The first beta release of the MiDesktop project has been introduced, which develops a fork of the KDE desktop environment 1.1.2, adapted for modern systems. To resolve licensing issues specific to the Qt 1 branch, the KDE 1 codebase has been ported to the Osiris framework, which develops the updated fork of Qt 2.3.2. The MiDesktop code is distributed under the GPLv2 license. Pre-built versions are available for Debian 13 and Ubuntu 24.04.
The key features of MiDesktop include interface simplicity, light weight, and high performance. Developers aim to maintain the overall minimalist approach to desktop system development from the late 1990s and early 2000s while eliminating the shortcomings inherent in systems from that period and modernizing the KDE 1 codebase without overloading the user environment with excessive functionality.
To run MiDesktop, any Linux system with glibc and an X server, such as XWayland or X.Org Server, or the Wayback layer is sufficient. Dependencies include libraries libjpeg, libtiff, libpng, Osiris Toolkit 2.4.4+, libxcb, libxkb, and gettext. CMake and GCC 12+ are required for building.
Among the changes in the beta release:
- A new taskbar, MiPanel, has been added, based on the KPanel version supplied in Corel Linux.
- Applications KCalc, KHexdit, KScreenshot, Ark, and KNotes have been ported.
- Full support for scrolling with the mouse wheel has been implemented (previously, scrolling only worked when the cursor was over the scrollbar).
- Font rendering issues have been addressed (antialiasing did not work before).
- Problems with disappearing menus and random clicks on the panel have been fixed.
- Hierarchical display of lists in the KDE Control Center has been established.
- Issues with resizing GTK applications' windows, such as Firefox, which caused part of the window to be displaced outside the visible area, have been resolved.
Source: opennet.ru
