KDE 4 RC 1

The release candidate of KDE 4 has been released and packages are available for Kubuntu 7.10.

If you want to test KDE 4 without installing packages download the live CD (528MB).

They install to /usr/lib/kde4 and can be installed alongside your existing KDE 3.

Instructions:

• Remove previous KDE 4 packages, they are not compatible (apt-get remove kdelibs5)
• Add deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tsimpson/ubuntu gutsy main to your /etc/apt/sources.list
• Install kdebase-dev-kde4 kdebase-workspace-dev kdebase-runtime, note that PPAs aren't authenticated so you will likely get a warning when installing
• These KDE 4 packages install to /usr/lib/kde4 so run:
  • export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/kde4/lib
  • export KDEDIRS=/usr/lib/kde4
  • export PATH=/usr/lib/kde4/bin/:$PATH
  • export KDEHOME=~/.kde4
• Run some programmes. Most parts run successfully.
• To avoid having to start a second X server for a full session install xserver-xephyr and run Xephyr :1 & export DISPLAY=:1; xterm and run startkde in the Xerphyr xterm.
• To run it as a full session install kdm-kde4 and copy /usr/lib/kde4/share/kde4/apps/kdm/sessions/kde.desktop to /usr/share/xsessions/kde4.desktop, edit the Name entry in kde4.desktop to be called "KDE 4", put the four export lines at the top of /usr/lib/kde4/bin/startkde and start a new session in KDM with KDE 4.

Packages are also being uploaded to hardy and gutsy-backports.

Thanks to stdin for his help with these packages.