
Linux kernel 2.2.0. Linux is one of the main Unix-like platforms on which KDE can be installed and used. Linux is also the predilection operating system for many KDE developers. Thanks to the dedicated work of a number of testers, there is confirmation that KDE functions (as it should) very well on the newest and greatest Linux-2.2.0 kernel without any modification.

Our grateful thoughts go today to the thousands of developers from all around the world which, by selfless dedication and responsible work, made clear that freedom can be.

Martin Konold announces:

Dear Developers,

Due to your absolutely excellent work I had the pleasure to make the KDE-1.1pre2 packages aka KDE-1.1 beta finally available on master.kde.org.

In case we will not discover very serious problems with these packages they will become the final KDE-1.1.

The source is available on

ftp://master.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/1.1pre2/distribution/tar/generic/source/

The packages should appear very soon on our official ftp server ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/1.1pre2/distribution/tar/generic/source/

Please test them throughly on fresh systems. Please also make tests on upgrading KDE-1.0 systems and KDE-1.1 snapshot systems.

Please address all reports about problems to http://bugs.kde.org

KDE-1.1 will prove to be a big step towards a better working experience for several millions of people. (Current estimates are about 5-6 Million KDE users)

Finally KDE-1.1 will not be the end but the beginning of an even more exciting experience. KOM/OpenParts will be a big challenge for KDE-2.0

Thanks,
-- martin

Thanks to dedicated work from Stephan Kulow, helped by Waldo Bastian, Arnt Gulbrandsen and Andreas Jellinghaus, the new web based Bug Tracking System of the KDE project is presently available. This new system is based on the excellent Debian bug tracking system (which is OpenSource but not yet available in a packaged form).

All the necessary details about the functioning of the new system can be found at http://bugs.kde.org along with a browseable list of current bugs. Much work has been undergone by the main authors and maintainers of the KDE applications for the filtering closing and solving of most of the over 2000 bug reports inherited from the previous system. A big thank you to all involved.

Testers are asked to make their submission by e-mail at the address submit@bugs.kde.org. Details about how to submit bugs are found at http://bugs.kde.org/Reporting.html.

Stephan Kulow announces:

With the help of Alex Zepeda and John Polstra (the author of the cvsup package) we managed to increase the usabilty of the cvsup service proviced on cvs.kde.org.

Many people reported times out and unfinished connections to this server and those problems made this service quite unusable. John and I found out, that this happened because of a bug in the Modula3 compiler used for building the CVSup software. The created binary couldn't handle two requests at the same time and waited til one was finished before it served the second.

This bug has been fixed in the compiler and I installed the new binary this morning. So I would like to invite everyone to test it again :)

Greetings, Stephan

P.S. We still need more mirrors. If you have a host, that is connected fast enough, feel free to contact Mark Huizer for setting up a mirror.

In its March 1999 issue, the prestigious Linux Journal features a presentation of the version 1.0 of KDE. Citing: "At the risk of sounding like a surfer, KDE was the sharpest, coolest window display I had ever seen on any operating system. I wanted my Linux desktop to look exactly like that."

Dan Pilone released a new beta version of KPilot, a KDE-based replacement for 3Com's software which accompanies the PalmPilot handheld computers series. It includes an address editor, drag and drop memo support, file (prc/prb) installation, incremental hot-syncing of whole pilot, as well as backup and restore capabilities. KPilot also supports conduits, currently offering a Pop Client conduit and a conduit to allow you to sync the Datebook with KOrganizer.

Avus sent in a note about Mining Company's Focus on Linux 57th issue titled Polishing KDE: It's Pre-1.1!. This carefully written article has a very nice description of the many new enhancements of the future KDE-1.1 over the veteran KDE-1.0. Citing: "What has been added are those two things so long lacking in the Linux desktop field: polish and maturity."

(seen on Freshmeat)

Carmelo Piccione made public the first version of KWMHeadlines. This is a tool written in Perl and using the new disknav[igator] feature (authored by Pietro Iglio) from the panel of KDE 1.1. It can display the news headlines from Slashdot, Freshmeat, Linux Today ... by putting them in the K menu.

(seen on Linux Today)

Chip Brookshaw of InfoWorld publishes an interesting introspection of the chances of Linux in the fight for the PC desktop.

About our project, the author says: "KDE is the handiwork of the KDE project, a collection of software developers using the open-source model, and Caldera has integrated the software into its OpenLinux distribution. (KDE can also run on Red Hat Linux 5.2.) The Common Desktop Interface (CDE), a window manager that has been available for years on Unix, is another widely used GUI, but KDE has won over many in the Linux community."

While keeping the already traditional line for this kind of discussions, the article remains interesting and well informed.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Linux by Manuel Alberto Ricart was released at 22 December 1998 by Que and is available from the publisher (you can search for it on the site using the author's name) as well as from Amazon.com. The first of the three parts of this book is titled: "Working with Linux in a Graphical Environment--The KDE Desktop". The accompanying CD-ROM includes Caldera's OpenLinux 1.3 (which includes KDE) and StarOffice 4.0. Many thanks to Uwe Thiem for signaling this release.

Jörg Brunsmann announces:

Squeak is an open, highly-portable Smalltalk-80 implementation whose virtual machine is written entirely in Smalltalk. To achieve portability Squeak does not support native widgets. This is unfortunate since Smalltalk is a wonderful object oriented language. Hence, QTalk is an effort to build a rapid application environment using the QT and KDE widget set and the Squeak object engine. QTalk's objective is to build an integrated development tool which fits completely into the KDE environment and which allows the fast development of KDE applications. An experimental first release can be downloaded from here

Uwe Thiem observed that the January 1999 issue of Linux Journal publishes a "1998 Reader's Choice" in which, at page 31, KDE can be found as winner of "Favorite Window Manager" with FVWM as a runner up. Also of interest is that, on page 30, S.u.S.E is listed as "Favorite Linux Distribution" with Red Hat runner up. It is known that S.u.S.E includes (and integrates very well) KDE in its last versions.

Phil Thompson says: "I've put up v0.4 of my Python bindings for Qt/KDE at: http://www.river-bank.demon.co.uk/software. These are still work in progress. Enough has been implemented to get Python versions of the Qt tutorials and Kurt [Granroth]'s KMyApp working (74 classes so far) and these are included as examples."

The Window Maker development team released today the version 0.50.0 of the renowned window manager. Most of the window management mechanisms defined by KDE are included (exceptions are sound events support and mini-icon setting). Alfredo Kojima states in the NEWS file distributed with the source that there could be some problems in the virtual desktop management because of implementation incompatibilities between Window Maker and standard kwm modules (like kpanel). Grab the source here. Many thanks to the Window Maker developers for their excellent work.

kooBase is a music application, including an extensive score editor, a drum editor, an event editor, general MIDI import/export, and a nice API that allows kooBase to be extended. Its authors are Jan Würther and Fabian Wenzel. OpenSound Systems elected kooBase as the Killer app of the month.

The ChangeLog of the current Slackware repository indicates that the K Desktop Environment has been included in this veteran Linux distribution at the end of November 1998. Life becomes easier for the KDE users which are also Slackware users. Thank you, Patrick Volkerding and Walnut Creek.

Matthias Hoelzer-Kluepfel lets us know that the maintainer of the KDE FAQ is, from quite some time already, Lee Wee Tiong. Let us thank him for the great work. A large scale reorganization has been done on the FAQ pages, as well as some new additions. Also, the maintainers now provide nicely packaged HTML, postscript and ASCII versions. Go see the changes at the regular place

Sirtaj Singh Kang uploaded to the cvs (in the kdesdk module, in the "scripts" directory) a script that can be used to extract single applications from the CVS tree in the form of tar packages (for now). This little tool is of obvious utility for the authors wanting to publish as separate packages their applications which mainly reside in the CVS tree.