KDE 4.0 Release Candidate 1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Project Ships First Release Candidate for Leading Free Software Desktop, Codename "Calamity"

With the first release candidate, the KDE project would like to collect feedback to ensure the quality of KDE 4.0.

November 20, 2007 (The INTERNET).

The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the first release candidate for KDE 4.0. This release candidate marks that the majority of the components of KDE 4.0 are now approaching release quality.

While the final bits of Plasma, the brand new desktop shell and panel in KDE 4, are falling into place, the KDE community decided to publish a first release candidate for the KDE 4.0 Desktop. Release Candidate 1 is the first preview of KDE 4.0 which is suitable for general use and discovering the improvements that have taken place all over the KDE codebase.

At the same time, the KDE team releases the final version of the KDE Development Platform, which provides the needed libraries and applications the KDE Desktop is based on. The KDE Development Platform, comprising the basis for developing KDE applications, is frozen and is now of release quality. The sourcecode for the KDE Development Platform can be found in the "stable/" subdir on KDE's FTP server and mirrors.

Building on this, the majority of applications included in KDE 4.0 are now usable for day to day use. The KDE Release Team has recently underlined this by calling on the community to participate in reporting bugs during the time remaining before the release of KDE 4.0 in December.Meanwhile, preparations for the KDE 4.0 release events are taking place, with the main event taking place in Mountain View, California in the USA in January 2008. Make sure you don't miss it!

The first release candidate incorporates many improvements from previous Beta and alpha releases: Beta 4, Beta 3, Beta 2, Beta 1, Alpha 2 and Alpha 1.

RC 1

With the first release candidate, the KDE developers hope to collect comments and bug reports from the wider KDE community. With their help, we hope to solve the most pressing problems with the current KDE 4 codebase to ensure the final 4.0 release is usable. We would like to encourage anyone who is willing and able to spend some time on testing to find and report problems to the KDE developers. It's advisable to have a current snapshot of the codebase handy. That makes trying things easier, it also helps the process by not having to hunt down bugs that have already been fixed.

You can find some documentation on the pages of our Bugsquad and in other places. There will be weekly KDE 4 Krush Days on Saturdays and everyone is invited to help out. Having a recent SVN checkout (follow instructions on TechBase) is great, but using the regularly updated openSUSE KDE 4 Live CD or the Debian KDE4 Beta4 Live CD, while very easy, is also a big help to us.

Get it, run it, test it...

For those interested in getting packages to test and contribute, several distributions notified us that they will have KDE 4.0-rc1 packages available at or soon after the release. The complete and current list can be found on the KDE 4.0-rc1 Info Page, where you can also find links to the source code, information about compiling, security and other issues.

About KDE 4

KDE 4 is the next generation of the popular KDE Desktop Environment which seeks to fulfill the need for a powerful yet easy to use desktop for UNIX and LINUX workstations. The aim of the KDE project for the 4.0 release is to put the foundations in place for future innovations on the Free Desktop. The many newly introduced technologies incorporated in the KDE libraries will make it easier for developers to add rich functionality to their applications, combining and connecting different components in any way they want.

About KDE

KDE is an international technology team that creates free and open source software for desktop and portable computing. Among KDE's products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms, comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds of software titles in many categories including Internet and web applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60 languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility principles in mind. KDE's full-featured applications run natively on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and macOS.

Trademark Notices. KDE® and the K Desktop Environment® logo are registered trademarks of KDE e.V. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

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