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The Neptune team is proud to announce the release of Neptune 3.3. This release features Linux kernel 3.10.12 and is exclusively meant to run on 64-bit CPUs. The KDE Plasma Desktop ships with version 4.11.2. Chromium was updated to version 29, VLC to 2.1 and LibreOffice to version 4.1.2. We ship with the latest and greatest multimedia codecs pre-installed, as well as the Flash player. For wireless diagnosis we ship Wireshark, Aircrack-ng and kismon. We made a lot effort in cleaning up the system and removed Eclipse as well as the Muon software center and qapt-deb-installer. We removed pavucontrol which is no longer used as we don't ship PulseAudio. Linux kernel 3.10.12 comes with patched zram to prevent freezes. We also added a renewed quick installation manual.

This is the first from a series of how-to articles covering configuration of multi-layout keyboards in Linux. It is obviously a task for the desktop environment in use for the particular Linux distribution. Let's starts with the obvious leaders in the Linux world.

When it comes to desktop environments, choosing the one that's right for you can be a deeply personal matter. In this article, I'll look into the differences between two of the most popular Linux desktop environments – Gnome and KDE. I’ll explore what each desktop environment offers, comparing their strengths and weaknesses.

One of must-have utilities on Linux desktop is file manager (or file browser). If you are not happy with a default file manager that comes with the Linux desktop you are using, don’t worry. There are plenty of other file managers to choose from. In this post, I showcase 13 popular file managers available on Linux.

One week after the FreeBSD 9.2 release that brought ZFS TRIM and LZ4 compression support, updates to DTrace, and kernel changes, there's now the release of PC-BSD 9.2. This release is quite exciting as besides pulling in the FreeBSD 9.2 packages the desktop-friendly operating system has some new changes of its own.

Dot Categories: KDE Success StoryFree and Open Source Software in Taiwan has made impressive strides thanks to the work of the 'ezgo' team. They have put together a pre-configured set of Open Source software which makes it easy for teachers and students to get up and running. The New Taipei City government has decided to install ezgo 11 on 10,000 PCs for elementary schools, bringing thousands of students in contact with Linux, KDE and educational Free Software. The ezgo team has written up an account of ezgo and how it came to be. Enjoy the read!

This tutorial is specifically intended to those who wish to try Ubuntu Linux, maybe on an older PC. I decided to do this on my net book since it has been running really slow with Windows 7, and as Windows 7's requirements are much higher than that of Ubuntu's I thought I'd install Ubuntu on my old net book. So here it goes.

The Chakra project team is delighted to announce the first release of Chakra Fritz. 'Fritz' is the name of a series of Chakra releases that follow the KDE Software Compilation 4.11 series and is dedicated to the memory of Fritz_Van_Tom. With this ISO image we offer KDE SC 4.11.1. In this release, many areas have received a number of improvements that affect multiple applications; most notably a speed boost on Akonadi. The Plasma Workspaces 4.11 will receive long-term support as the KDE team focuses on the technical transition to Frameworks 5. You may have noticed that there is no new artwork with this new series as it is usually the case, since it wasn't ready by the time of the release. Hopefully work on the artwork will be completed soon so we can include it in a future release.

Linux is a Free, and thus there are no businesses pumping cash to promote it. However this year things could be different. IBM claimed that it will be literally pumping a good 1 Billion dollar investment, whilst Intel hold high hopes and positive thinking with regards to Linux and Open Source. Nvidia are also talking constantly about Linux

The second and last Beta release of the upcoming Kubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) Linux operating system has been released earlier today, as reported on our website, so we thought that it will be a good idea to make a visual tour of its highlights.

Dot Categories: DeveloperA recent Dot article explained changes in the KDE release cycle that will be happening with the upcoming introduction of Frameworks 5. The changes to KDE's libraries are enough to warrant a name change from 'Platform' to 'Frameworks'. This article provides some background, an overview of the changes, and the benefits and improvements that can be expected from KDE Frameworks 5 for the entire Qt community. A later article will address Frameworks 5 benefits for KDE developers.

Version 1.2 is now available from the download page. This release has three main focuses. Stabilizing the installer, Linux gaming and removing the deb-multimedia.org third-party repository. Changes in version 1.2: incorporates a couple of remaining installer bug fixes; Kwheezy Profiler, a new GUI tool to backup and restore user profiles; rekonq browser updated to 2.3.2; Steam client installed by default; PlayOnLinux installed by default; some open-source games (KDE Games, DreamChess) included; deb-multimedia.org packages replaced by official Debian packages, the necessary codecs / decoders included from Kwheezy repository instead; some minor tweaking here and there; version 1.1 installations can be upgraded to 1.2 via Apper or apt-get.

A roundup of what is happening in KDE.

Normally, at the end of the year, I tend to run my best annual distro roundups, choosing the finest among five operating systems or flavors thereof that showed the greatest promise in terms of stability, usability, elegance, support, and other curious items in the outgoing twelve-month period. But I have never dedicated much thought to selecting the best implementation of any one particular desktop environment, regardless of the system underneath.

Once upon a time Linux had what I think was the best music player/manager, its name was Amarok and people even brought it up as a way to try convince others to move to Linux, intelligent playlists, auto fetching of cover arts, lyrics, last.fm integration, etc, and it was great. Fast forward a few years (almost a decade to be fair) and now Amarok and all KDE music players seems to be lacking, with KDE 5.0 maybe this is the time to fix it.

The next-generation KDE KWin window manager for KDE Frameworks 5 and using the Qt 5.x tool-kit is quickly entering a usable state and can now handle "dogfeeding" by its developers.

KO GmbH today presents Krita Gemini for Windows 8. Krita Gemini is a fusion between Krita Sketch and Krita Desktop: Krita Gemini switches seamlessly between the full-featured desktop/laptop user interface and the sketch interface, which is optimized for tablets.

Kate gets initial Vim macro support. Digikam sees more work on improved multicore support. KDE-PIM gains a new command line tool: kdepim/console/calendarjanitor that can scan all the calendar data for buggy incidences; adds a debug dialog for search. In KDE Frameworks, hotplug dataengine is ported to Plasma 2, and more. KWallet sees work on GPG backend, ready for real-life testing.

Today in Open Source: Have Linux geeks gotten too fat? Plus: Running Linux on your Mac, and KDE changes

Kubuntu 13.10 Beta 1 is now available for testing. It contains a bunch of new and updated features: KDE Plasma and Applications 4.11, Muon Discover, User Manager, Wireless Setup in Installer, KDE Telepathy with Better Text Editing and Improved Notifications, New Network Manager applet, and more.

Dot Categories: KDE Official NewsThe KDE Community announces the release of Plasma Active 4 (PA4). Plasma Active is a user experience technology stack for consumer electronics. While the default user interface is for tablets, it can be customized to work on smartphones, settop boxes, smart TVs, and touch computing devices such as home automation and in-vehicle infotainment. There are major new improvements to the Files application, an overhaul of the on-screen keyboard and a completely free and open source system based on the Mer Core.

Today I mostly used KDE as I did yesterday. Tomorrow my desktop choice could be something different. I'll select at login prompt after selecting a distro at the GRUB menu. Isn't Linux great!! Choices+!!

Dot Categories: KDE Official News With the upcoming Frameworks 5, the KDE Release Team will decouple the release cycles of Workspaces, Applications and Platform. While Applications will have more releases in the 4.x series, the Plasma Workspaces team has decided to focus on Workspaces 2. The recently released 4.11 version of Plasma Workspaces will have Long Term Support. Meanwhile, work on Frameworks 5 is progressing, making KDE technologies ready for the future. What does all this mean? Read on to find out!

Getting commercial support for Kubuntu has been an effort over a year in the making and one that has had its fair share of challenges. "At first we had to fight hard to get Canonical to allow us to use the trademark," Riddell said. "They've scaled back a few of their open-source projects recently, and I think they were surprised to find that in Kubuntu there is an enthusiastic user and developer community who want it to continue."

Dot Categories: KDE Advocacy, Discussions, and RumorsThe KDE community is deeply concerned by the wrong notion contained in a recent complaint to the European Commission. The Fairsearch initiative claims that "distribution of Android at below-cost" could constitute anti-competitive behaviour or predatory pricing. Mirko Böhm produced a response (PDF) for the KDE Community.

The KDE Project proudly announced a few minutes ago, September 3, the immediate availability for download and update of the first maintenance release for the KDE Software Compilation 4.11 desktop environment.

Dot Categories: KDE Official NewsBack in the last months of 2010, the ALERT Project began. Part-funded under the European Union's 7th Framework Programme, the project followed in the footsteps of research efforts such as NEPOMUK. Its objectives were to help open source developers to work more effectively and to produce better software by improving bug tracking, resolution and software quality tools.

Dot Categories: Community and EventsThe KDE Community is looking for a host for Akademy 2014. Akademy is the annual gathering of the KDE Community, one of the largest in the world of Free and Open Source Software. At Akademy, KDE people gather to exchange development ideas, plan for the future, and discuss other important issues. It is an extraordinary occasion for creativity, enthusiasm, commitment, close working relationships, innovation and just plain hard work.

Qt Developer Days Europe 2013, the premier annual event for Qt developers, is being held in Berlin from October 7th to 9th. The event is co-hosted by Digia, KDAB and ICS, in partnership with KDE e.V.. KDE e.V. is the non-profit organization that supports the KDE Community in legal, organizational and financial matters.

One week after the release of KDE Software Compilation 4.11, Plasma Media Center 1.1 has been officially released. With this updated KDE multimedia interface comes YouTube integration, improvements to ease of use, and much more.

Dot Categories: Applications The KDE community is happy to announce the release of 1.1 for KDE's Plasma Media Center — your first stop for media and entertainment created by the awesome KDE folk. Plasma Media Center is designed to provide an easy and comfortable way to watch your videos, browse your photo collection and listen to your music, all in one place.

Martin Gräßlin, the German KWin window manager maintainer for KDE, is making good progress in porting the code-base for KDE Frameworks 5 compatibility...

For speeding up the development of KDE Frameworks 5, developers at Blue Systems are near exclusively focusing upon the development of these frameworks for the next three months.

The following tutorial will teach Ubuntu and Kubuntu users how to install the newly released KDE SC 4.11 on the Ubuntu/Kubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) and Ubuntu/Kubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) operating systems.

KDE Software Compilation 4.11 has been released as its six-month update to the KDE desktop environment stack. With KDE 4.11 comes many exciting changes ahead of the KDE Frameworks 5 transition.

The KDE Community is proud to announce the latest major updates to the Plasma Workspaces, Applications and Development Platform delivering new features and fixes while readying the platform for further evolution. The Plasma Workspaces 4.11 will receive long term support as the team focuses on the technical transition to Frameworks 5.

I often wonder why Linux desktops are the way they are. You know, why stuff that’s supposed to work out of the box, don’t and why some of the better features of the desktop environments and applications are buried or not enabled by default. I could go on and on about default settings like these, but I think the point I’m trying to make is clear. If a feature that has the potential to make a system better is not enabled out of the box, to most users, especially new users, it might as well not exist.

The first release candidate for KDE's Plasma Media Center 1.1 release is now available. Plasma Media Center supports viewing photographs, watching movies, and listening to music from one central KDE component...

Season of KDE is a community outreach program, much like Google Summer of Code that has been hosted by the KDE community for five years straight. It is meant for people who could not get into Google Summer of Code for various reasons, or people who simply prefer a differently structured, somewhat less constrained program. Season of KDE is managed by the same team of admins and mentors that take care of Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in matters for KDE, with the same level of quality and care.

The KDE edition works extremely well. The Xfce edition has taken a few steps forward, but other things have pushed it a few steps back too.

Dot Categories: DeveloperIn this week's KDE Commit-Digest:

Plasma Media Center 1.1, the second release to this KDE multimedia project providing a nice shell for multimedia needs, is now available in beta form. Plasma Media Center 1.1 is set to bring several new features to this KDE component for music and video playback.

Through the new Project Neon initiative, daily builds of the next-generation KDE stack -- KDE Frameworks 5 -- can be easily installed via Debian packages for Kubuntu.

Around a year ago, a school in the southeast of England, Westcliff High School for Girls Academy (WHSG), began switching its student-facing computers to Linux, with KDE providing the desktop software. The school's Network Manager, Malcolm Moore, contacted us at the time. Now, a year on, he got in touch again to let us know how he and the students find life in a world without Windows.

Salix KDE 14.0.1 has been released. It is built around KDE 4.8.5 and as always, it is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. One major change since our 13.37 KDE release, that is immediately evident to the user, is that the default browser is now QupZilla, in place of Mozilla Firefox. QupZilla is a Qt-based browser that uses the WebKit rendering engine that is fast, feature-complete and standards-compliant and it fits perfectly inside KDE. The Calligra office suite is also available and has replaced KOffice. Calligra is made up of several applications closely tied to KDE, including a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation program, a chart and graph creator, a vector graphics tool.

Akademy 2013 in Bilbao, the Basque Country, Spain wrapped up on Friday, 19 July. According to one long-time KDE contributor, it was "A most awesome event."

KDE's Vivaldi tablet is finally starting to ship... but only for QA testing and the open-source tablets haven't yet received their certification...

Developers behind the lightweight Qt-based Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt desktops met up at KDE's Akademy 2013 conference. During the annual KDE developer conference, the two lightweight desktops decided to merge their efforts around LXDE-Qt...

KDE developer Sergio Martens went on an emergency bug fixing marathon recently, discovering and fixing several bugs related excess memory usage across many core KDE applications and KDE PIM. These improvements are expected to land in KDE 4.11.

The new 2013.07.11 Bluestar Full edition has been released and is available for download from the Bluestar Linux downloads area. This release introduces a number of new and useful features, including new icons for shutdown/reboot/logout/screenlock, and extended language installation options.