KDE 4.0.3 and Kubuntu Packages Are Now Available

The third maintenance release of KDE4 was released a few minutes ago, as the KDE Community announced.

KDE 4.0.3 brings you a lot of bug fixes, performance improvements and many updated translations for most of its components. It is already translated into 48 languages and more are coming soon.

What's new in KDE 4.0.3:

• Konqueror browser has the following new improvements:

- 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

• The Extragear package, which contains a handful of mature applications, was introduced in this release. Let's have a quick look at the programs inside the Extragear package:

- 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;
- Gopher KIO slave - A plugin that adds support for the Gopher protocol to all KDE applications.

• A suite of high-quality educational software, such as Marble, Kalzium, Kmplot and Parley.

The next maintenance release of KDE4, KDE 4.0.4, will be released at the end of April, including more updates and bugfixes. This summer, KDE 4.1 will be available worldwide and will be based on Qt 4.4, with all its performance and functionality improvements.

Now, let's take a look at the release schedule for the KDE 4 maintenance releases:

• January - KDE 4.0.1
• February - KDE 4.0.2
• March - KDE 4.0.3
• April - KDE 4.0.4
• May - KDE 4.0.5
• June - KDE 4.0.6
• July - KDE 4.1.0
• August - KDE 4.1.1

...and a closer one at the KDE 4.1 release schedule:

• March 31st, 2008: Soft Feature Freeze
• April 22nd, 2008: Hard Feature Freeze
• April 22nd, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1 Alpha 1
• April 29th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 Alpha 1
• May 20th, 2008: Message Freeze.
• May 20th, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1 Beta 1
• May 27th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 Beta 1
• June 17th, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1 Beta 2
• June 24th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 Beta 2
• July 8th, 2008: Artwork Freeze
• July 8th, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1 RC 1
• July 15th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 RC 1
• July 22nd, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1.0
• July 29th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1

How to install or upgrade?

• If you want to install KDE 4.0 on your Ubuntu PC and don't know how to do it, we wrote for you a step-by-step tutorial about this. Get it from here!

• If you have a computer powered by Kubuntu 7.10, then follow the instruction below to upgrade to KDE 4.0.3:

- Open the Software Sources application, go to the "Third-Party Software" tab, click the 'Add' button and paste the following line:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main

- Click OK and close the Software Sources window. Reload the information about new software.

- Open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

- When the upgrade is over, reboot your computer and you'll have KDE 4.0.3!

Would you like to see KDE 4.0.3 in action? Download the openSUSE-based KDE 4.0.3 Live CD right now from Softpedia.

Are you a console freak and you want to compile KDE 4.0.3 yourself? Download the KDE 4.0 sources right now from Softpedia.


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