Ximian Desktop 2: released!

[Nat Friedman <nat ximian com>]

		     The Crazy Monkeys at Ximian

			   Proudly Announce

		    The Immediate Availability of:

			  Ximian Desktop 2!

Introduction
------------

    We have labored intensively for the last four or five days to
    build Ximian Desktop 2, the latest version of our GNOME-based user
    environment for Linux.  It has been an intense week.

    This is our first major release of the desktop since April of
    2001, and we think it reflects the enormous strides that have been
    taken in the open source desktop universe.

    Our target audience for this release is big organizations who want
    to deploy large numbers of Linux clients, displacing Windows or
    Solaris workstations.  

    But no matter who you are, we think you'll be impressed with what
    we've done in this release.  This is by far the most
    well-integrated, and hence, the most usable Linux desktop we've
    ever seen.  And we think you'll agree.

Gimme!
------

    Up-to-date download instructions for Ximian Desktop 2 can always
    be found at:

        http://www.ximian.com/download

    To purchase XD2 on CD or for download from one of our dedicated
    Red Carpet Express servers, visit our store:

        https://store.ximian.com/xd2

    The only way to install XD2 is to use our graphical installer.  To
    start your free install on a supported platform, become root and
    then type:

        wget -q -O - http://go.ximian.com |sh

    This will download and run the preinstaller shell script.  If you
    want to view the script before it is run, save it to a file first.

    Paying users should follow the instructions on our store.

Ximian Desktop 2 Goals and Features
-----------------------------------

    Based on GNOME 2.2, OpenOffice.org 1.0.3, and Mozilla 1.3.

    Ximian Evolution 1.4

        Ximian Desktop 2 ships with the brand-new, GNOME 2-based
        Evolution 1.4 personal information manager.  You can read the
        full release notes for Evolution 1.4 here:

       
http://developer.ximian.com/projects/evolution/release_notes/1.4.html

        Besides looking pretty, the new Evolution is *substantially*
        faster than Evolution 1.2.

    Ximian Red Carpet 2.0 GUI

        The new RC2 GUI client is now an integrated part of Ximian
        Desktop.  You can see screenshots of the new client here:

            http://www.ximian.com/products/redcarpet/screenshots.html

        And read Joe Shaw's announcement here:

           
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2003-March/msg00090.html

        Red Carpet 2.0 also includes a command-line client for
        software management called 'rug'.  Check it out.

    Open Office, Ximian Edition

        - ~1,000 new alpha-blended icons that are aesthetically
          consistent with the rest of the desktop.  We use large icon
          mode by default.  We also have some other new art in some of
          the wizards and of course the splash (which no longer makes
          your desktop unusable while each application starts up).
    
          You can see all our OOo icons here: 

                http://developer.ximian.com/themes/icons/ooo-icons.html
    
        - Shares the Gtk theme elements. Uses fontconfig, AA fonts
          everywhere in the UI now.
    
        - Mapping of MSFT document fonts to Agfa fonts (which XD2
          Professional Edition includes).  
    
          Also, our artists drew a whole new font just to handle the
          bullet mappings (which aren't fully covered by Agfa's fonts).
          See: http://developer.ximian.com/images/jimmac-rocks.png

        - GNOME-VFS integration in OOo means that you can open any files
          the VFS can get to.  This includes files on unmounted SMB and
          NFS shares.  We even handle the authentication for these
          shares (We redid the authentication layer in OOo), so you get
          prompted if the share is password protected.
    
        - Nice CUPS printing integration so you get the same printer
          list in OOo you get everywhere else in the desktop.
    
        - Support for the recent files spec so that System->Recent Files
          reflects the documents you've opened in OOo.
    
        - Uses MSFT file formats by default, reflecting the reality of
          most of the documents you will receive.  No longer tells you
          you're about to lose all your data when you save in an MSFT
          format.
    
        - Removed the non-redistributable GPC library, replaced it with
          libart.  This means not only that we can legally ship OOo, but
          we import PowerPoint(tm) presentations more accurately as
          well.
    
        - Integrates nicely with Galeon and Evolution.
    
        - Includes a number of foreign-language dictionaries.

    Printing

        Dave Camp and Chris Lahey developed a whole new, complete
        printing UI for XD2.  It's pretty dope.  Everything is based
        on CUPS.  The installer switches you to CUPS the first time
        you run it, and then everything uses CUPS from there.

        Dave wrote a library called libgnomecups which our tools use
        for setup and configuration of CUPS printers.  And there's an
        accompanying daemon called gnome-cups-manager which is best
        described by Dave's excellent README file:

       
http://developer.ximian.com/projects/desktop/release_notes/gnome-cups-manager-readme.txt

        Our feature list for printing is below.

        - "printers:" view in the file manager

            - Lists all configured and unconfigured but autodetected
              printers.  Explicitly configured printers are treated
              the same as autoconfigured printers -- printers which
              are discovered automatically.  Currently only CUPS
              printers on the network are discovered automatically,
              and some local printers, but we will have SMB discovery
              at some point.
    
            - There's a 'New Printer' icon in the printers: view.  If
              you launch it, you get the "New Printer" wizard
              (described below).
    
            - If you right click on a printer, you get a little menu
              where you can set hits properties, and do other things
              to it.  You never have to be root to do these things.
    
            - Double click on a printer to see its print queue.

        - New Printer Wizard

            . The new printer wizard lets you manually configure a
              printer by specifying its location on the network (or
              locally).

            . Some day (2.0.1) we will have an 'autohunt' mode where
              the machine will hunt around any given workgroup for
              printers that you can then manually add.  This is
              helpful for explicitly adding printers that aren't in
              your default workgroup.

        - Icon list of printers in all GNOME-Print-using apps.

        - Dropdown list of printers in OOo.

        - Properties

            . This is a dialog for configuring CUPS-exported printer
              properties (like DPI, double-sided vs. single-sided, etc).
    
            . Commonly-used properties exposed on main tabs
    
            . 'Advanced' tab has autogenerated UI for all of the
              non-common printer config properties.
    

        - When you print, a little printer icon will appear in the the
          notification area applet.

    Industrial
        We have a brand new and nice-looking theme called Industrial.
        Industrial is intended to be clean, simple and intuitive for
        new users.  It includes a cool set of some new icons too, to
        better match the theme.

    Control Center
       We have a new control center shell, which is nicely organized.
       System-admin types of capplets are available in the System
       menu.

    My Computer
       We have a unified My Computer interface to the system which
       shows your removable filesystems and gives you access to your
       shared filesystems on the network.  Including NFS shares, which
       is pretty cool.

    Third Party Components
       We integrated Flash, Real, JRE and Acroread packages.  This
       makes it easier to browse the web.

       We've licensed 29 separate fonts from Agfa Monotype; many of
       these are metrically compatible with certain MSFT equivalents.

Platform List
-------------

    The Ximian Desktop 2.0 release supports the following platforms:

        - SuSE 8.2
        - Red Hat Linux 7.3
        - Red Hat Linux 8.0
        - Red Hat Linux 9
        
    The supported distribution list is kept up-to-date in our support
    database:

        http://support.ximian.com/xd2-platforms

    XD2 supports a narrower range of platforms than either Evolution
    or Red Carpet Enterprise.  For our full set of supported platforms
    for all our products, check here:

        http://support.ximian.com/platforms

    If your favorite platform isn't supported, we're sorry about that.
    If, on the other hand, you are a large organization interested in
    deploying XD2 on an unsupported distribution, please contact us to
    suggest that we support your platform for a future release.

Knowledgebase and Support
-------------------------

    We maintain a knowledgebase of support articles for all our
    products on support.ximian.com.  These articles address many of
    the common issues you might encounter installing and using XD2.

    You can see a list of all the XD2-related support articles here:

            http://support.ximian.com/xd2

    The knowledgebase contains a bunch of useful tips and tricks,
    including:

        How do I burn a CD?
        How do I edit my menus?
        How do I setup a printer?
        What's new in the Ximian Edition of OpenOffice.org?

    If you are a paying customer, you can submit questions to our
    support engineers on support.ximian.com.

How to file a bug
-----------------

    If you think you've found a bug in our desktop, you can report the
    bug in our bugzilla database here:

        http://bugzilla.ximian.com/xd2bug

    If you're a paying customer, you should report problems through
    our support center, either by mailing your support tech or opening
    a new incident on support.ximian.com.

    You can make suggestions in bugzilla too; just mark your bug as
    'wishlist' and it will be triaged into our roadmap.

Sales Information
-----------------

    Ximian's business is to help organizations and enterprises deploy
    and manage Linux clients in high volumes.  We assist with
    planning, migration, deployment and management of workstations and
    servers.

    If your company or department is interested in our services and in
    licensing a supported version of our desktop or management
    products, contact our sales department at sales ximian com 

Getting our Patches
-------------------

    The patches that go into XD2 are available under the licenses of
    their respective packages.  New packages and files that we've
    created specify their licenses in the COPYING file.

    General instructions for getting source code for Ximian software
    can be found on our developer site:

        http://developer.ximian.com/projects/source/

    You can also find XD2 patches here:

        http://patches.ximian.com/

    And of course, in the source RPMs on our FTP site (ftp.ximian.com)
    and on our mirrors.  The full mirror list is available here:

        http://www.ximian.com/mirrors.html

Okay for now.

Share and enjoy,
The Ximian Team