KDE SC 4.5 RC2 Available for Download

The second release candidate of the upcoming KDE SC 4.5 has been released. The developers aren’t being very specific on updates, but you can expect KDE SC 4.5 RC2 to be better suited for regular use than the first release candidate. Other than bug fixes and patches, there shouldn’t be that many changes from RC1. If you haven’t given KDE SC 4.5 a try yet, there should be plenty of things to like over the previous versions like the new, consistent notification area and window tiling.

"Today, KDE delivers the second release candidate of the upcoming KDE Software Compilation 4.5. The final version will be available in August 2010 and this RC is intended for testers and early adopters who can help by finding and reporting bugs. It will also interest those who want an early look at what is coming to their desktops and netbooks this summer,” the official announcement read.

“The KDE Community continues to fulfill the promise of delivering state of the art architecture with its Development Platform. The Applications in Software Compilation 4.5 take advantage of this, introducing improvements across the board in terms of innovative new features, greater ease of use, accessibility, good looks, better networking and further internationalization,” it continued.

What to expect from KDE SC 4.5:

· An overhauled notification area which relies on D-Bus to provide a consistent look and feel to all applications. This replaces the old “system tray” model;
· KWin-Tiling enables windows to be automatically placed (tiled) next to each other;
· Konqueror users can opt for the WebKit rendering engine as an alternative to KHTML, if they want something with wider support from web developers. WebKit will be an optional install and won’t be packaged with the standard KDE SC 4.5 release;
· An emphasis on stability and polishing the existing features and components.

KDE SC 4.5.0 RC2 sources are available for download here on Softpedia. Remember that this is a testing release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only. Please report bugs to bugs.kde.org. Please report any possible security issues to security@kde.org.