KDE 3.0.1 Release Announcement

Wednesday, 22 May 2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Project Ships Translation and Service Release for Leading Open Source Desktop

The KDE Project Ships the Third-Generation of the Leading Desktop for Linux/UNIX, Offering Enterprises, Governments, Schools, and Businesses an Outstanding Free and Open Desktop Solution

The KDE Project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.0.1, the third generation of KDE's free, powerful desktop for Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.0.1 ships with the core KDE libraries, the base desktop environment, an integrated development environment, and hundreds of applications and other desktop enhancements from the other KDE base packages (PIM, administration, network, edutainment, development, utilities, multimedia, games, artwork, and more).

KDE 3.0.1 is primarily a translation release for KDE 3.0, which shipped in early April. In addition, KDE 3.0.1 offers a number of performance and usability enhancements. For an extended list of changes since KDE 3.0, please see the change log.

"As is typical for KDE service releases, KDE 3.0.1 completes and polishes translations which had not fully caught up to the code released with KDE 3.0," noted Thomas Diehl, the KDE translation team coordinator. "Already available in 50 languages, KDE is ideal for international use. In addition, KDE 3 features a vastly improved localization framework. We invite all translators to join an existing or create a new translation team, and look forward to a future KDE release that will ship in even more languages."

KDE, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for free under Open Source licenses. KDE can be obtained in source and numerous binary formats from the KDE http or ftp mirrors, and can also be obtained on CD-ROM or with any of the major Linux/UNIX systems shipping today.

For more information about the KDE 3 series, please read the KDE 3.0 announcement and the KDE 3.0.x information page.

Installing KDE 3.0.1 Binary Packages

Binary Packages. Some Linux/UNIX OS vendors have kindly provided binary packages of KDE 3.0.1 for some versions of their distribution, and in other cases community volunteers have done so. Some of these binary packages are available for free download from KDE's http or ftp mirrors. Additional binary packages, as well as updates to the packages now available, may become available over the coming weeks. Frequently package updates are made available only at the respective vendors' download servers, so please check their for updates as well.

Please note that the KDE Project 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 - using tools, compilers, library versions and quality assurance procedures over which KDE exercises no control. In addition, please note that some vendors provide binary packages solely through their servers. If you cannot find a binary package for your OS, or you are displeased with the quality of binary packages available for your system, please read the KDE Binary Package Policy and/or contact your OS vendor.

Library Requirements / Options. 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 shipped with the system (e.g., LinuxDistro X.Y may have shipped with Qt-3.0.0 but the packages below may require Qt-3.0.3). 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 through the KDE servers for the following distributions and versions (please be sure to read the applicable README first):

• Conectiva Linux (README / LEIAME):
  • 8.0: Intel i386
• Mandrake Linux:
  • Language packages (all versions and architectures)
  • 8.2: Intel i586
  • 8.1: Intel i586
  • 8.0: Intel i586
• Slackware Linux (README):
  • Language packages
  • 8.0: Intel i386
• SuSE Linux (README):
  • Language packages (all versions and architectures)
  • 8.0: Intel i386
  • 7.3: Intel i386, IBM PowerPC, Sun Sparc
  • 7.2: Intel i386
  • 7.1: Intel i386, IBM PowerPC
  • 7.0: Intel i386, IBM S390
• Tru64 (README):
  • 4.0d, e, f and g and 5.x: Compaq Alpha
• Turbolinux (README):
  • Language packages (all versions and architectures)
  • 7.0: Intel i586

Additional binary packages will likely become available over the coming days and weeks.

Compiling KDE 3.0.1

Library Requirements / Options. KDE 3.0.1 requires Qt 3.0.3 for X11. In addition, KDE can take advantage of a number of other optional libraries and applications to improve your desktop experience and capabilities.

Compiler Requirements. KDE is designed to be cross-platform and hence to compile with a large variety of Linux/UNIX compilers. However, KDE is advancing very rapidly and the ability of native compilers on various UNIX systems to compile KDE depends on users of those systems reporting compile problems to the responsible developers.

With respect to the most popular KDE compiler, gcc/egcs, please note that some components of KDE will not compile properly with gcc versions earlier than gcc-2.95, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2, or with unpatched versions of gcc 3.0.x. However, KDE should compile properly with gcc 3.1, provided that neither debugging support nor strict syntax checking is enabled.

Source Code / SRPMs. The complete source code for KDE 3.0.1 is available for free download:

Additionally, source rpms are available for Conectiva Linux, Mandrake Linux and SuSE Linux.

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.0.1, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter compilation difficulties, the KDE Compilation FAQ. Please visit the KDE 3.0.1 information page for updates.

KDE Sponsorship

Besides the superb and invaluable 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 KDE promotion, and the University of Tübingen provides most of the Internet bandwidth for the KDE project. Thanks!

About KDE

KDE is an independent project of hundreds of developers, translators, artists and other professionals worldwide collaborating over the Internet to create and freely distribute a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop and office environment employing a flexible, component-based, network-transparent architecture and offering an outstanding development platform. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, a full, component-based office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools and utilities, and an efficient, intuitive development environment featuring the excellent IDE KDevelop. KDE is working proof that the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model can yield first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software.

All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.