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KDE 2.0 Final Release Candidate Is Out
As the title says - The final Release Candidate (RC2) of KDE 2.0 is out. Announcement is here, Red Hat RPM's available here (for Red Hat 6.2 and 7.0). SuSE and other distributions RPM's available through the mirrors. Solaris 8 packages will be out soon. Please test this release and if you'll find any showstopper bug, then please report it.
Anybody that schedules a specific number of release candidates obviously doesn't understand the concept. If they know this one is good enough, why not just call it the release? If they don't know that for sure, how can they be sure this is the last one?
A release candidate is supposed to be a version you think is good enough to release, but aren't sure about.
I prefer a tight, fast system that doesnt fall all over itself or is a nightmare to maintain.
I dumped one last week, you want her number?
Just a note - if you've got a stock RH7 box that you're planning on installing this on, you'll want to make a trip over to http://www.rpmfind.net and pick up the RH7 rpms for zip and unzip (just do a search and look for the green highlight) as the KDE rpms complained about not having them (why they didn't install by default is beyond me - I'm just passing the info on.)
Hi.
I've noticed, and complained before, that GIF support isn't compiled in by default on FreeBSD. Upon inspecting the Makefile of the QT port, I noticed that they seem to check for a Unisys license before allowing the GIF support to be compiled in.
Does anyone know if this is necessary? Am I allowed to build and distribute a package that has GIF support built in, or could I face the wrath of Unisys?
Also, I know that Mandrake ships QT with GIF support, does this mean that they paid Unisys, or that they are breaking the law?
Finally, if compiling in GIF support is illegal in the US, what about Canada and internationally?
The reason I ask is that I have bult a FreeBSD package of QT 2.2.1 with GIF support, but before I put it up on my website I wanted to make sure that I (as a Canadian citizen) am not going to get into trouble.
Thanks for the clarification,
Ben
Score 2 Interesting?
What rot. "Mac OS X will conquer all, you will kneel, it was designed by EXPERTS with LETTERS after their name who KNOW this stuff"...
Go buy a Mac, troll boy. Be sure to get the matching curtains too.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I wonder if there's a stable port of the current KDE2 to Solaris (note that for DEC Alpha/Tru64 there exists a _pretty_fine_, well maintained port!). I searched on the net for this port and only found a lot of complains - _recent_ones_ - that KDE2 is not Solaris friendly at all.
If you still know about an existing Solaris port, please post its accessibility (URL, etc.).
The -only- package I've seen this with is the gimp, which was only half-working until I installed gnome-apt; with all those gnome parts installed, suddenly the gimp worked great. D'oh.
However, I was -very- suprised at this behaviour; normally, Debian is very good with this. Well. Caveat there: There are bugs in 'non-free' that are deadly and have lurked for years. Debian focus is on liberated software almost to the exclusion of contrib on non-free.
I -will- admit, as happy a Debian user as I am, that Debian is not 'scaling' well; as it grows in size, it is becoming a bit tangled, some packages are not well debugged (eyeballs are spread thinner, I guess, with so many packages) and the isolation of non-free and contrib does create some technical problems in favor of political correctness. All that said though... even if I have some theoretical complaints about Debian's scaling, a) nobody else is doing as well, and b) this is being addressed with the no-files metapackages that simplify installation of certain complex systems.
Oh, and a final point about Debian-thinking... if you're a Debian user, you're part -of- Debian. It's not 'Debian' as a whole that messed up package X, it's the package maintainer for package X and the users that didn't report the bug. Unlike Redhat, Debian isn't a company, it's just an offshoot of the liberated software process.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
Although I agree with you that /. != Freshmeat, the announcement here on /. is OTOH a good thing. It is the final release candidate, and this will get more people testing it. Maybe one of those people testing it, finds a "showstopper" which then will get fixed before the final release.
I will certainly be downloading it ASAP and test it to see if I can find any bugs.
I think you're slightly out of touch with what drives the Gnome project and what the foundation is based on. I suggest you go to The Gnome Foundation site and browse. In particular, read the mission and charter. The Gnome Foundation is not driven by "big-money influences" in the sense you are implying. I'll also mention that Gnome also relies heavily on its volunteers, of which I am one. There are those who are paid for hacking on Gnome (what on earth is wrong with that? sounds like a dream job to me...do something you love and get paid for it!). Most of those hackers started out as unpaid volunteers working because they love what they do. Now they have the opportunity to devote much more time to the project because their income comes from doing what they love to do--promote, hack, design in the Gnome world. As for the corporate backing which you so heavily criticize, I fail to see the reason it is a bad thing. Again I suggest you read the charter so you fully understand the role that companies such as Sun, HP, IBM and others will play. The Gnome Foundation Elections are coming up, so register now if you've contributed in any way to Gnome (advocacy, documentation, code, debugging, artwork, etc.) Cheerio!
----
Celebrate the finer things in life
Wow, thanks for bringing that to my attention! I just tried it (on a Celeron 300A->450 with 196MB of RAM), and it seems considerably quicker loading apps and the UI reacts noticeably quicker. Memory useage is drastically reduced too - right now I have three Konquerors and KMail running, and memory is about 20MB less than usual!
On my machine, libqt.so was about 7.5MB before, and 5MB after. And it is definitely worthwhile doing the recompile if you have the fatter version of the binary, in terms of speed and memory useage.
I think I should post a link to an informative thread I found on dot.kde.org. It's about possible causes for relativly slow performance of kde and how to avoid them.
Don't know how the binaries of this KDE2-RC packed though, but anyway, people thinking of KDE2 as slow should at least check if their install is built with QT-exceptions. The post of fura in the above thread explains how to do that with your installation.
This morning when I got up, and sourceforge and others had yet to update, this UK site (gotta love timezones) already had everything up. Not only that, I got 75 kilobytes/sec download. Twelve minutes and done.
I believe that if you turn off exception support, then use exceptions in your code, you will get a compile-time error. So if Qt compiles with -fno-exceptions, then it's okay. Qt is a cross-platform toolkit, and some compilers (including older g++) don't do exceptions.
You could have exceptions in your own code and still use exception-less Qt. I like exceptions. It gives you clarity of code with robust error handling. With a decent compiler, it won't cause any more bloat than other error handling methods.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I would wait until the ports get updated. Should be only a couple of days at the most. This instant gratification stuff is only for the wussies. Believe me, the KDE and Qt maintainers will have no sleep tonight. You are using cvsup to keep up to date on ports, aren't you?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It should have had feature freeze and most of the bad bugs fixed.
It's been in feature freeze for quite a while now. No new features. During the freeze all commits (besides art) were to be bug fixes. RC1 had no known serious bugs. But some were found so now there is a second RC. If serious bugs are again found, expect a third.
For every bug fixed, expect three new ones to be introduced. So only the showstoppers get fixed in the release candidates. The less serious bugs and annoyances have to wait for 2.0.1
Can somone more knowledgable than I (can't be hard) post a summary of "why you should upgrade?"
I can speak about upgrading from 1.1.2, but not GNOME, since I haven't used that for quite a while. konqueror is a replacement for kfm. It is now a full fledged web browser. It ROX. Component based so you can trim off the stuff you don't want to run. A lot of the stuff have been put on a high-protein, low-fat diet. DCOP/kparts. Themable widgets, including GTK themes. KOffice. The first 100% free (as in RMS) and open (as in ESR) integrated office suite. Most of the core applications, such as kmail, have been revamped for increased functionality and usability.
It's like KDE-1 was a caterpillar, and for the last year or so was stuck in a chrysalis. Now it's hatching into what it was meant to be. "Look at me! I'm a butterfly!"
And finally, but not least, Shisen-Go now has gravity mode! Woohoo!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I respect the KDE developers for going with what they feel is the best solution using the best technology available (in their opinion). Rather than politicise the programming process, they built a desktop environment for themselves.
Don't forget that a project (Harmony) existed until recently to create a LGPL clone of Qt. By the time Qt was QPL'ed (an Open Source certified license), the writing was on the wall that TrollTech was going to open Qt, when Qt was GPL'ed, there was no reason to pursue the project any longer.
I think KDE is a great example of the fact that Open Source and Free Software can work with traditional business, and wind up with a "Free as in Speech" solution. In the end, both motivation and results in the KDE and TrollTech groups have consistantly worked towards greater Freedom in the use of their work. This is the kind of case study that validates that the Free Software Model can exist and succeed in the real world, interacting with traditional corporate models.
Disclaim: I currently use the BlackBox WM with KDE2 apps.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Actually, Linux-Mandrake 7.2 will ship with a pre-Final KDE2, because they need to get their boxes out for the Christmas sales. Each box will include a voucher to have a Mandrake 7.2.1 CD sent to you for free, and this CD is the one that will feature KDE2 Final.
So for anyone looking forward to Mandrake 7.2 -- don't. Wait for 7.2.1, which of course not only will have KDE2-Final, but also the fixes for the usual "gotcha's" that always follow a point release.
--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Apple isn't trying to make MacOSX run under everything under the sun. Therefore the kernel will be tighter, system will be easier to maintain and everything else that goes along with a signle architecture.
Sun doesn't make it a point to sell Solaris for Alpha, SGI, IBM RISC (which is powerpc based).
And yes, MacOSX or OSX is portable to x86.
Do you realise how much money is handed over between all the true unix licensees for Open Look, API's, Posix compliance, CDE and everything else?
When you login to an hpux machine you see
Please wait...checking for disk quotas
(c)Copyright 1983-1997 Hewlett-Packard Co., All Rights Reserved.
(c)Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985-1993 The Regents of the Univ. of California
(c)Copyright 1980, 1984, 1986 Novell, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1986-1992 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1985, 1986, 1988 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(c)Copyright 1989-1993 The Open Software Foundation, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1986 Digital Equipment Corp.
(c)Copyright 1990 Motorola, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1990, 1991, 1992 Cornell University
(c)Copyright 1989-1991 The University of Maryland
(c)Copyright 1988 Carnegie Mellon University
(c)Copyright 1991-1997 Mentat, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1996 Morning Star Technologies, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1996 Progressive Systems, Inc.
(c)Copyright 1997 Isogon Corporation
RESTRICTED RIGHTS LEGEND
Use, duplication, or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in sub-paragraph (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause in DFARS 252.227-7013.
Hewlett-Packard Company
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304 U.S.A.
Rights for non-DOD U.S. Government Departments and Agencies are as set forth in FAR 52.227-19(c)(1,2).
Maybe linux people forget that linux is linux and not unix :)
Not all of those are free. Look at how much people pay to license thinks from guis to the famouse motif libraries and all sorts of source code.
Login to a sun box and you will see many of the same copyrights, rights to use, licensing and such.
Does anyone know id KDE2 will run on Solaris 2.6? We use that at work, and I'd love to be free at last of crappy OpenLook.
.. that is SHOULD be stable enough to be used.
But this decision is taken throughout the next weeks. There needs to be _real_ showstoppers for it not to be released now.
You can put it this way; neither a beta or this is released, but while the beta is expected to have plenty of bugs, this one is not.
It will become stable October 23.
Umm, sorry to point this out, but Mach is anything BUT tight. As if FreeBSD on TOP of Mach. The core of OSX is actuall quite bulky. And whoever thought of the stupid "system-server" idea should be shot. On BeOS if the net_server crashes (which happens about once a day, and don't worry, its being replaced) I can just kill it and restart. Under OSX, even though networking is in usermode, a crash of the networking will crash the entire system. In fact, I can crash just about every server except the app server (even the input server if you have a script kill it and bring it back) without locking the system. The NeXT approach totally loses the advantages of having a microkernel design.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Ahem, attributes? BeOS has 'em! (Everyone else should too!)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
According to their site, the code will be frozen on October 16. So I would surmise that this can be considered stable enough. Just make sure you have Qt 2.2.1 before installing it.
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
Does anyone know when Mandrake 7.2 will ship? Is it just waiting on a final release of KDE 2.0, or are there other factors?
--
>the good job...
Yes. They *DO* a good job. And for this post a good job will be defined as PORTABLE source code. (as opposed to UI design)
The KDE port has no patches to change the code to run on BSD.
GNOME, on the other hand has many patches to make the code work. Changes that would not be needed if they wrote portable code. An example: BSD needs to patch where the shutdown command is because the GNOME authors can't be bothered to write portable code.
To be fair, the GNOME code has improved, but old-school pride of writting portable code has went out the window in this new 'GNU/Linux only' world.
(Come to think of it, writing portable code isn't done in the Microsoft Windows world either)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
KDE2 gets built with them off - however, Qt seems to enable them by default, even though it doesn't use them.
The info about how bug of improvement is very real - Qt shed about 3.2 megs on my system, and kde2 as a whole over 15 megs (apparently the exception table is per-process and is not shared memory)
Here is a patch against qt2.2.1 to disable the exception code on linux/g++
diff -ru qt2.2-2.2.1.orig/configs/linux-g++-shared qt2.2-2.2.1/configs/linux-g++-shared
--- qt2.2-2.2.1.orig/configs/linux-g++-shared Tue Oct 10 21:28:49 2000
+++ qt2.2-2.2.1/configs/linux-g++-shared Tue Oct 10 21:33:10 2000
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
SYSCONF_LINK_LIB_STATIC = rm -f $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC) ; \
$(SYSCONF_AR) $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC) $(OBJECTS) $(OBJMOC)
# Compiling application source
-SYSCONF_CXXFLAGS = -pipe -O2
+SYSCONF_CXXFLAGS = -pipe -O2 -fno-exceptions
SYSCONF_CFLAGS = -pipe -O2
# Default link type (static linking is still be used where required)
SYSCONF_LINK_LIB = $(SYSCONF_LINK_LIB_SHARED)
diff -ru qt2.2-2.2.1.orig/configs/linux-g++-shared-debug qt2.2-2.2.1/configs/linux-g++-shared-debug
--- qt2.2-2.2.1.orig/configs/linux-g++-shared-debug Wed Oct 4 04:55:22 2000+++ qt2.2-2.2.1/configs/linux-g++-shared-debug Tue Oct 10 21:34:49 2000
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
SYSCONF_LINK_LIB_STATIC = rm -f $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC) ; \
$(SYSCONF_AR) $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC) $(OBJECTS) $(OBJMOC)
# Compiling application source
-SYSCONF_CXXFLAGS = -pipe -g
+SYSCONF_CXXFLAGS = -pipe -g -fno-exceptions
SYSCONF_CFLAGS = -pipe -g
# Default link type (static linking is still be used where required)
SYSCONF_LINK_LIB = $(SYSCONF_LINK_LIB_SHARED)
diff -ru qt2.2-2.2.1.orig/configs/linux-g++-static qt2.2-2.2.1/configs/linux-g++-static
--- qt2.2-2.2.1.orig/configs/linux-g++-static Tue Oct 10 21:28:49 2000
+++ qt2.2-2.2.1/configs/linux-g++-static Tue Oct 10 21:34:06 2000
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
SYSCONF_LINK_LIB_STATIC = rm -f $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC) ; \
$(SYSCONF_AR) $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC) $(OBJECTS) $(OBJMOC)
# Compiling application source
-SYSCONF_CXXFLAGS = -pipe -O2
+SYSCONF_CXXFLAGS = -pipe -O2 -fno-exceptions
SYSCONF_CFLAGS = -pipe -O2
SYSCONF_LINK_LIB = $(SYSCONF_LINK_LIB_STATIC)
SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET = $(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC)
diff -ru qt2.2-2.2.1.orig/configs/linux-g++-static-debug qt2.2-2.2.1/configs/linux-g++-static-debug
--- qt2.2-2.2.1.orig/configs/linux-g++-static-debug Wed Oct 4 04:55:21 2000+++ qt2.2-2.2.1/configs/linux-g++-static-debug Tue Oct 10 21:34:32 2000
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
SYSCONF_LINK_LIB_STATIC = rm -f $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC)
; \
$(SYSCONF_AR) $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC) $(OBJECTS) $(OBJMOC)
# Compiling application source
-SYSCONF_CXXFLAGS = -pipe -g
+SYSCONF_CXXFLAGS = -pipe -g -fno-exceptions
SYSCONF_CFLAGS = -pipe -g
SYSCONF_LINK_LIB = $(SYSCONF_LINK_LIB_STATIC)
SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET = $(SYSCONF_LINK_TARGET_STATIC)
The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.
Qt depends on Mesa if you want the OpenGL functionality, and many people need that (at least according to the number of "bug" reports we got when we shipped Qt without OpenGL support).
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Yes, they're going straight to /usr - that's because I don't see a need to keep KDE 1.x around now that 2.0 is stable.
It's an update, and should be handled as such. (I'll be putting together a kde1-compat package to keep old KDE 1.x apps running in a while, though updating to KDE 2.x versions is of course preferred).
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Upgrading depends on what you've used before.
If you've used a previous 2.0 beta, you want to update because of tons of bugfixes.
If you've used 1.x, check the KDE-2 launchpad.
As for switching from Gnome to KDE 2.x or vice versa, my recommendation has always been to try out both and check which you like better.
Since you can run KDE applications inside gnome and vice versa, you may like Konqueror and a couple of other new tools even if you decide not to switch.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
KDE2 fixes the issue you're complaining about - The file manager (konqueror) and the desktop icons (kdesktop) are separate.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Well, the original post is a troll, but somehow worth repsonding to anyway...
As a longtime NeXT user who has also been using the various alphas and betas of OS X over the past two years, I tend to respectfully disagree with you. My current desktop system is KDE 2 in (as of today) its latest-but-one incarnation, and in terms of useability for my particular line of work (computer graphics R & D), it is better suited than the current OS X beta.
Why? As other posters have mentioned before, OS X has a certain "macified kludge" feeling about it that was totally absent from NeXTStep. It is a serious compromise, away from a power user desktop like NeXT towards an OS that everyone and his inbred dog can use. And, contrary to the more open and multi-use philosophy behind e.g. KDE or GNOME, OS X is pretty static insofar as it enforces pretty similar handling habits on everyone who uses it through comparatively rather sparse UI config options. Which in turn means that power users will find it somewhat lacking to their taste in one or the other way.
Several UI aspects of the OS X interface (such as the giant photorealistic icons and the current version of the dock) have yet to be proven as effective improvements over previous standards, and the Aqua interface certainly will be refined for quite some time yet (which makes it a bit premature to speak of a new standard).
After all, OS X introduces very few new UI ideas, but rather presents old ones in an arguably unprecedented style and beauty. But just having the coolest 2D rendering engine out there (which, apart from a bastardised UNIX filesystem, is the only huge innovation in OS X) does not automagically make it a winning proposition by itself.
As for X windows, well, everyone knows that it could suck planet sized marbles through bent straws. But at least it works, and it is free. Having something like the Quartz rendering engine on Linux instead of X would certainly be an improvement, but don't count on anyone writing one soon.
Just my two cents... (and kudos to the KDE team!)
Alexander Wilkie
one word - awesome!
if only for konquerer (i love the site-selectable java and javascript settings!), i'd switch to KDE2! i'm sure i'm going to enjoy discovering the other applications under KDE2.
great job KDE developers!!
Have you actually tried any of the mirrors? I got my RC from the swedish mirror at 270KByte/s just after this story was posted.
/per
Slagborr
You posted this story before I could get my copy. Now I'll have to wait for ages until the Slashdot effect wears off.
Find funky gifts
I'm sure Apple could address some of these issues but frankly they'd be better off saving their money unless they intend to open it up. There's fat chance of that happening.
The CVS will be tagged for release next monday. This means that if you want your patches/bug reports to have any effect, they should be posted as soon as possibly, preferably today. Please report critical issues only.
By that time I might have dist-upgraded completly to woody from potato - blasted British Telecom and their ADSL policy!
It does appear, though, that SuSE allow these developers to do whatever they want.
Until linux/bsd has a truly pervasive UI, and solid pervasive support for multimedia, things like KDE and Gnome are window dressing.
The joy of blackbox is that it doesn't try to fool you into thinking that unix actually supports a full-featured UI - so instead it gives you what unix actually provides, and then gets out of your way.
This improved performance on my machine by at least 30%. Credits go to fura (that's the nick used on dot.kde.org, anyway) for this information.
If I need to get work done, I start blackbox and fire up half a dozen xterms. For development this cannot be beat.
It all depends on your definition of work. Xterms are more than enough for some people, but for a large portion of computer users getting work done involves more than writing code. I could not live with just xterms, it would just be impossible for me to do what I need to do (which involves more than just putzing around), so I (and many users like me) need a different desktop solution than you do.
If you want a good interface, OS/2's WPS has been far superior for many many many years. EVERYTHING works TOGETHER the way you would expect it to. Objects are really objects, and each individual one can be modified.
But with IBM doing so much work for the linux community lately, maybe we'll get lucky and see a WPS on linux. One can only dream.
Recommended, of course, is to download the latest Mandrake release candidate from www.linux-mandrake.com; then report bugs to their bugzilla.
A quick query on that site shows that there aren't too many release-critical bugs, but if you find any, PLEASE REPORT THEM.
Free Anne Tomlinson!!