KDE 2.2.2 Release Announcement

Wednesday, 21 November 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Service/Security Release Available

KDE Ships Leading Desktop with Advanced Web Browser and Development Environment for Linux and Other UNIXes

November 21, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KDE 2.2.2, a powerful and easy-to-use Internet-enabled desktop for Linux. KDE 2.2.2 is available in 42 languages and ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, and over 100 applications from the other base KDE packages (administration, multimedia, network, PIM, development, etc.). The KDE Project encourages all users of the award-winning KDE, and strongly encourages all users of KDE in multi-user environments, to upgrade to KDE 2.2.2.

KDE 2.2.2 is a security and service release. It marks the last scheduled release of the KDE 2 series, though further releases may occur. Code development is currently focused on KDE 3.0, scheduled for its first beta release next month and for final release in the first quarter of 2002.

The principal improvements over KDE 2.2.1, release two months ago, include:

• security-related
• SSL certificate loading
• symlink vulnerability in .wmrc access by KDM introduced in 2.2
• security problem with eFax (used by klprfax)
• potential problem in PAM invocation by KDM
• potential harmful side-effect of failed KDM session starts
• new features
• added support for CodeWeavers' CrossOver plug-in (provides support for QuickTime, etc.) (screenshot)
• added support for the wheelmouse for scrolling through the KGhostview PS/PDF viewer component
• ability to search for multiple patterns at a time in the file search dialog
• debugging multi-threaded applications with KDevelop
• improvements/fixes
• handling of HTTP links that redirect to FTP
• POST using SSL through a proxy and sending headers through proxies
• saving of recently-selected files in the file dialog
• handling of non-ASCII characters over SMB
• toolbar button captions with certain styles
• selecting items with the mouse in Konqueror
• sorting in Konqueror's textview
• saving current settings as a theme in the theme manager
• crashes in KMail with certain mails
• crash on invoking the KDM chooser
• non-Latin languages with KDevelop
• performance
• icon loading optimized
• file dialog speedups
• stop spinning SMB client processes
• handling of large files in Kate

A more complete list of changes and a FAQ about the release are available at the KDE web site.

KDE 2.2.2 complements the release of KOffice 1.1 in August, 2001. KOffice is a comprehensive, modular, component-based suite of office productivity applications. KDE is the only Open Source project to provide a complete desktop and productivity environment for Linux/UNIX.

KDE and all its components (including KOffice) are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE server and its mirrors and can also be obtained on CD-ROM.

For more information about the KDE 2.2 series, please see the KDE 2.2 press release and the KDE 2.2 Info Page, which is an evolving FAQ about the series.

Installing KDE 2.2.2 Binary Packages

Binary Packages. All major Linux distributors and some Unix distributors have provided binary packages of KDE 2.2.2 for recent versions of their distribution. Some of these binary packages are available for free download under http://download.kde.org/stable/2.2.2/ 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, will become available over the next few week.

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 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-2.2.3 but the packages below may require Qt-2.3.x). 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:

• Conectiva Linux (README)
• 7.0: Intel i386
• Mandrake Linux (README)
• 8.1: Intel i586 (see also the noarch directory) and HP/Intel IA-64 (see also the noarch directory)
• 8.0: Intel i586 (see also the noarch directory) and PowerPC (see also the noarch directory)
• 7.2: Intel i586
• RedHat Linux:
  • 7.2: Intel i386, HP/Intel IA-64 and Alpha (see also the noarch directory)
• SuSE Linux (README):
  • 7.3: Intel i386 (see also the noarch directory)
  • 7.2: Intel i386 and HP/Intel IA-64 (see also the noarch directory)
  • 7.1: Intel i386, PowerPC, Sun Sparc and Alpha (see also the noarch directory)
  • 7.0: Intel i386, PowerPC and IBM S390 (see also the noarch directory)
  • 6.4: Intel i386 (see also the noarch directory)
• Tru64 Systems (README)
• Tru64 4.0d, e, f and g and 5.x: Alpha

Please check the servers periodically for pre-compiled packages for other distributions. More binary packages will become available over the coming days and weeks.

Downloading and Compiling KDE 2.2.2

Library Requirements. KDE 2.2.2 requires the following libraries:

• Qt-2.2.4, which is available in source code from Trolltech as qt-x11-2.2.4.tar.gz, though qt-x11-2.3.1.tar.gz (rather than Qt-2.3.2) is recommended;
• for reading help pages and other KDE documentation, libxml2 >= 2.4.9 and libxslt >= 1.0.7;
• for JavaScript regular expression support, PCRE >= 3.5;
• for SSL support, OpenSSL >= 0.9.6x (versions 0.9.5x are no longer supported);
• for Java support, a JVM >= 1.3;
• for Netscape Communicator plugin support, KDE requires a recent version of Lesstif or Motif;
• for searching local documentation, ht://dig; and
• for other special features, such as drag'n'drop audio CD ripping, certain other packages.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KDE 2.2.2 will not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required. In addition, some components of KDE 2.2.2 (such as the multimedia backbone of KDE, aRts) will not compile with gcc 3.0.x (the problems are being corrected by the KDE and GCC teams and should be resolved by the first stable release of KDE 3.0).

Source Code/SRPMs. The complete source code for KDE 2.2.2 is available for free download at http://download.kde.org/stable/2.2.2/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors. Additionally, source rpms are available for the following distributions:

• Mandrake Linux
• RedHat Linux
• SuSE Linux

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 2.2.2, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter compilation problems, the compilation FAQ. For problems with SRPMs, please contact the person listed in the applicable .spec file.

About KDE

KDE is an independent, project by hundreds of developers worldwide collaborating over the Internet 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.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the KDE FAQ, screenshots, 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!