KDE Shows Beta of Summer Release

KDE Shows Beta of Summer Release

KDE Ships First 4.7 Beta

May 25th, 2011. Today, KDE has released a first beta of the upcoming 4.7 release of the Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces, the KDE Applications and the KDE Frameworks, which is planned for July 27, 2011. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team's focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing new and old functionality.

The 4.7 release will bring a number of exciting improvments:

• KWin, Plasma's window manager now supports OpenGL-ES 2.0, improving performance and deployability on mobile devices
• Dolphin, KDE's flexible file manager has seen user interface improvements and now sports a better user experience for searching in files' metadata.
• KDM, KDE's login manager now interfaces with the Grub2 bootloader
• Marble, the virtual globe now supports offline address search, especially making its mobile version more useful on the road

To download source code or packages to install go to the 4.7 Beta1 Info Page.

The KDE Plasma Desktop Workspace

To find out more about the Plasma Workspace and KDE Applications, please refer to the 4.6.0, 4.5.0, 4.4.0, 4.3.0, 4.2.0, 4.1.0 and 4.0.0 release notes.

The KDE Software Compilation, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for free under Open Source licenses. KDE's software can be obtained in source and various binary formats from http://download.kde.org or with any of the major GNU/Linux and UNIX systems shipping today.

Installing 4.7 Beta1 Binary Packages

Packages. Some Linux/UNIX OS vendors have kindly provided binary packages of 4.7 Beta1 for some versions of their distribution, and in other cases community volunteers have done so. 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 4.7 Beta1 Info Page.

Compiling 4.7 Beta1

The complete source code for 4.7 Beta1 may be freely downloaded. Instructions on compiling and installing 4.7 Beta1 are available from the 4.7 Beta1 Info Page.

Supporting KDE

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 or become a KDE e.V. supporting member through our new Join the Game initiative.

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. KDE4's full-featured applications run natively on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X.

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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