A Second Beta Of KDE SC 4.9 Released

Just one week after the first KDE SC 4.9 beta, a second beta of this six-month KDE desktop update is now available with more fixes.

The focus of KDE SC 4.9 Beta 2 is on "fixing bugs and further polishing new and old functionality." For those not familiar with the key features of KDE 4.9, the features the KDE camp is promoting are listed below.

- Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces -- Qt Quick is continuing to make its way into the Plasma Workspaces, the Qt Quick Plasma Components, which have been introduced with 4.8, mature further. Additional integration of various KDE APIs was added through new modules. More parts of Plasma Desktop have been ported to QML. While preserving their functionality, the Qt Quick replacements of common plasmoids are visually more attractive, easier to enhance and extend and behave better on touchscreens.
- The Dolphin file manager has improved its display and sorting and searching based on metadata. Files can now be renamed inline, giving a smoother user experience.
- Deeper integration of Activities for files, windows and other resources: Users can now more easily associate files and windows with an Activity, and enjoy a more properly organized workspace. Folderview can now show files related to an Activity, making it easier to organize files into meaningful contexts.
- Many performance improvements and bugfixes improve the overall user experience, making the KDE Applications and Workspaces more productive and fun to use than ever before.

While I haven't yet tried out this latest KDE 4.9 development release, I have been hearing extremely good words about the performance and speed of the KDE 4.9 desktop with KWin, even for low-end hardware and when compared to KDE 4.8 from just months ago.

More information on KDE 4.9 Beta 2 is available from the KDE.org announcement.

KDE 4.9 will be officially released in August.