KDE 4.4 Kreeps Kloser to Komplete

The KDE team is getting very close to a final release of KDE 4.4. The second release candidate came out yesterday as a testing platform for users and developers to find and squash bugs before the final release date of February 9th.

The 4.4 release brings quite a few changes over 4.3, new applications, enhancements, and much more. Bloggers will find a new blogging tool, Konqueror has been beefed up with a history sidebar, KDE's groupware has received several improvements including POP3 support in Akonadi and other changes.

This release also includes a whole slew of new widgets for KDE. This includes a "Webslice" plasmoid to display a part of a Webpage, a spellcheck widget, an on-screen keyboard, and a blackboard widget that allows users to paint with the mouse or even multitouch devices "on platforms that support them." KDE inherited multitouch support from Qt4.6, and could make KDE a contender on mobile devices and tablets.

Users looking to try out the new KDE goodies can find some instructions on Ben Kevan's site. This will give you a step-by-step to get KDE 4.4 RC2 up and going on openSUSE and/or Kubuntu.

KDE 4.4RC2 is only a few days late on the roadmap, so it looks good for the project to hit the scheduled release of February 9th. KDE enthusiasts can find quite a few release parties to get together to celebrate on or around the release.