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KDE

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KDE (K Desktop Environment) is a Free graphical desktop environment and framework built with Trolltech's QT Toolkit for Unix. The "K" originally stood for "Kool", but was later changed to stand simply for "K", which is "The first letter before 'L' (which stands for Linux) in the Latin alphabet".

The project was announced in October 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, and KDE 1.0 was released in July 1998, to be followed by KDE 2.0 in October 2000. The current version KDE 3.1 was released in Novemberl 2002.

According to the KDE website; "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 MacOS or Microsoft Windows."

KDE was originally patterned after (and presumably intended to replace) CDE, the "Common Desktop Environment". CDE is an older Unix desktop environment used by commercial Unix vendors, such as Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.

It is one of the most flexible guis in existence and it now features exstensive eye candy such as the Keramik GUI, Crystal icons, Translucency in menus and Improved antialiasing which makes it compare with commerical guis such as Windows and MacOS X.

There is a perceived ongoing flame war between certain users of KDE and GNOME as to which GUI is "better", however, this has generally been blown out of proportion by the media, and there is a large degree of cooperation between GNOME and KDE to promote interoperation and to set standards.

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