Software Update: Kubuntu 8.10 Beta 1

The developers of Kubuntu have released the first beta version of the 8.10 branch. The new version is available from this page downloaded via http and bittorrent. Kubuntu is a derivative of Ubuntu Linux, the only difference being that Kubuntu uses KDE as its desktop environment – hence the k in front of the name. New in version 8.10 is the use of KDE 4.1, as well as improvements in the desktop shell called Plasma, the PDF and image viewer and stability improvements in the mail client Kmail. A comprehensive overview of the innovations in Kubuntu 8.10 beta 1 can be found on this page to be found. Below is the changelog:

Intrepid Ibex Beta brings with it the latest and greatest KDE. KDE 4.1.2 adds stability to the impressive set of features that was put in place in KDE 4.1. Notable changes include:

• Significant performance, interaction and rendering correctness improvements in KHTML and Konqueror, KDE’s web browser
• User interaction, rendering and stability fixes in Plasma, the KDE4 desktop shell
• PDF backend fixes in the document viewer Okular
• Fixes in Gwenview, the image viewer’s thumbnailing, more robust retrieval and display of images with broken metadata
• Stability and interaction fixes in KMail

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