KDE 4.3 is released

Bugs fixed, features added, in latest KDE release.

The open source KDE Community released its 'K Desktop Environment' (KDE) version 4.3 yesterday.

Codenamed "Caizen" for the Japanese philosopy of continuous improvement, KDE 4.3 is the latest iteration of one of most popular heavyweight desktop windowing, toolset integration and applications software suites for the Linux and Unix operating systems.

Built by a worldwide team of over 700 contributors who logged more than 63,000 code changes during the last six months, KDE 4.3 includes fixes for over 10,000 bugs and implements almost 2,000 new feature requests.

Major features of KDE 4.3 include KWin, a 3D graphical window manager, the Plasma desktop panels and widgets integration shell, the Dolphin network and content aware file manager, the KRunner desktop search and command launch system, and improved access to desktop and system settings and controls.

The KDE suite also includes a variety of integrated applications in the categories of networking, multimedia, graphics, personal information management, education, games, utilities and software development.

This latest KDE 4.3 release should start showing up within the next few months in the Linux distributions that include KDE as an alternative to the competing heavyweight desktop Gnome and other, lighter-weight desktops.

Or, if you don't want to wait for your favoured distribution to work through integrating it, which can take a while, the announcement includes instructions for downloading it.