14 DAY TRIAL // As part of today's Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) first Alpha release, the Kubuntu development team announced the availability of the Kubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1 images, which users can download and test drive on their personal computers.
Using the same internals that are present in the latest daily builds of Ubuntu 17.10, such as the Linux 4.10 kernel, systemd 233, X.Org Server 1.19.3, and Mesa 17.1.2, the first Alpha images are built on top of the KDE Plasma 5.10.2 desktop environment, KDE Frameworks 5.35.0, and KDE Applications 16.12.3.
"Kubuntu comes with KDE Applications 16.12.3 containing all your favorite apps from KDE. This is the 16.12.3 update with bugfixes and translation updates. Most applications have been ported to KDE Frameworks 5 but those which aren't should fit in seamlessly," reads today's release announcement.
VLC is now default media player
Apart from the KDE apps that are included in the KDE Applications 16.12.3 software suite, which looks to be based on the Qt 5.7.1 application framework as the development is still working hard to bring the latest Qt 5.9 packages and KDE Apps 17.04, Kubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1 comes with LibreOffice 5.3 and Mozilla Firefox 50.1.0.
Additionally, the distro now ships with VLC Media Player as default media player, replacing Amarok, which doesn't look to be maintained anymore. That begin said, you can download the Kubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1 Live ISO images for 64-bit (32-bit images didn't make it in this Alpha) computers right now from our website and take them for a test drive.
We have to warn you though that this is a pre-release version that shouldn't be installed in a production environment. Alpha images are designed to give users a preview of what's coming to Kubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) later this year. The final release will hit the streets on October 19, 2017.
