FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Also available in: French Portuguese (Brazilian)

KDE Project Ships First Alpha of KDE 4.1

KDE Community Ships First Alpha Release of KDE 4.1, The First End-User Release of the Next-Generation Free Desktop

April 29, 2008 (The INTERNET). The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.1 Alpha1. With the soft feature freeze in effect, KDE 4.1 Alpha1 provides a first preview of what can be expected from KDE 4.1, due in late July this year.

What will KDE 4.1 bring?

Akonadi is among the new big things in KDE 4.1. Akonadi is the desktop-independent storage engine for Personal Information Management (PIM) data. While not yet based on Akonadi, KDE 4.1 also brings a KDE 4 port of PIM applications such as KMail and KOrganizer.
With KDE 4.0 being available for X11 platforms, KDE 4.1 will also be available on Windows, Mac OS X and OpenSolaris. The ports are not yet completely finished, but good for a first preview nevertheless.
KDE 4.1 Alpha1 is based on Qt 4.4. Qt 4.4 brings improvements in performance and functionality to KDE 4.1. SVG rendering speed has vastly improved, and widgets and layouts can now be used on canvases such as the Plasma desktop and panel. Migrating the Plasma codebase to these new features is still work in progress, so some instability here is to be expected.

Please note that KDE 4.1 Alpha1 is not suitable for daily usage. It is meant as a preview for upcoming technology more than anything else.

Compiling KDE 4.1 Alpha1 (4.0.71)

Source Code. The complete source code for KDE 4.0.71 may be freely downloaded. Instructions on compiling and installing KDE 4.0.71 are available from the KDE 4.0.71 Info Page, or on TechBase.

Supporting KDE

KDE is a Free Software project that exists and grows only because of the help of many volunteers that donate their time and effort. KDE is always looking for new volunteers and contributions, whether it is help with coding, bug fixing or reporting, writing documentation, translations, promotion, money, etc. All contributions are gratefully appreciated and eagerly accepted. Please read through the Supporting KDE page for further information.

We look forward to hearing from you soon!

About KDE 4

KDE 4 is the innovative Free Software desktop containing lots of applications for every day use as well as for specific purposes. Plasma is a new desktop shell developed for KDE 4, providing an intuitive interface to interact with the desktop and applications. The Konqueror web browser integrates the web with the desktop. The Dolphin file manager, the Okular document reader and the System Settings control center complete the basic desktop set.
KDE is built on the KDE Libraries which provide easy access to resources on the network by means of KIO and advanced visual capabilities through Qt4. Phonon and Solid, which are also part of the KDE Libraries add a multimedia framework and better hardware integration to all KDE applications.