News Archive for February 1999

Robert Williams originated, researched and started the new web site section Books covering KDE. There are already two entries available. More are bound to come really soon now.

Changes since v0.5 include:
• support for KDE v1.1
• support for static member functions
• 47 new Qt classes
• 25 new KDE classes

All the Qt user interface widgets have now been implemented.

Linux-Magazin, still the only German monthly exclusively dedicated to Linux, is proud to announce its regularly from now on to be published column "Korner".

With this column, the KDE is getting a permanent coverage in our publication. Two subsections have been introduced: "K-tool", presenting "the KDE tool of the month", and "K-splitter" with tips, tricks and news from the KDE.

The Korner can be found in the beginners/users section of the magazine. It was first published in recent issue 03/99.

Patricia Jung, pjung@linux-magazin.de
http://www.linux-magazin.de/

Roberto Alsina pointed us to a fairly positive article entitled "For consumers, Linux a work in progress" by Lawrence J. Magid. After a short presentation of Linux, GNU and Open Source reality, KDE is given as an example of functional graphics interface: "KDE Desktop Environment Project provides you with a "what you see is what you get" interface that's very easy to use."

delix has uploaded official RPMs for their "Deutsche Linux Distribution" (DLD) to our master server.

They can be found at: ftp://ftp.de.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/1.1/distribution/rpm/DLD-6.0/binary/

Note: DLD 6.0 is completely glibc2 based. Therefore the above RPMs do not work on older DLDs like 5.41.

Matthias Hölzer-Klüpfel has uploaded official RPMs for Caldera OpenLinux 1.3 to our master server.

They will appear firstly on

ftp://ftp.de.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/1.1/distribution/rpm/COL-1.3/i386

and shortly delayed on

ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/1.1/distribution/rpm/COL-1.3/i386

The packages are already available on Caldera's FTP site

New in this version (relative to KDE 1.1pre2):
• KDE is now configured to use PAM
• KDM has got a new default configuration
• KMidi now uses the timidity-instruments patches as default

Note: Thanks to Matthias for his meticulous work and to Martin Konold for the announcement.

Thanks to the excellent work of Duncan Haldane from the KDE Packaging Group (reach him at redhat-rpms@kde.org), binary packages of KDE-1.1 for Red Hat 5.1/5.2 on Intel architecture are available. Here is a short list of added value for these packages:

• the RPMs are now relacatable (you can install them to other locations than the default /opt/kde)
• the applications in the "optional" collections are now available as separate packages. KPackage-1.1.2 is also included
• a few automating shell scripts are provided: install-kde-1.1-base, install-kde-1.1-apps, and even an useless :-) uninstall-kde-1.1. Their usage must be straightforward. Follow the (also provided) instructions.

Thanks to Duncan for his dedicated work. Thanks to Martin Konold for the announce.

Our great friend, Gael Duval, sent us a link to the official announcement of the latest Linux-Mandrake release, version 5.3.

This is the very first Linux distribution to ship with the popular KDE-1.1. A brave and valuable initiative. We express our most sincere thanks to Gael and his hard working team. Also, Linux-Mandrake is the first distribution to ship with Linux kernel 2.2.1 on CD.

Well, those who waited for such a nugget all the long of 1998, jump and get it, since this is the first (and perhaps the most interesting) Linux riding experience in Millenium's last year.

OctobrX of themes.org fame released this week's Guest Tile featuring Netscape's Seth Spitzer. Seth had a few very kind words for our project: "I'm really impressed with KDE. I've helped a few co-workers install Linux on their PCs. These people come from the Mac and Window's worlds, and KDE makes a great first impression. They expected a vt100 terminal, and KDE comes as a shock."

Luc I. Suryo announces:

The new KDE 1.1 packages for Solaris 7 (Intel and Sparc) have been uploaded to the KDE ftp site. Check the incoming repository at KDE (should move into the stable tree soon) or the original site.

Please report any error/bugs to the KDE team and us (Donnie Cranford or me - {Luc}). And remember you need qt 1.42.

On a side note, the following platforms gained also a binary package set of KDE-1.1: Debian-Slink (i386), DLD-6.0, Slackware-3.5. You can get them at KDE's ftp site.

Stephan Kulow, Master of the CVS, wearing ad interim the togue of the Master of the Great Release, announced today, 6 February 1999 at 21h17 (CET), that the latest and greatest KDE version, KDE-1.1, is released: "OK, I tagged [the CVS repository] with 1_1_RELEASE and put that tagged version on upload.kde.org". Wait for binary package sets to appear any time now for the different Unix platforms.

Again, at this moment of celebration, our gratitude is addressed to the excellent community of KDE developers for their selfless work and to the millions of users which, by constant support and encouragement, by bug reports and by features suggestions, made KDE possible, and the nice, more than two years long, history of our project, a glorious one. Thank you all!

A huge number of reporters wanted us to add in here the announcement of a new Linux distribution, EasyLinux®. This new distribution, produced by eIT GbR Germany, will feature complete graphics installation and configuration and is heavily based on KDE and Qt. Citing: "In our opinion the development shows that the future of Linux is KDE (Kool Desktop Environment), thus our aim is a fast and easy installation of the KDE desktop." Thank you, eIT.

The Esware Team announces that a new Linux distribution, called Esware is released. This new distribution uses Spanish (castellane) as its primary human language and KDE as its boot-in graphics user interface. Thanks a lot to the Esware team.

Roberto Alsina remarked (and left us know) that the Spanish magazine PC Actual includes KDE in its cover CD for the February issue not once but twice: with Caldera OpenLinux 1.3 - whose distribution even comes with a KDE-1.1pre1 update directory - and with FreeBSD 3.0 - which also has KDE included.

The same Roberto Alsina - which seems to be in a KDE publishing hunt hurry these days :-) - announces that the Spanish magazine PC Media includes in this month's issue a cover CD with KDE-1.0 and some supplementary KDE applications.

Fruitful hunting season, isn't it, Roberto?