KDE Frameworks 5 and Plasma Workspaces 2 is the next biggest thing which will happen to KDE in near future. A first preview was released on Dec 1. And it is scheduled to Q1 or Q2 of 2014.
KDE Frameworks 5
KDE Frameworks 5 is the successor to KDE Platform 4, bringing significant technical differences and a change in focus. It will be the first release of KDE libraries based on Qt 5, which brings significant improvements to users. New technologies are being introduced and libraries are being cleaned up, reviewed and brought up to date with new standards. At the same time, the team is making the development platform more modular and making it easier to reuse solutions in a wider range of platforms and devices, including desktop and mobile. Technologies such as QML allow KDE developers to take advantage of a leading graphics rendering engine, and allow for more organic and fluid user interfaces across devices.
Plasma Workspaces 2
Plasma Workspaces 2 will be a new version of KDE Workspaces based on KDE Frameworks 5 and Qt5. Plasma Workspaces work takes advantage of the source and binary compatibility break of Qt5 to do necessary updates to the architecture. The biggest change in Plasma Workspaces 2 is the move to Qt Quick and the dynamic QML user interface language. Plasma Workspaces 2 implements Plasma Quick, which is Qt Quick plus a number of Plasma integration components
So When ..??
| Release | Expected date |
|---|---|
| KDE Frameworks 5 preview | December 1, 2013 |
| KDE Frameworks 5 release | first half 2014 |
| KDE Workspaces 4.11 | released August 14, 2013 (LTS for two years) |
| KDE Workspaces 2 preview | 1st quarter 2014 |
| KDE Workspaces 2 release | 2nd quarter 2014 |
| KDE Applications 4.12 | December 18, 2013 |
| KDE Applications 4.13 | Q2/Q3 2014 |
The Current KDE 4.11 will get support for next Two years.
Warning : KDE 5 is in very early stage use it with care. No Production. Only testing purpose
Try KDE 5 with Project Neon 5
KDE 5 will be released on Mid of 2014. Neon project is a preview of what is coming up. Project neon 5 is a Kubuntu 13.10 with KDE frameworks 5. Download then test on virtual box.
ISO’s are 64bit only and even if are small on size (~700mb). May be slow and take 2-3 hrs to download.
Download Project Neon 5
KF5 and Plasma 2 builds in an ISO to test in VirtualBox.
http://files.kde.org/snapshots/
http://files.kde.org/snapshots/neon5-latest.iso
More information at http://kshadeslayer.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/introducing-project-neon-5-isos/
Running Neon 5 in a Virtual Box works just fine. May be some crash on Plasma. Just reset the virtual box or restart the plasma from shell.
$ plasma-shell
Remember that KDE Frameworks 5 is under heavy and very active development!
Contact the Team
You can reach the Project Neon team on IRC in
#project-neon on irc.freenode.net
by mail at
Source : woGue