14 DAY TRIAL // Netrunner 14, a GNU/Linux distribution based on Kubuntu 14.04 LTS, featuring KDE as the default desktop environment and integrating many GNOME/GTK+ programs to make it Ubuntu-compatible, is now out and ready for download.
Netrunner 14 is based on Kubuntu 14.04 LTS, a distribution that was released on April 17, which was just a couple of months ago. Needless to say, the latest Kubuntu is an LTS version, which means that it's supported for the next five years. It's unlikely that Netrunner will get the same kind of attention, but Kubuntu LTS is a very good base to have for your distro nonetheless.
The first thing you will notice in Netrunner is the fact that this is not the regular KDE that you can find embedded in most of the Linux distributions out there. The developers have made sure that you can tell right away that it's something different.
The regular menu has been replaced with a much simpler one that looks a little like its Windows counterpart, but it has personality and it's a very interesting look for Linux distro,
Netrunner 14 has been dubbed Netrunner and it's based on Linux kernel 3.13.0-24, which is the same one used by Kubuntu and Ubuntu. It's no longer being officially supported, but Canonical has taken over the development of this branch, at least until the next Ubuntu 16.04 LTS is launched.
Other included applications in Netrunner 14 are Mozilla Firefox 30, Mozilla Thunderbird 24.6, VLC Media Player 2.1.4, LibreOffice 4.2, Skype 4.3, Steam, the latest stable version of VirtualBox, Clementine music player, Transmission as a torrent client, Telepathy, Pidgin, Kdenlive, GIMP, Krita, Karbon, and Gwenview.
It's worth noting that Netrunner is actually one of the few Linux distributions that include Steam from the start. Most of the other Linux OSes provide Steam in their repositories, but the developers of this distro have gone the extra mile and included this important application by default.
Netrunner 14 uses KDE 4.13.1 as default, but the developers will soon provide the newer version of KDE that was just released a short while ago.
A complete list of changes and improvements can be found in the official announcement. You can download Netrunner 14 right now from Softpedia. There are two versions of this distribution, one for 32-bit and the other for 64-bit. If you have an older computer, you might want to grab the 32-bit version of Netrunner, just in case.