KDE 4.2 Beta 1 Provides First Look at Upcoming User Experience

KDE Commmunity Ships First Beta Release of KDE 4.2, Inviting Community to Test and Report Bugs.

November 26, 2008. The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of "Caterpillar", (a.k.a KDE 4.2 Beta 1), the first testing release of the new KDE 4.2 desktop. Caterpillar is aimed at testers and reviewers. It should provide a solid ground to report bugs that need to be tackled before KDE 4.2.0 is released. Reviewers can use this beta to get a first look at the upcoming KDE 4.2 desktop which provides significant improvements all over the desktop and applications.
With 885 bugs closed in the past week, the KDE community is now in bugfixing mode in order to provide a smooth KDE 4.2.0 to end users in January.


A KDE 4.2 Beta 1 Desktop

Significant refinements of Plasma and KWin, the KDE workspace

For the 4.2 release, the KDE team has fixed literally thousands of bugs and has implemented dozens of features that were missing until now in KDE 4. 2 fixes your issues. This beta release gives you the opportunity to assist in ironing out the remaining wrinkles. The KDE release team has put together a list with the most significant improvements in 4.2 Beta 1:


Desktop as Folder View (traditional desktop)

New and Improved Applications

All applications have seen bugfixes, feature additions, user interface improvements and generally received more polish during the last 4 months of development. The following list gives some ideas about the areas of improvement.

This list of new features in KDE 4.2 is not comprehensive yet. Please refer to the feature plan for more details.


Improved Desktop Grid Effect

To find out more about the KDE 4 desktop and applications, please also refer to the KDE 4.1.0 and KDE 4.0.0 release notes. KDE 4.2 Beta 1 is not recommended for everyday use. This beta will be followed up by another beta on December 16th, a release candidate on January 6th and the final release of KDE 4.2.0 on January 27th, 6 months after the release of KDE 4.1.0.

Installing KDE 4.2 Beta 1 Binary Packages

Packagers. Some Linux/UNIX OS vendors have kindly provided binary packages of KDE 4.2 Beta 1, and in other cases community volunteers have done so. Some of these binary packages are available for free download via the KDE 4.2 Beta 1 Info Page. Additional binary packages, as well as updates to the packages now available, may become available over the coming weeks.

Package Locations. For a current list of available binary packages of which the KDE Project has been informed, please visit the KDE 4.2 Beta 1 Info Page.

Compiling KDE 4.2 Beta 1

The complete source code for KDE 4.1.80 may be freely downloaded. Instructions on compiling and installing KDE 4.1.80 are available from the KDE 4.2 Beta 1 Info Page.