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KDE
kde (pronounced /ˌkeɪdiːˈiː/) is a free software project based around its flagship product, a cross-platform desktop environment designed to run on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X systems..The goal of the project is to provide basic desktop functions and applications for daily needs as well as tools and documentation for developers to write stand-alone applications for the system. In this regard, the KDE project serves as an umbrella project for many standalone applications and smaller projects that are based on KDE technology. These include KOffice, KDevelop, Amarok, K3b and many others. KDE software is based on the Qt toolkit. The original GPL version of this toolkit only existed for the X11 platform, but with the release of Qt 4, GPL versions are available for all platforms. This allows KDE software based on Qt 4 to also be distributed to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

Origins

KDE was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, who was then a student at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. At the time, he was troubled by certain aspects of the Unix desktop. Among his qualms was that none of the applications looked, felt, or worked alike. He proposed the formation of not only a set of applications, but rather a desktop environment, in which users could expect things to look, feel, and work consistently.

The name KDE was intended as a word play on the existing Common Desktop Environment, available for Unix systems. CDE was an X11-based user environment jointly developed by HP, IBM, and Sun, through the X/Open Company, with an interface and productivity tools based on the Motif graphical widget toolkit. It was supposed to be an intuitively easy-to-use desktop computer environment.The K was originally suggested to stand for “Kool”, but it was quickly decided that the K should stand for nothing in particular

First series
KDE 1.0

KDE is a network transparent, contemporary desktop environment for UNIX workstations. KDE seeks to fill the need for an easy to use desktop for Unix workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under the MacOS or Window95/NT. We believe that the UNIX operating system is the best operating system available today. In fact UNIX has been the undisputed choice of the information technology professional for many years. When it comes to stability, scalability and openness there is no competition to UNIX. However, the lack of an easy to use contemporary desktop environment for UNIX has prevented UNIX from finding its way onto the desktops of the typical computer user in offices and homes.

With KDE there is now an easy to use, contemporary desktop environment available for UNIX. Together with a free implementation of UNIX such as Linux, UNIX/KDE constitutes a completely free and open computing platform available to anyone free of charge including its source code for anyone to modify. While there will always be room for improvement we believe to have delivered a viable alternative to some of the more commonly found and commercial operating systems/desktops combinations available today. It is our hope that the combination UNIX/KDE will finally bring open, reliable, stable and monopoly free computing to the average computer.

Second and third series
KDE 2.0

The second series of releases, KDE 2, introduced significant technological improvements.These included DCOP (Desktop COmmunication Protocol), KIO, an application I/O library, KParts, a component object model, allowing an application to embed another within itself, and KHTML, an HTML rendering and drawing engine.KDE 3.2 with Konqueror and the About screen. This has been described as a watershed release.

The third series was much larger than the previous series, consisting of six major releases. The API changes between KDE 2 and KDE 3 were comparatively minor, meaning that the KDE 3 can be seen as largely a continuation of the KDE 2 series. All releases of KDE 3 were built upon Qt 3, which was only released under the GPL for Linux and Unix-like operating systems, including Mac OS X. For that reason, KDE 3 was only available on Windows through ports involving an X server.

Fourth series
KDE 4.0 with Dolphin and System Settings

KDE 4 is based on Qt 4 which is also released under the GPL for Windows and Mac OS X. Therefore KDE 4 applications can be compiled and run natively on these operating systems as well.

KDE 4 includes many new technologies and technical changes. The centerpiece is a redesigned desktop and a panel collectively called Plasma which replaces Kicker, KDesktop, and SuperKaramba by integrating their functionality into one piece of technology, and is intended to be more configurable for those wanting to update the decades-old desktop metaphor. There are a number of new frameworks, including Phonon, a new multimedia interface making KDE independent of any one specific media backend, Solid, an API for network and portable devices, and Decibel, a new communication framework to integrate all communication protocols into the desktop. Also featured is a metadata and search framework, incorporating Strigi as a full-text file indexing service, and NEPOMUK with KDE integration.

Development

KDE is built using the Qt toolkit which runs on most Unix and Unix-like systems, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Both KDE and GNOME now participate in freedesktop.org, an effort to standardize Unix desktop interoperability.

Source code

KDE releases are made to the http://websvn.kde.org/ FTP server in the form of source code with configure scripts, which are compiled by operating system vendors and integrated with the rest of their systems before distribution. Most vendors use only stable and tested versions of KDE, and provide it in the form of easily installed, pre-compiled packages. The source code of every stable and development version of KDE is stored in the KDE Subversion source code repository.

Applications

The Kontact personal information manager and Konqueror file manager/web browser running on KDE 3.5

Major applications for KDE include:

* Amarok – Audio player
* Dolphin – File manager
* K3b – Optical disc authoring software
* Kate – Text editor
* Kdenlive – Non-linear video editing
* KDevelop – Integrated development environment
* Konsole – Terminal emulator
* Kontact – Personal information manager featuring an e-mail client, a news client, a feed aggregator, To-do lists and more.
* Kopete – Instant messaging client
* Konqueror – Web browser and File manager
* KOffice – Office suite
* KTorrent – BitTorrent client

Base technologies

* KDELibs
* KHTML – HTML engine
* KIO – extensible network-transparent file access
* Kiosk – allows disabling features within KDE to create a more controlled environment
* KParts – lightweight in-process graphical component framework
* KWin – window manager
* XMLGUI – allows defining UI elements such as menus and toolbars via XML files