14 DAY TRIAL // KaOS 2014.04, a Linux distribution built from scratch that uses KDE as the default desktop environment, has been released and is now available for download.
There are very few operating systems out there that are not actually built on something else. Most of the time you will see that your operating systems is actually using something else for the base. For example, Ubuntu is based on Debian, Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, and so on.
KaOS is not like the others. Its developers chose to build their system from scratch, which is actually a harder task than it seems. The advantage is that it provides the developers with much more flexibility in what they want to implement in the future, and they don’t have to wait around for the base system.
KaOS is a young project and this is one of the reasons why you don’t see news about it. It also follows a rolling release model, which means that once you install it you won’t have to bother with other new versions. All the changes and improvements arrive through the normal update process.
“Many might not know, but it is one year to this date the website went live, the repositories came online, the forum was activated for what has since become the distribution KaOS. A nice way of celebrating this anniversary is with a new ISO featuring the major new release, KDE 4.13.0.”
“After a good six weeks of testing, five complete builds, many minor rebuilds to accommodate all the needed changes for a switch in the symantic desktop search KDE uses, it is a pleasure to present you with this exciting new release,” said the developer in the official announcement.
The developers also explained that the artwork has been improved, a few hundred more icons have been added to the flattr-icons-kde package and even GRUB has been moved to the Midna theme.
KaOS 2014.04 also integrates the 304.x branch of the NVIDIA drivers, which are designed for Legacy products. This should ensure that the operating system will work a lot better with older graphic cards.
Other major packages that have been updated include Systemd 212, Kmod 17, libssh 0.6.3, Linux 3.13.10, openssl 1.0.1.g, Calligra 2.8.2, LibreOffice 4.2.2, Google-Chrome 35, and Mozilla Firefox 28.0.
The number of packages that received new updates and various improvements are in the hundreds, but the normal update process should take care of everything.
Check the official announcement for more details about this release. Download KaOS 2014.04 right now from Softpedia.