Koming Back to KDE What's New in KDE 3.2? Kurt Wall
Monday, March 15, 2004 10:36:17 AM
KDE has come a long way in usability, stability, compatibility, and
features since I first used it. The latest release of the K Desktop
Environment, 3.2.1, was released March 9. But for this review, I initially looked at KDE 3.2, which shows that Linux is increasingly competitive on the desktop.
Candidly, I was concerned
that KDE's size and complexity would result in a desktop that was
virtually unusable. I'm pleased and surprised to report that the KDE
of today is a far cry from the bug-ridden, crash-prone, bloated pig of
a desktop that I abandoned with disgust in the last millennium. Read on
to learn why.
NOTE: In a classic moment of ill timing, just as I finished this
review, the KDE Project released KDE 3.2.1. I've decided to leave the
3.2 review in place and add some updates at the end of this review
that cover the new features of 3.2.1.
The executive summary of KDE 3.2's features includes:
Better overall performance, enhanced support for desktop
interoperability standards, and increased compatibility with Web
standards
New applications and utilities for messaging, graphics, games,
personal productivity, and accessibility
Usability improvements in menus, tool bars, dialogs, and control
panels
Cleaner default appearance, new icons, and updated artwork
Almost 10,000 bug reports resolved and some 2000 feature requests
implemented
Developers get better KDE API documentation, new language bindings,
new versions of the development tools, and UML support
KDE 3.2's usability and performance has improved. One of the first
changes I noticed was significantly better speed in application start-up
times and Web page rendering.
