The KDE Plasma Netbook in 4.5 RC1
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
KDE Community Ships First Release Candidate of the 4.5 Free Desktop, Applications and Development Platform
June 27th, 2010. Today, KDE delivers the first release candidate of the upcoming KDE Software Compilation 4.5. The final version will be available in August 2010 and this RC is intended for testers and early adopters who can help by finding and reporting bugs. It will also interest those who want an early look at what is coming to their desktops and netbooks this summer.
The KDE Community continues to fulfill the promise of delivering state of the art architecture with its Development Platform. The Applications in Software Compilation 4.5 take advantage of this, introducing improvements across the board in terms of innovative new features, greater ease of use, accessibility, good looks, better networking and further internationalization.
With the start of the release candidate cycle, the development community focusses on bug fixing and polishing in preparation for the final release while the translators finish the last texts. Since beta 2, 1233 bugs have been reported and 1165 have been closed, a sign of the hard work by the developers (and the bug triaging team) to create a solid final release.
KDE SC 4.5 sports many improvements, among which are:
Initially planned for KDE SC 4.5.0, the KDE PIM team have decided to delay the release of the Akonadi-based KMail for one month. The new version of KMail will be delivered as part of one of KDE's monthly bugfix updates. In the meantime, the stable version of KMail from KDE SC 4.4 will be maintained. Akonadi will centralize syncing and caching of PIM data, deliver wider support for groupware servers and makes handling PIM data, such as contacts, calendaring and email more efficient by sharing it across applications.
To find out more about the KDE Plasma desktop and applications, please also refer to the 4.4.0, 4.3.0, 4.2.0, 4.1.0 and 4.0.0 release notes.
KDE, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for free under Open Source licenses. KDE can be obtained in source and various binary formats from http://download.kde.org and can also be obtained on CD-ROM or with any of the major GNU/Linux and UNIX systems shipping today.
Packages. Some Linux/UNIX OS vendors have kindly provided binary packages of KDE SC 4.5 RC1 for some versions of their distribution, and in other cases community volunteers have done so. Some of these binary packages are available for free download from KDE's http://download.kde.org. 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 SC 4.5 RC1 Info Page.
The complete source code for KDE SC 4.5 RC1 may be freely downloaded. Instructions on compiling and installing KDE SC 4.5 RC1 are available from the KDE SC 4.5 RC1 Info Page.
KDE is a Free Software community 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.