Software Update: Trinity Desktop Environment 3.5.13

In early 2008, the fourth update of the KDE Software Compilation was released, but not everyone was happy with it. Timothy Pearson, the Kubuntu release manager for KDE 3.5, has therefore started the Trinity Desktop Environment. With this so-called fork they have continued where KDE left off with version 3.5.10. It fixes known issues and tries to add new functionality and support for new hardware. Version 3.5.13 of Trinity Desktop Environment was released earlier this week and the main changes can be found below:

Back End Improvements

• 3.5.13 development starts at SVN revision r1182534
• Ported tqtinterface, arts, kdelibs, kdebase, kdeartwork, kdesdk, kdegraphics, kdepim, kdenetwork, kwebdev, and kdevelop to CMake.
• The Trinity project is now maintaining the required Qt glue libraries for poppler, avahi, and other applications
• Trinity is now using the TQ* class namespace within all modules, libraries, and applications except kdebindings
• Many bug fixes and crash fixes
• Additional Trinity rebrand

Interface Enhancements

• Added new “Monitor and Display” control center module for system wide single/multi monitor and display configuration
• Enhanced GTK Qt theme engine; tabs, checkboxes, menu backgrounds and much more now display correctly in the Trinity style
• An optional Secure Attention Key has been implemented to further secure the login and desktop lock dialogs
• A new widget theme, Asteroid, has been added
• A built-in TDE X11 compositor is now included, and certain Trinity applications, such as Amarok, now detect and use true ARGB transparency when available
• A TDE-specific DBUS notification client has been added for higher integration with common applications such as Firefox and NetworkManager?
• Prevent OpenGL? screensavers from locking up the display
• Fixed Flash plugin segfaults in Konqueror
• Enhanced Quick Launch? kicker applet
• Added “Deep Buttons” option to Kicker

New programs

• kbook reader
• kdbusnotification
• kmymoney
• kstreamripper

libraries

• DPMS support added
• Gamma configuration now available as an alternative to ICC colorspace configuration
• Multi-monitor configuration backend added
• displayconfig.png
• The new Monitor and Display control center module, built upon libkrandr

Qt3

• As of the 3.5.13 release the Trinity project has taken over maintenance of Qt3.
• This means we are the new “upstream” location for up-to-date Qt3 source code.
• Since there have been no updates or stable releases from Nokia/Trolltech in many years and there are literally hundreds of patches floating around, there was a significant need for a central location.
• By maintaining Qt3 it will allow us to continue to improve Qt3 outside the scope of Trinity. It will also provide a central location for Linux distributions to build packages from, and contributers to submit code to.
• For obvious reasons any Qt3 version released by this project is licensed under the GPL only; holders of Trolltech Qt licenses may not use these versions in their proprietary projects.