14 DAY TRIAL // The hard working people behind the KDE community project proudly baked yet another Beta release for the upcoming and highly anticipated KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC) 4.4. To be in tune with the Christmas holidays, KDE SC 4.4 Beta 2 is dubbed Claus, and it brings a couple of stability improvements over the previous release. Without further ado, let's take a quick look at the main changes brought by KDE Software Compilation 4.4 Beta 2:
· Nepomuk Semantic Search has been improved with a new storage backend, new user interfaces, Nepomuk interaction and timeline view; · Plasma Desktop has been polished in many areas; · Added Blogilo, a new blogging client; · Added the new KAuth authorization framework on the KDE Development Platform.
For the complete list of changes, please check the official changelog.
Kubuntu or Ubuntu 9.10 users can test KDE SC 4.4 Beta 2 by following the instructions below:
- Go to Main Menu -> System -> Administration and open the "Software Sources" application. Type your password and hit Enter; - Go to the second tab, "Other Software," click the 'Add' button and paste the following line:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/beta/ubuntu karmic main
...and click the 'Add Source' button; - Go to the "Authentication" tab, click the "Import Key File" button and add this GPG Key (right click on the link and select "Save Link As" to save the file on your desktop); - Close the "Software Sources" application and you will be immediately asked if you want to reload the information about available software, so click the 'Reload' button and wait until the "Software Sources" window disappears; - Go to Main Menu -> System -> Administration and open the "Synaptic Package Manager" application. Let it load and search for kubuntu-desktop. Double click the entry and install it; - It is recommended that you reboot your system after the update process.
Currently, KDE SC 4 ships with many packages, including web development applications, educational tools, administrative programs, and more, all of which are available in over 50 languages.
Those of you who prefer compiling KDE SC 4.4 Beta 2 from sources can grab them right now from Softpedia. Please remember that this is an unstable release and it should NOT be installed on production machines.