K Desktop Environment
| K Desktop Environment
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| Basic data
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| developer | KDE |
| Publishing year | 1996 |
| Current version | 3.5.10 ( August 26, 2008, see also: Successor ) |
| operating system | Unix-like with X11 |
| programming language | C ++ ( Qt ) |
| category | Desktop environment |
| License | GPL and compatible licenses |
| German speaking | Yes |
| de.kde.org | |
K Desktop Environment is a desktop environment of the KDE project for Unix-like operating systems and was part of the KDE software compilation . K Desktop Environment was replaced in 2009 by the successor KDE Plasma Workspaces .
Start of development
The project was launched on October 14, 1996 by Matthias Ettrich under the name Kool Desktop Environment . The programmers initially oriented themselves towards the proprietary Unix desktop CDE , which was already available at the time , both in terms of functionality and name. Right from the start, however, they relied on the object-oriented programming language C ++ and the already existing, extensive user interface library Qt , which was developed by Trolltech .
The name Kool was given up early on, so the K remained without any further meaning in the name.
The individual KDE components were initially developed in a relatively uncoordinated manner, which is why there were no uniform alpha versions . Development versions were published separately from the components and were announced to other developers on mailing lists .
Just over a year after the project was founded, on October 20, 1997, the first beta version was released . Three more beta versions followed: Beta 2 on November 23, 1997, Beta 3 on February 1, 1998, and finally Beta 4 on April 19, 1998.
| Major releases timeline | |
|---|---|
| date | version |
| KDE 1 | |
| October 14, 1996 | Project announced by Matthias Ettrich |
| October 20, 1997 | Beta 1 |
| July 12, 1998 | KDE 1.0 |
| February 6, 1999 | KDE 1.1 |
| KDE 2 | |
| October 23, 2000 | KDE 2.0 |
| February 26, 2001 | KDE 2.1 |
| August 15, 2001 | KDE 2.2 |
| KDE 3 | |
| April 3, 2002 | KDE 3.0 |
| January 28, 2003 | KDE 3.1 |
| February 3, 2004 | KDE 3.2 |
| August 19, 2004 | KDE 3.3 |
| March 16, 2005 | KDE 3.4 |
| November 29, 2005 | KDE 3.5 |
| August 26, 2008 | KDE 3.5.10 |
| Trinity | |
| April 29, 2010 | Trinity 3.5.11 |
| October 3, 2010 | Trinity 3.5.12 |
| November 1, 2011 | Trinity 3.5.13 |
K Desktop Environment 1.x
On July 12, 1998 the final version 1.0 of the K desktop environment was published. This early version was received with mixed feelings by the Unix community : many criticized the use of the non-free program package Qt to create a free desktop; Instead of Qt, Motif - at that time the standard for graphical user interfaces under Unixoid operating systems - or its free clone LessTif should have been used. Despite the critics, KDE was received positively by many end users and found its way into the first Linux distributions .
One of the consequences of the discussion about the license of Qt was that the Gnome project , which had existed for many years only as an idea, was now tackled in order to create a completely free desktop. Another approach was to develop a free, but fully compatible replacement for Qt as part of the Harmony project . Due to the pressure exerted on Trolltech and the persuasion work of the KDE developers, Trolltech decided in April 1999 to make Qt available in a special, freer version that largely met the requirements of the community. For this reason, the Harmony project was discontinued, while Gnome is still being developed today. This also paved the way for KDE to be included in those Linux distributions that had previously refused to do so with reference to the licensing problem.
On February 6, 1999, Stephan Kulow published version 1.1 for the KDE project. Visible changes were a completely overhauled artwork with new icons, background images and a new logo by Torsten Rahn from the letter "K" in front of a gear , which is still used today in a modified form.
There have been extensive changes. a. also on the Konqueror predecessor kfm , the program starter kpanel and the KWin predecessor kwm . Newly introduced were e.g. B. kab , a program library for address management and a new development from KMail , called kmail2 , which was installed as an alpha version parallel to an updated version of the old KMail. However, kmail2 never left the alpha stage and development was discontinued shortly afterwards.
At the same time Trolltech was preparing the 2.0 release of Qt with a beta version on January 28, 1999. Therefore, there were no major leaps in the version of the Qt 1-based KDE-1 versions. Instead, on May 3, 1999 and September 13, 1999, only the error correction versions 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 were published.
K Desktop Environment 1.1 received positive reviews.
K Desktop Environment 2.x
On June 25, 1999, Trolltech released the stable version 2.0 of Qt. Since it was not binary compatible with the 1 version of Qt, this also meant for the KDE project that a change to Qt 2 is not possible within the first KDE generation. The resulting major version jump was then used to completely revise the infrastructure of the KDE system. The first alpha version was released on December 15, 1999. It took almost a year for the first stable version to appear.
Aside from new key technologies introduced with KDE 2, a standout feature of KDE 2.0 was that it was based on Qt 2.2. Trolltech has now placed Qt 2.2 under the GPL 2.0 license . From then on there was no longer a license conflict between the GPL used by KDE and the QPL from Qt.
The new key technologies included DCOP ( Desktop COmmunication Protocol ) for interprocess communication , which has since been replaced by D-Bus . KIO ( KDE input / output ) as a uniform interface to file systems and KParts , a component object model that allows one application to be embedded in another.
KDE version 2.0 was published on October 23, 2000 and meant KDE's breakthrough as a permanent institution among the X11 user interfaces. Konqueror , the new KDE file manager and web browser, caused a stir . This was because Unix was suffering from a deficit of usable web browsers at the time - Netscape Navigator was out of date and unstable, while Mozilla was not yet ready.
There were three larger versions of the second KDE generation. In addition to 2.0, version 2.1 was released on February 26, 2001 and version 2.2 on August 15. A bug fix was released for 2.0, two each for 2.1 and 2.2.
K Desktop Environment 3.x
Version 3.0 of April 3, 2002 was primarily a porting of the K desktop environment to the new main version 3 of the underlying framework Qt, which appeared on October 15, 2001. In addition, KDE received a new printer framework and the Konqueror web browser could interpret DHTML .
With version 3.1 of January 28, 2003, K Desktop Environment got a so-called desktop sharing framework. With its help, a KDE desktop can be operated from a remote computer. B. can be used for remote administration by a customer service. From version 3.1, Konqueror supports tabbed browsing .
From version 3.2 of February 3, 2004, KDE has an integrated Personal Information Manager called Kontact . This software suite combines e-mail, address book, calendar, scheduler, newsreaders, weather display, birthday reminder, notepad and task list (to-do list) in an application.
In version 3.3 of August 19, 2004, the integration of the various programs with Kontact was improved in order to be able to access different aspects of the same data uniformly.
Version 3.4, published on March 16, 2005, included the fundamentally revised KPDF program for displaying PDF files and an interface for outputting text as speech. Since this version various programs such as B. the web browser, the PDF viewer or the editor Kate , can output your displayed texts directly as language.
In version 3.5 of November 29, 2005, the Konqueror web browser has been greatly improved. He now passes the Acid2 test of the Web Standards Project and is also able to hide advertising on websites using a configurable advertising filter. The instant messenger Kopete has support for Webcams for the protocols MSN and Yahoo Messenger added. KDE 3.5 also includes three new tutorials (KGeography, Kanagram and blinKen) and the SuperKaramba tool , which is used to display desktop widgets .
The last version of the KDE 3.5 series was released on August 26, 2008 with the version number 3.5.10. Development of bug fixes still takes place in the Subversion administration.
successor
KDE Plasma Workspaces and Software Compilation 4
On January 11, 2008, the fourth major version - "KDE 4" - was published. The formulation "K Desktop Environment" was no longer used and the technically independent and completely newly developed desktop environment was called "Plasma desktop shell". On November 24, 2009, shortly before the release of version 4.3.4, a repositioning of the “KDE” brand was announced, which was implemented with version 4.4. Since then, KDE is no longer used as an acronym, but as a fixed expression for the community behind it. The package of different components (applications, frameworks and desktop environments) that previously made up K Desktop Environment was divided into three products, which have since been published simultaneously as KDE Software Compilation.
Trinity Desktop Environment
| Trinity Desktop Environment
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 Screenshot from Trinity 3.5.12 |
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| Maintainer | Pearson Computing |
| developer | KDE, Pearson Computing |
| Current version | 14.0.8 (April 29, 2020) |
| operating system | GNU / Linux |
| programming language | C ++ ( Qt ) |
| category | Desktop environment |
| License | GPL and compatible licenses |
| German speaking | Yes |
| www.trinitydesktop.org | |
Trinity Desktop Environment is a semi-official sequel to the 3.5 series. Development originally took place in KDE's SVN version management , while the website, mailing lists and other web services are located at the project initiator Pearson Computing . In the meantime, however, Trinity is completely independent of KDE and operates its own Git server.
In October 2012 the Trinity project consisted of three people and it supports Debian , Fedora , Mageia , Mandriva Linux , openSUSE , Red Hat , Slackware and Ubuntu .
history
The project arose after Kubuntu delivered its Linux distribution in autumn 2008 only with KDE's new Plasma Desktop . Timothy Pearson originally only offered packages from KDE 3.5.10 for newer Kubuntu versions.
At the beginning of 2010, the original Kubuntu KDE3 project evolved into Trinity after Pearson had made modifications to the source code that were not just bug fixes and therefore could not be included in the KDE 3.5 branch of the KDE Subversion administration . The release team of KDE and Pearson agreed to set up a separate branch and not to declare releases as KDE , as they are released independently of KDE's release team .
Trinity 3.5.11 was released in April. Changes compared to K Desktop Environment 3.5.10 include: a. the support of the new NetworkManager 0.8 and the support of smart cards .
Version 3.5.12 was released in October 2010. This version mainly contains patches that distributors had already written for K Desktop Environment 3.5, but, as with the Kubuntu KDE3 patches, could not be officially included in KDE. B. an alternative start menu or the Kolab - Enterprise version from Kontact .
On November 1st, 2011 the new stable version 3.5.13 was released. The Trinity project takes over the source code of Qt 3 and sees itself as the central point for maintaining the C ++ class libraries that are no longer supported by Nokia. Some of the libraries now use CMake for compiling.
Version 14.0.0 was released on December 16, 2014 after more than two years of development.
literature
- Olaf Borkner-Delcardlo: Programming and using KDE 1.1 . MITP-Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-8266-0449-0 .
- Thomas Diehl: KDE 3. Practical guide to the graphical user environment for Linux / Unix . SUSE 2002, ISBN 3-934678-78-5 (extensive description of KDE 3 and its application programs)
- Stephan Lamprecht : KDE 3 for beginners . Hanser 2005, ISBN 3-446-40022-2 (Description of KDE 3 cross-distribution and based on KDE 3.3 and KDE 3.4)
Web links
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KDE for German-speaking users - official website
- KDE History (English)
- Trinity Desktop Environment
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Stuart Jarvis: Repositioning the KDE Brand. kde.org, November 24, 2009, accessed March 15, 2015 .
- ^ A b Matthias Ettrich: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted! Usenet, October 14, 1996, accessed May 26, 2010 .
- ↑ a b c d archive.arstechnica.com
- ↑ events.kde.org ( Memento of the original from October 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b KDE 1.0-beta1 release announcement. Retrieved May 26, 2010 .
- ↑ KDE 1.0-beta2 release announcement. Retrieved May 26, 2010 .
- ↑ KDE 1.0-beta3 release announcement. Retrieved May 26, 2010 .
- ↑ KDE 1.0-beta4 release announcement. Retrieved May 26, 2010 .
- ↑ KDE 1.0 Release Announcement. Retrieved March 27, 2008 .
- ↑ ChangeLog - kde news 1999-02 ( Memento from March 29, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ KDE announcement for version 2.0
- ↑ KDE announcement for version 2.1
- ↑ KDE announcement for version 2.2
- ↑ KDE announcement for version 3.0
- ↑ KDE announcement for version 3.1
- ↑ KDE announcement for version 3.2
- ↑ KDE announcement for version 3.3
- ↑ KDE announcement for version 3.4
- ↑ KDE announcement for version 3.5
- ↑ a b K Desktop Environment: KDE 3.5.10 Release Announcement (English), August 26, 2008.
- ↑ a b trinity.pearsoncomputing.net ( memento of the original from October 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b trinity.pearsoncomputing.net ( memento of the original from October 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ trinity.pearsoncomputing.net ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ archive.arstechnica.com
- ↑ lists.kde.org
- ↑ kde.org
- ↑ kde.org
- ↑ kde.org
- ↑ arstechnica.com
- ↑ gnu.org
- ↑ kde.org
- ↑ kde.org
- ↑ kde.org
- ↑ kde.org
- ↑ kde.org
- ↑ lists.trolltech.com ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b kde.org
- ↑ TDE celebrating its 10th anniversary with new R14.0.8 release! Retrieved May 22, 2020 .
- ↑ Hans-Joachim Baader: Trinity project continues KDE 3. pro-linux.de, May 28, 2010, accessed on March 15, 2015 .
- ↑ trinitydesktop.org ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Contributors ( Memento of the original from June 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 5, 2012.
- ↑ trinitydesktop.org
- ↑ Sebastian Grüner: Updates for KDE SC 4.7 and KDE 3.5. golem.de, November 3, 2011, accessed March 15, 2015 .
- ↑ 2014.12.16: Trinity Desktop Environment R14.0.0 Released! on trinitydesktop.org
