KDE 3.0 Beta 2 is out

Subject says all - the next beta of KDE 3.0 is out, after a short delay. You can find the downloads at this announcement. Click below to read more details about this version. One of the most important things that the Konqueror teams wants from people are test cases of your regulary visited pages, where Konqueror either fails to render or render things incorrectly, and submit it using KDE's Bug Tracking system. URL's will not be helpful as it takes lots of time to strip a page from all the HTML code in order to find the actual problematic part of the web page.

Just to save the search for some people: Mandrake, SuSE, Slackware and Tru-64 binary packages are available now. Others will be available soon. Source code is of course available also.

Comments

KDE - Beta is stable

[lemonhed]

Ive tried the KDE Beta 2. And I must say... Its a very very very stable pre-release. Hats off to the KDE developres.

The only problem is that some of the older KDE apps wont run correctly with the new KDE and they must be upgraded to work with the new QT packages.

Everyone should D/L it and check it out.

I demand to see the source!

[Anonymous Coward]

I want proof that Konqueror cannot be removed from KDE without causing severe damage to the OS!

Re:I demand to see the source!

[reflexreaction]

And I want to be charged $20 less for KDE when and if Konquerer can be removed.

Re:I demand to see the source!

[IceFox]

Actually what I would like is clear simply instructions on how to have the kde call openBrowser(url) open in something other then Konq. This is one of the major reasons why Kinkatta (kinkatta.sourceforge.net) isn't in KDE. Kinkatta gives the user the option to select what browser to use because I can't answer the e-mails on how to have openBrowser(url) use Galian or Mozzila, Opera, etc. I have many non-kde users that use Kinkatta, but giving users options is "not the kde way" acording to *someone* in kde.

Re:I demand to see the source!

[7-Vodka]

Actually what I would like is clear simply instructions on how to have the kde call openBrowser(url) open in something other then Konq.

Ok, your wish is granted.

1. Click on the kcontrol icon.
2. Click on file browsing tab.
3. Click on the file asociations tab.
4. Enter .html in the text box.
5. Change the order of the browsers.

Each user to his own browser. Just how I like it. Very easy to change.
Simple enough? I think so.
What peope don't seem to realize is that kde is more customizable than any other DE/WM. It's also scriptable. Type dcop in a term.

what about FreeBSD binaries?

[Anonymous Coward]

It turns out that a large silent number of
people are running KDE (and GNOME) desktops
under not *linux, but under FreeBSD. It would
be nice if more FreeBSD binary packages were
built.

Re:what about FreeBSD binaries?

[JabberWokky]

Why does KDE produce binaries for a few selected Linux distros, but not for other distros or other operating systems?

KDE does not produce any binaries.

Let me say that again: KDE DOES NOT PRODUCE BINARIES... they ONLY release source. Any binaries that are available at a version release were created by the distros themselves. It's in just about every single FAQ that KDE produces.

KDE aims for portability against just about every X and *nix out there, including AIX, Solaris, BSD and Linux. I mention those in particular because there are KDE developers who use each as their primary platform. About the only drawback to the "source only" policy is the occasional distro that releases a binary with all the debugging turned on, or gif support turned off, etc. But that has gotten more rare with better documentation.

--
Evan

As CmdrTaco says...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You get what you pay for after all."

-Rob Malda

How useful can KDE be?

No jumbo packages please

[2Bits]

This applies to KDE as well as Gnome.

These two environments tend to come with huge packages (e.g. gnome-applets, kdenetwork, kdemultimedia, kdegraphics, koffice, ...).

Sometimes, you just need one or two in the packages, and you are forced to install the whole jumbo packages. Why? Why can't we pick and choose?

E.g. I use Kword sometimes for simple word processing, but I never use the spreadsheet and the presentation app. Same for kdenetwork. I use KMail and KNode, but I don't need korn,ktalkd,ksirc,.... And kdemultimedia, I don't do MIDI stuff, and I don't want to waste 10MB for timidity++ and other junks.

Oh yeah, same for Gnome. Why do I need to install the whole gnome-applet package if I only need one applet? Same for other jumbo packages.

I'm on RPM-based distro. How about apt-get-based?
I don't know the internal details of the code, but isn't there a way to separate them out?

Re:Who Really Needs 3.0?

[PeterClark]

Well, you've already been moderated as flamebait, but I don't think that's the case, so I'll respond.

First of all, the major reason for KDE3 is QT3. QT3 has several advantages over QT2 for developers, and the KDE project want to use these to their advantage. As an end user, you probably won't be aware immediately of the changes, but developers will, which means that better programs will be coming your way.

Also, look at http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde- 3.0-features.html to get an idea of what's being added in KDE3. Then you can decide for yourself whether KDE3 is worth it. :)

:Peter

Tips for SuSE users

[Geek Boy]

The suse packages have a few minor installation conflicts. Make sure you have the prereqs installed and just --force and it will work. They use a separate .kde dir (.kde3-testing) so that you don't lose your old kde2 environment. However they don't migrate up your old settings. You can do this by copying the .kde2/share/config and .kde2/share/apps directories into .kde3-testing/share before your launch kde after you update. kconf_update will migrate your settings forward.

I was unable to get the lisa package or kdevelop to install due to dependency problems, and I didn't try. Make sure you install the mesaglut-devel package. It's needed.

The packages install into /opt/kde3 and you have to log in with the kde3 session entry in kdm if you use that.

Known bugs so far:

- Browser identification doesn't always work correctly.

- Greek keyboard setting is giving me Russian characters instead for some reason. (this may or may not be a bug)

Re:Tips for SuSE users

[psocccer]

Make sure you install the mesaglut-devel package. It's needed.

Good to see they've finally included one of the most-needed functions ever for a geek, the megaslut package. I know I've been asking for it for a long time, I can't wait to see what kind of development stuff is in the devel- package...

looks again

Crap... Oh, mesaglut... well, I guess it's back to autopr0n...

Re:What I'm looking forward to...

[brunes69]

I agree with the tabbed browsing, I can't wait for t to appear in 3.1. But the smart bookmarks toolbar; I find that vastly inferior to Konqueror's web shortcuts feature, mainly because it is so much simpler to use. Why do I need a bulky toolbar cluttering up my screen when I can just type "php:fopen" to search the php manual, or "rf:gaim" to search freshmeat? It's very cool. if you've never tried this feature, go into your konqueror settings under "Enhanced Browsing". It's very easy to add your own sites.

Re:Who Really Needs 3.0?

[stilborne]

besides Qt3 (which others have pointed out) there are a number of new features and general improvements. for example the javascript and html engines are both much better/faster than what was in kde2. directory listing is much faster, the file dialog has been spiffed up a bit more, there is support for file information plugins that appear on mouse over (not to mention animated icons), improved imap and gpg support in kmail, dcop has been improved tremendously from the viewpoint of scripting, aRts is much improved with the new GSL engine (cooperation with GNOME!), some new eye-candy like animated window decorations and new thumbnail types, tons of bug fixes and speed ups etc.. etc.. etc...

this is very much an evolutionary release as opposed to a revolutionary one (as KDE2.0 was), but the changes are quite noticeable. they make the general kde experience smoother and more useful IMO. one nice thing about it being evolutionary is that it is immediately stable and familiar ...

Re:Redhat?

[MSG]

*cough*bullshit*cough*

"Red Hat" doesn't hate KDE. Bero is a big KDE advocate, and maintains daily builds here:
http://www.linux-easy.com/daily/

Red Hat probably doesn't provide packages through other channels because they aren't going to support them. The KDE people are free to use the packages that Bero's put up, and they have in the past.

Screenshot

[Isle]

Since noone else has.
Here is the secret link to the new
KDE 3.0 Beta2 screenshots

Re:Redhat?

[bero-rh]

This has nothing to do with likes or dislikes of a particular desktop (you'll notice there are no RPMs for the recent GNOME 2.0 alpha either).

There will be packages for beta2 later (probably some time tomorrow); the problem is sheer lack of time. I've tried, but still haven't found a way to work more than 24 hours a day.

And generally, building alpha/beta packages for previous releases is pretty low on my priority list (if you look at rawhide, you'll see KDE 3.0 post-beta2 has been in there for a couple of days).

Getting the next release (7.3, 8.0, Linux XP or whatever it will be called ;) ) right is much more important (especially because next release + KDE 3.0 will be an officially supported configuration, 7.2 + KDE 3.0 isn't and probably won't be, releasing such a large errata that even breaks binary compatibility is not very likely to happen).

But FYI, I'm currently building the beta2 packages for 7.2 on x86, ia64 and alpha in a different tty.

kdelibs, kdebase, kdeadmin and kdemultimedia are done, kdegraphics requires some more work because of different gphoto versions, and I haven't started on the others.