ArsTechnica takes a first look at KDE 4.1 beta 2

"The developers of the open source KDE desktop environment announced the availability of the second KDE 4.1 beta release this week. This version has many improvements to usability and overall robustness compared to the previous beta. I tested KDE 4.1 beta 2 with a LiveCD build of openSUSE 11.

Some of the new Plasma features that were introduced in beta 1 are maturing and feel like a much more natural part of the KDE experience. The Plasma panel configuration mechanism, for instance, is more fully implemented in this release. I was able to change the panel width and height, change its position along the screen edge, and move it to different screen edges, all with simple point-and-click interactions. I was also able to add and remove additional panels."

>> First look: KDE 4.1 beta 2 shows solid improvements

KDE 4.1 Beta 2 has been released

"The KDE Community is proud to announce the second beta release of KDE 4.1. Beta 2 is aimed at testers, community members and enthusiasts in order to identify bugs and regressions, so that 4.1 can fully replace KDE 3 for end users. KDE 4.1 beta 2 is available as binary packages for a wide range of platforms, and as source packages. KDE 4.1 is due for final release in late July 2008.

KDE 4.1 Beta 2 Highlights

After one month has passed since the feature freeze on the KDE 4.1 branch,
the KDE hackers have been working on polishing the new features, desktop integration, and documenting and translating the packages. Several bugfixing sessions have been held and squashed bugs in the beta software. While there are still bugs left that need to be fixed until the release, KDE 4.1 Beta2 shapes up nicely. Testing and feedback on this release is appreciated and needed to make KDE 4.1 a splash."

>> KDE 4.1 Beta 2 Released

KDE 4.0.5 has been released

"KDE Community Ships Fifth Translation and Service Release of the 4.0 Free Desktop, Containing Numerous Bugfixes, Performance Improvements and Translation Updates

June 4, 2008 (The INTERNET). The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.0.5, the fifth bugfix and maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop. KDE 4.0.5 is the fourth monthly update to KDE 4.0. It ships with a basic desktop and many other packages; like administration programs, network tools, educational applications, utilities, multimedia software, games, artwork, web development tools and more. KDE's award-winning tools and applications are available in 49 languages.

The KDE 4.0 desktop KDE, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for free under Open Source licenses. KDE can be obtained in source and various binary formats from http://download.kde.org and can also be obtained on CD-ROM or with any of the major GNU/Linux and UNIX systems shipping today.

Enhancements

KDE 4.0.5 comes with several bugfixes and performance improvements. Most of them are recorded in the changelog. KDE continues to release updates for the 4.0 desktop on a monthly basis. KDE 4.1, which will bring large improvements to the KDE desktop and application will be released in July this year. A first Beta is already available for testing. KDE 4.0.5 stabilises the desktop further, users of previous KDE 4.0 versions are encouraged to update. Improvements revolve around lots of bugfixes and translation updates. Corrections have been made in such a way that results in only a minimal risk of regressions.

Extragear

Since KDE 4.0.0, Extragear applications are also part of regular KDE releases.

Extragear applications are KDE applications that are mature, but not part of one of the other KDE packages.

More information at: http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-4.0.5.php "

>> KDE 4.0.5 Released

liquidat takes a brief look at KDE4Daily, a KDE 4.1 based live CD.

"It can be used to have a look at the new features of the upcoming KDE 4.1. But it can also be used to find bugs. However, in case you find a bug always state that the bug was found inside KDE4Daily - it could also be that a bug is specific to this special environment."

>> KDE4Daily - testing KDE 4.1 with daily updates

KDE 4.0.4 has been released

"KDE Community Ships Fourth Translation and Service Release of the 4.0 Free Desktop, Containing Numerous Bugfixes, Performance Improvements and Translation Updates May 7, 2008 (The INTERNET). The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.0.4, the fourth bugfix and maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop. KDE 4.0.4 is the fourth monthly update to KDE 4.0. It ships with a basic desktop and many other packages; like administration programs, network tools, educational applications, utilities, multimedia software, games, artwork, web development tools and more. KDE's award-winning tools and applications are available in 49 languages.

KDE, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for free under Open Source licenses. KDE can be obtained in source and various binary formats from http://download.kde.org and can also be obtained on CD-ROM or with any of the major GNU/Linux and UNIX systems shipping today.

Enhancements
KDE 4.0.4 comes with several bugfixes and performance improvements. changelog. KDE continues to release updates for the 4.0 desktop on a monthly basis. KDE 4.1, which will bring large improvements to the KDE desktop and application will be released in July this year. A first Alpha is already available for those that want to take a sneak peak at new features. KDE 4.0.4 stabilises the desktop further, users of previous KDE 4.0 versions are encouraged to update. Improvements revolve around lots of bugfixes and translation updates. Corrections have been made in such a way that results in only a minimal risk of regressions.

Extragear
Since KDE 4.0.0, Extragear applications are also part of regular KDE releases.

Extragear applications are KDE applications that are mature, but not part of one of the other KDE packages."

>> KDE 4.0.4 Released

New kdelibs packages are available for Slackware 12.0 and -current to fix a security issue.

More details about this issue may be found in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database:

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-1671

As well as from the KDE web site:

http://www.kde.org/info/security/advisory-20080426-2.txt

>> Read more

KDE 4.0.3 has been released

"April 2, 2008 (The INTERNET). The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.0.3, the third bugfix and maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop. KDE 4.0.3 is the third monthly update to KDE 4.0. It ships with a basic desktop and many other packages; like administration programs, network tools, educational applications, utilities, multimedia software, games, artwork, web development tools and more. KDE's award-winning tools and applications are available in 49 languages.

Enhancements

KDE 4.0.3 comes with an impressive amount of bugfixes and improvements. Most of them are recorded in the changelog. KDE continues to release updates for the 4.0 desktop on a monthly basis. KDE 4.1, which will bring large improvements to the KDE desktop and application will be released in July this year.

KDE 4.0.3 improvements revolve around lots of bugfixes and translation updates. Corrections have been made in such a way that results in only a minimal risk of regressions. For KDE, it is also a way to deliver bugfixes quickly to the users. An excerpt from the changelog reveals that nearly all modules in KDE have seen lots of improvements. Again, the KHTML team has done an awesome job in improving the user experience with the Konqueror web browser.

* Scrolling optimisations in KHTML, KDE's HTML rendering engine
* Improved handling of dialog windows in KWin, KDE's window manager
* Various rendering improvements in Okular, KDE's document viewer

Extragear

Since KDE 4.0.0, Extragear applications are also part of regular KDE releases. Extragear applications are KDE applications that are mature, but not part of one of the other KDE packages. The extragear package that is shipped with KDE 4.0.3 ship the following programs:

* KColoredit - An editor for color palette files that supports KDE and Gimp color palette formats
* KFax - A desktop fax viewer
* KGrab - A more advanced screenshot taking tool
* KGraphviewer - A GraphViz dot graph viewer for KDE
* KIconedit - A drawing program for icon graphics
* KMldonkey - A graphical client for the EDonkey network
* KPovmodeler - A 3D modeler
* Libksane - An image-scanning library
* RSIbreak - A program that saves you from getting RSI by enforcing breaks

New in this release of the Extragear application is the Gopher KIO slave, a plugin that adds support for the Gopher protocol to all KDE applications."

>> KDE 4.0.3 Released

Polishlinux.org posted another update on the visual changes of KDE 4.1

"You don’t always see this in the official changelogs but the KDE 4 development is progressing in an extraordinary speed. After a deep look at rev 777000 we are presenting you a new visual review of changes made to KDE 4 during the last couple of weeks."

>> KDE 4.1: Visual Changelog (rev 783000)

KDE 4.0.2 has been released

"March 5, 2008 (The INTERNET). The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.0.2, the second bugfix and maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop. KDE 4.0.2 ships with a basic desktop and many other packages like administration, network, education, utilities, multimedia, games, artwork, web development and more. KDE's award-winning tools and applications are available in almost 49 languages.

KDE, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for free under Open Source licenses. KDE can be obtained in source and various binary formats from http://download.kde.org and can also be obtained on CD-ROM orwith any of the major GNU/Linux and UNIX systems shipping today.

Enhancements
KDE 4.0.2 is a maintenance release which provides corrections of problems reported using the KDE bug tracking system and enhanced support for existing and new translations. For KDE 4.0.2, the Documentation and Translation teams have made an exception to the usual policy of not changing user-visible strings, so the Plasma developers could introduce some new features for this KDE version.

Improvements in this release include, but are not limited to:
* New features in Plasma. The size and position of the panel can now beconfigured, the visibility of a number of option is now improved to makes it easier for new users to discover how Plasma works and what it provides.
* Farsi and Icelandic version of KDE 4.0.2 further improve localisation, other translations have been improved further. KDE 4.0.2 is available in 49 languages.
* Repainting issues have been addressed in the KHTML webbrowser engine. KHTML now also supports more websites by accepting more non-HTML4-compliant documents.

Several stability issues have been fixed in Kopete, KDE's instant messenger and Okular, the document reader.

For a more detailed list of improvements since the KDE 4.0.1 release last month, please refer to the KDE 4.0.2 Changelog.

Additional information about the enhancements of the KDE 4.0.x release series is available in the KDE 4.0 announcement and in the KDE 4.0.1 announcement.

Changelog:
http://www.kde.org/announcements/changelogs/changelog4_0_1to4_0_2.php "

>> KDE 4.0.2 Released with new Features in Plasma

polishlinux.org takes a look at the visual changes in KDE 4.1

"KDE 4.1 will be what everyone expected 4.0 to be — a fully functional revolutionary Linux desktop. I took a look at the revision 777000 of this desktop environment and what you get is a visual changelog describing the current progress in terms of look and feel and the features."

>> KDE 4.1: Visual Changelog (rev 777000)

KDE 3.5.9 has been released

"The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.5.9, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. The most important changes have been made to the KDE-PIM applications, including the KMail email client, KOrganizer, a planning application and other components.

The KDE-PIM enterprise branch, that has already been shipped by some distributions has found its way into the stable branch of KDE. While KDE 3 has been in bugfix mode for quite a while now, the Release Team has decided to merge the enterprise branch and release it as KDE-PIM proper in 3.5.9 since no regressions are known and it makes packagers' lives easier.

New features and bugfixes in this branch include, but are not limited to:

* A Favorite email folders view in KMail, as well as drag and drop support for folders
* Easier scheduling in KOrganizer through various improvements in the user interface
* Improvements in KAlarm and KAddressbook

Many more of those can be found on Techbase (http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/PIM/Features_3.5.9 ). More bugfixes contained in this release can be found in the Changelog (http://www.kde.org/announcements/changelogs/changelog3_5_8to3_5_9.php )."

>> KDE 3.5.9 Brings New Enterprise Email and Calendaring Features

KDE 4.0.1 has been released:

"February 6, 2008 (The INTERNET). The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.0.1, the first bugfix and maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop. KDE 4.0.1 ships with a basic desktop and many other packages like administration, network, education, utilities, multimedia, games, artwork, web development and more. KDE's award-winning tools and applications are available in almost 50 languages.

KDE, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for free under Open Source licenses. KDE can be obtained in source and various binary formats from http://download.kde.org and can also be obtained on CD-ROM or with any of the major GNU/Linux and UNIX systems shipping today.

Enhancements

KDE 4.0.1 is a maintenance release which provides corrections of problems reported using the KDE bug tracking system and enhanced support for existing and new translations. Improvements in this release include, but are not limited to: Konqueror, KDE's webbrowser has seen numerous stability and performance fixes in its HTML rendering engine KHTML, in its Flash plugin loader and in KJS, the JavaScript engine.

Stability problems have been addressed in components that are used all over the KDE codebase. Translations in this release are more complete. KWin, the KDE window manager has improved detection of compositing support, some effects have been fixed. Aside from these fundamentals, work has also been done in many applications like Okular, System Settings and KStars. New translations include Danish, risian, Kazakh and Czech. For a more detailed list of improvements since the KDE 4.0 release in January 2008, please refer to the KDE 4.0.1 Changelog. (http://www.kde.org/announcements/changelogs/changelog4_0to4_0_1.php )

Additional information about the enhancements of the KDE 4.0.x release series is available in the KDE 4.0 Announcement. "

>> KDE 4.0.1 Released

MadBoxPC posted a review on KDE 4.0 in Spanish

"KDE is an international technology team that creates Free Software for desktop and portable computing. Among KDE's products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms. We tried it and we want to show some interestings things about it, and or course, its free."

>> Read more (Spanish)
>> Read more (with translator)

Ars Technica posted a review on the KDE 4.0 desktop

"KDE 4.0 was officially released last week after extensive development. The long-awaited 4.0 release ushers in a new era for the popular open-source desktop environment and adds many intriguing new features and technologies. Unfortunately, the release comes with almost as many new bugs as it does features, and there is much work to be done before it sparkles like the 3.5.x series."

>> KDE 4.0 Review

Tux Machines published a review on KDE 4.0

"This review's based on KDE 4.0 installed on openSUSE 10.3. If you're running openSUSE 10.3, KDE 4.0 is extremely easy to install. "

>> KDE 4.0: Everything that has an end, has a beginning

KDE 4.0 has been released

"The KDE Community is thrilled to announce the immediate availability of KDE 4.0. This significant release marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the beginning of the KDE 4 era. The KDE 4 Libraries have seen major improvements in almost all areas. The Phonon multimedia framework provides platform independent multimedia support to all KDE applications, the Solid hardware integration framework makes interacting with (removable) devices easier and provides tools for better powermanagement.

The KDE 4 Desktop has gained some major new capabilities. The Plasma desktop shell offers a new desktop interface, including panel, menu and widgets on the desktop as well as a dashboard function. KWin, the KDE Window manager, now supports advanced graphical effects to ease interaction with your windows.

Lots of KDE Applications have seen improvements as well. Visual updates through vector-based artwork, changes in the underlying libraries, user interface enhancements, new features, even new applications -- you name it, KDE 4.0 has it. Okular, the new document viewer and Dolphin, the new filemanager are only two applications that leverage KDE 4.0's new technologies.

The Oxygen Artwork team provides a breath of fresh air on the desktop. Nearly all user-visible parts of the KDE desktop and applications have been given a facelift. Beauty and consistency are two of the basic concepts behind Oxygen."

>> KDE 4.0 Released

MadPenguin.org takes a look at KDE 4

"I was unable to attend the KDE release party at Google headquarters. I was thrilled to get the invite, but I just couldn't make it. And to be honest, that's a shame because the latest release has impressed me, despite me being seen as a crusty GNOME fan. I guess in the end we are all Linux users at heart."

>> [url=http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=8089]KDE 4: The Latest In Linux Improvement[[/url]

KDE 4.0-rc2 has been released

"The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the second release candidate for KDE 4.0. This release candidate marks the last mile on the road to KDE 4.0.

While progress on the quality and completeness of what is to become the KDE 4.0 desktop has been great, the KDE Community decided to have another release candidate before releasing KDE 4.0 on January, 11th. The codebase is now feature-complete. Some work is still being done to put the icing on the KDE 4.0 cake. This includes fixing some major and minor bugs, finishing off artwork and smoothening out the user experience."

>> KDE 4.0-rc2 released

KDE 4.0 Beta 4 has been released. Here the release announcement:

The KDE Community is happy to release the fourth Beta for KDE 4.0. This Beta aimed at further polishing of the KDE codebase and we would love to start receiving feedback from testers.

As KDE has largely has been in bugfix mode, this latest Beta aims to encourage testers to have a look at it to help us find and solve the remaining problems and bugs. Besides the stabilization of the codebase, some minor features have been added, including but not limited to much work on Plasma, the KDE 4 desktop shell.

Sebastian Kügler notes: "The improvements have been huge, and plasma is much closer to what it needs to be before the release. I am confident we will be able to finish it and present a very usable plasma to our userbase with KDE 4.0. We will then be able to extend on that and present truly innovative desktop interfaces throughout the KDE 4 lifecycle.

The new Beta 4 incorporates many improvements from previous Beta and alpha releases: Beta 3, Beta 2, Beta 1, Alpha 2 and Alpha 1.

>> Read more

KDE 4.0 Beta 3 has been released:

"The KDE Community is happy to release the third Beta for KDE 4.0. This Beta is aimed at further polishing of the KDE codebase and also marks the freeze of the KDE Development Platform. We are joined in this release by the KOffice project which releases its 4th alpha release, bringing many improvements in OpenDocument support, a KChart Flake shape and much more to those willing to test.

Since the last Beta, most of KDE has been frozen for new features, instead receiving the necessary polish and bugfixing. The components which were exempt from this freeze saw significant improvements as planned, and Aaron Seigo notes: "It is amazing to see the Plasma community growing. The pace of development is amazing, and we're getting really close to having all the features we want for KDE 4.0 available. After that, we have a solid foundation for implementing new and exciting user interface concepts for the free Desktop".

For more information, please refer to the official announcement on our webpage, http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-4.0-beta3.php

The new KOffice Alpha is covered on http://koffice.org/announcements/announce-2.0alpha4.php "

>> KDE 4.0 Beta 3 Released