K Desktop Environment 2 was the second series of releases of the

K Desktop Environment The KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC) was an umbrella term for the desktop environment plus a range of included applications produced by KDE. From its 1.0 release in July 1998 until the release of version 4.4 in February 2010, the Software Compi ...

. There were three major releases in this series.

Major updates

K Desktop Environment 2 introduced significant technological improvements compared to its predecessor. DCOP (Desktop COmmunication Protocol), a client-to-client communications protocol intermediated by a server over the standard

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

ICE library.

KIO KIO (KDE Input/Output) is a system library incorporated into KDE Frameworks 5 and KDE Software Compilation 4. It provides access to files, web sites and other resources through a single consistent API. Applications, such as Konqueror and Dolp ...

, an application I/O library. It is network transparent and can access

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

, PoP, IMAP, NFS, SMB,

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory servi ...

and local files. Moreover, its design permits developers to "drop in" additional protocols, such as

WebDAV WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which allows user agents to collaboratively author contents ''directly'' in an HTTP web server by providing facilities for concu ...

, which will then automatically be available to all KDE applications. KIO can also locate handlers for specified

MIME type A media type (also known as a MIME type) is a two-part identifier for file formats and format contents transmitted on the Internet. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the official authority for t ...

s; these handlers can then be embedded within the requesting application using the KParts technology.

KParts KDE Frameworks is a collection of libraries and software frameworks readily available to any Qt-based software stacks or applications on multiple operating systems. Featuring frequently needed functionality solutions like hardware integration, fi ...

, a component object model, allows an application to embed another within itself. The technology handles all aspects of the embedding, such as positioning toolbars and inserting the proper menus when the embedded component is activated or deactivated. KParts can also interface with the KIO trader to locate available handlers for specific MIME types or services/protocols.

KHTML KHTML is a browser engine developed by the KDE project. It is the default engine of the Konqueror browser, but it has not been actively worked on since 2016. Moreover, KHTML will be discontinued for KDE Frameworks 6. Built on the KParts framewor ...

, an

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

4.0 compliant rendering and drawing engine. It supports many Internet technologies, including

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

, HTML 4.0,

CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...

2, and SSL for secure communications. It is compatible with Netscape plugins such as

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid ...

. KHTML also has the capacity to embed components within itself using the KParts technology.

K Desktop Environment 2.0

Konqueror Konqueror is a free and open-source web browser and file manager that provides web access and file-viewer functionality for file systems (such as local files, files on a remote FTP server and files in a disk image). It forms a core part of ...

was introduced as web browser, file manager and document viewer. It used

for displaying web pages. K Desktop Environment 2 also shipped with the initial release of the

KOffice KOffice is a free and open source office and graphics suite developed by KDE for Unix-like and Windows systems. KOffice contains a word processor (KWord), a spreadsheet ( KSpread), a presentation program (KPresenter), and a number of other compon ...

suite, consisting of a spreadsheet application (

KSpread Calligra Sheets (formerly ''KSpread'' and ''Calligra Tables'') is a free software spreadsheet application that is part of Calligra Suite, an integrated graphic art and office suite developed by KDE. Among Sheets’ features are multiple sheets pe ...

), a vector drawing application (

KIllustrator Karbon (formerly Karbon14, Kontour, and KIllustrator) is a vector graphics editor. It is a component of Calligra Suite, an integrated Graphic art software, graphic art and office suite by KDE. The name is a play on KDE and the radioactive isotope ...

), a frame-based word-processing application (

KWord KWord is a deprecated word processor and a desktop publishing application, part of the KOffice suite. It has been obsoleted by Calligra Words of the Calligra Suite. History KWord was created by Reginald Stadlbauer as part of the KOffice projec ...

), a presentation program (

KPresenter Calligra Stage (formerly ''KPresenter'') is a free presentation program that is part of the Calligra Suite, an integrated office suite developed by KDE. Calligra Stage's native export format is OpenDocument. Stage is able to load presentation do ...

), and a chart and diagram application (

KChart Calligra Sheets (formerly ''KSpread'' and ''Calligra Tables'') is a free software spreadsheet application that is part of Calligra Suite, an integrated graphic art and office suite developed by KDE. Among Sheets’ features are multiple sheets pe ...

). Native file formats were

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

-based. KOffice included a scripting language and the ability to embed individual components within each other using KParts.

K Desktop Environment 2.1

The K Desktop Environment 2.1 release inaugurated the media player noatun, which used a modular, plugin design. For development, K Desktop Environment 2.1 was bundled with

KDevelop KDevelop is a free and open-source integrated development environment (IDE) for Unix-like computer operating systems and Windows. It provides editing, navigation and debugging features for several programming languages, and integration with buil ...

K Desktop Environment 2.2

The KDE 2.2 release featured up to a 50% improvement in application startup time on Linux systems and increased stability and capabilities for HTML rendering and JavaScript. A number of new plugins were included in Konqueror.

KMail Kontact is a personal information manager and groupware software suite developed by KDE. It supports calendars, contacts, notes, to-do lists, news, and email. It offers a number of inter-changeable graphical UIs (KMail, KAddressBook, Akregator, ...

received the addition of IMAP support (including SSL and TLS), while

KOrganizer Kontact is a personal information manager and groupware software suite developed by KDE. It supports calendars, contacts, notes, to-do lists, news, and email. It offers a number of inter-changeable graphical UIs (KMail, KAddressBook, Akregator, ...

got native

iCalendar The Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar) is a media type which allows users to store and exchange calendaring and scheduling information such as events, to-dos, journal entries, and free/busy information, an ...

support. Other improvements included a new plugin-based print architecture and a personalization wizard.

KDE Restoration Project

After celebrating KDE’s 20th birthday with a re-release of K Desktop Environment 1.1.2 on 14 October 2016, KDE and

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

contributor Helio Chissini de Castro also did re-releases of Qt2 in October 2017 and KDELibs 2.2.2 in December 2017.

Release schedule

References

{{KDE 2000 software Desktop environments KDE Software Compilation de:K Desktop Environment#K Desktop Environment 2.x