14 DAY TRIAL // Kubuntu 15.04 will be made available tomorrow as a stable release, along with all the flavors from the Ubuntu family, and it will be powered by KDE Plasma 5.2. To make things even better, developers have decided to make the latest Plasma 5.3 Beta available to willing users, as well.
Kubuntu developers made a very interesting choice, and they are providing users with the means of installing the latest KDE Plasma 5.3 Beta desktop, despite the fact that it's still not a stable solution. Usually, Ubuntu outs the most stable packages available at the time of launch, but the KDE project and Kubuntu are not synced.
Many users will be happy to know that they can test the best Plasma versions made available until now, but we have to keep in mind that it's still a Beta release and for good reason. The problem is that when you allow users to get their hands on Beta software (can't really stop them, this being Linux), they might flood devs with reports of crashes and other problems, especially since they made it available to them. On the other hand, this would be the perfect manner to weed out problems with KDE Plasma 5.3.
Installing the latest KDE Plasma 5.3 Beta is very easy
Ubuntu and Kubuntu users already know that using a PPA is one of the easiest ways of installing new applications or upgrades as important as Plasma. KDE developers have announced their intentions on Google+.
"Plasma 5.3 Beta Available for Vivid. Just when you thought you were on the bleeding edge by testing the Vivid release candidates, now you can test Plasma 5.3 also!" the devs announced.
The Kubuntu makers are pointing to a tutorial that helps users add a PPA by using the GUI, but the easiest way is to use the terminal. Just open a terminal and enter the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade