xboxrulz 0 Report post Posted March 17, 2005 (edited) For you Linux users, KDE 3.4 is out. I just installed it yesterday, and it's great! Here's the news article: DATELINE MARCH 16, 2005 The KDE Project ships a new major release of their leading Open Source desktop environment. Splash March 16, 2005 (The Internet) - After more than a half year of development the KDE Project is happy to be able to announce a new major release of the award-winning K Desktop Environment. Among the many new features that have been incorporated, the improvements in accessibility are most remarkable. One of the milestones in this new release will be the advanced KDE Text-to-speech framework. It integrates into KDE's PDF-viewer, editor, webbrowser and into the new speaker-tool KSayIt. It also allows to read out notifications from all KDE applications. Especially partially-sighted people and speech-impaired users will benefit, but it should also prove a fun desktop experience overall. For people with low vision, several high contrast themes including a complete monochrome icon set have been added. Other accessibility applications have been improved. KMouseTool which can click the mouse for people with, for example, carpal tunnel syndrome or tendinitis; KMouth to allow the computer to speak for the speech impaired; and KMagnifier to magnify sections of screen for partially-sighted users. Standard accessibility features including "Sticky Keys", "Slow Keys" and "Bounce Keys" are also available and are now more easily accessed via keyboard gestures. All of these features combine to open the world of computing to a much wider audience and to a section of the population that is often overlooked. The KDE project will continue its close cooperation with the accessibility community to reach even more people in the future. Another milestone will be the improvements of KDE's personal information management suite Kontact and of KDE's instant messenger Kopete. Kontact has improved usability including a new message composer and start screen, and its support for the free software groupware solution Kolab has been updated to Kolab 2.0. This means that KDE has now a complete groupware solution including an open-source server interoperable with proprietary MS Windows Outlook clients. Other supported groupware servers include eGroupware, GroupWise, OpenGroupware.org and SLOX. Kopete features an improved contact list showing contact photos, improved Kontact integration and supports AIM, Gadu-Gadu, GroupWise, ICQ, IRC, Jabber, Lotus Sametime, MSN, Yahoo, and the sending of SMS. With KDE being based on an international community there are more than 49 translations available and even more to be expected for future service packs of KDE 3.4. This is why KDE serves best the needs of today's world wide Linux community. KDE 3.4 is available for free under Open Source licenses and boasts eighteen packages of optional applications including accessibility, development, games, PIM, network, utilities, administration, edutainment, multimedia, graphics and more. Reactions from the accessibility community "With each new release, KDE continues to enhance its support for people with disabilities", Janina Sajka, chair of the Accessibility Workgroup of the Free Standards Group, said. "This is making KDE more and more attractive to more persons with disabilities. And, it's also helping KDE meet various social inclusion objectives worldwide, such as the Sec. 508 requirements of the U.S. Government." Lars Stetten from the Accessibility User Group Linaccess said about the release: "The new accessibility features in KDE 3.4 are an important step for the future, to enable disabled people to get to know the KDE desktop and to join its community." Highlights at a glance * Text-to-speech system with support built into Konqueror, Kate, KPDF and the standalone application KSayIt * Support for text to speech synthesis is integrated with the desktop * Completely redesigned, more flexible trash system * Kicker with improved look and feel * KPDF now enables you to select, copy & paste text and images from PDFs, along with many other improvements * Kontact supports now various groupware servers, including eGroupware, GroupWise, Kolab, OpenGroupware.org and SLOX * Kopete supports Novell Groupwise and Lotus Sametime and gets integrated into Kontact * DBUS/HAL support allows to keep dynamic device icons in media:/ and on the desktop in sync with the state of all devices * KHTML has improved standard support and now close to full support for CSS 2.1 and the CSS 3 Selectors module * Better synchronization between 2 PCs * A new high contrast style and a complete monochrome icon set * An icon effect to paint all icons in two chosen colors, converting third party application icons into high contrast monochrome icons * Akregator allows you to read news from your favourite RSS-enabled websites in one application * Juk has now an album cover management via Google Image Search * KMail now stores passwords securely with KWallet * SVG files can now be used as wallpapers * KHTML plug-ins are now configurable, so the user can selectively disable ones that are not used. This does not include Netscape-style plug-ins. Netscape plug-in in CPU usage can be manually lowered, and plug-ins are more stable. * more than 6,500 bugs have been fixed * more than 1,700 wishes have been fullfilled * more than 80,000 contributions with several million lines of code and documentation added or changed whyme says: you made i quoting typo, i've correct it. Edited March 18, 2005 by whyme (see edit history) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
whyme 0 Report post Posted March 18, 2005 program looks nice, but i'm sticking with my windows. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xboxrulz 0 Report post Posted March 18, 2005 Thanx, whyme. Also, you should spread out more and explore other OSes. Linux is great!xboxrulz Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
whyme 0 Report post Posted March 18, 2005 I actaully do want to start using MandrakeLinux, but haven't had the guts to try it. My only fear is moving my 40 gigs of files when i don't a a dvd burner and my cd writer is somewhat busted... Can you give me some answers from my questions below? thanks1. Can linux run .exe files? or a majority of windows programs?2. What's the difference betwenn Gentoo, and Suse, and KDE, are they all deratives of the actual linux?3. Is linux compaitble with Windows drivers? or are there seperate drivers for linux?thanks.-whyme Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xboxrulz 0 Report post Posted March 18, 2005 1) You will need WINE, an emulator to run some Windows software2) They are different competitors in the Linux competition. All have Linux kernel inside, but it has different improvements from each.3) Linux uses different drivers than Windows, but most are already available in Linux.In general, Linux can almost do everything Windows can do. (except for Windows only capability, like crashing simontaniously and a filesystem that will corrupt, if you're an admin like me)xboxrulz Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xboxrulz 0 Report post Posted March 18, 2005 o ya, Linux can read and write FAT systems, but not yet on NTFS. NTFS is a read-only system for Linux currently. Also, please use MEPIS http://www.mepis.org/ or SUSE https://www.suse.com/ Thanks, xboxrulz Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
whyme 0 Report post Posted March 18, 2005 great, linux looks pretty reliable and strong. I think I may give KDE a test drive soonthanks for the info. -whyme Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xboxrulz 0 Report post Posted March 18, 2005 np, and welcome to the Linux community; after installing your new Linux, you may want to register as a Linux member. Just click my registered Linux number.Have fun!xboxrulz Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
