Dear Santa, All I Want for Christmas Is KDE 4.0!

While the KDE 4.0 final release was postponed for Christmas, the second beta release of the most awaited project of 2007, was just announced today by the hard-working people behind the KDE project: "The KDE Community proudly presents the second Beta release for KDE 4.0. This release marks the beginning of the feature freeze and the stabilization of the current codebase. Simultaneously the KOffice developers have released their third Alpha release, marking significant improvements in this innovative office suite. Both KDE and KOffice have benefited from the Google Summer of Code, as most resulting code has now been merged."

Here's how KDE 4.0 looks at the moment:


KDE 4.0 Beta 2 includes new features and functionality, such as:

￭ Kolourpaint comes with many new features;
￭ KGPG received some improvements in the usability area;
￭ Okular received further usability work;
￭ Amarok is now integrated with plasma;
￭ KOffice releases third Alpha version.

The KDE 4.0 schedule:

October, 2nd: KDE 4.0 Beta 3
October, 19th: Total Release Freeze, only critical bugfixes are allowed to get in. If in doubt, ask the release coordinator.
October, 30th: KDE 4.0 Release Candidate 1
November, 14th: KDE 4.0 Release Candidate 2
December, 11th: KDE 4.0

About KDE

KDE is a powerful Free Software graphical desktop environment for Linux and Unix workstations. It combines ease of use, contemporary functionality and outstanding graphical design with the technological superiority of the Unix operating system. 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 the Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows.

For more details on this beta release, please visit the KDE 4.0 Beta 2 official webpage.

Until the final release of KDE 4.0 will be available around Christmas (I sure hope so!), you can download this second beta version of KDE for now from Softpedia and you can also download the KDE LiveCD version 0.3.0 based on the first beta release, from Softpedia.

Here are some screenshots from KDE 4 Beta 2: