KDE software consists of a large number of individual applications and a desktop workspace as a shell to run these applications. You can run KDE applications just fine on any desktop environment. KDE applications are built to integrate well with your system's components. By using also KDE workspace, you get even better integration of your applications with the working environment while lowering system resource needs. KDE workspaces run fine on relatively recent PCs, but they will also work on older machines with more constrained resources.

KDE applications run fine on most Linux, BSD systems. In these cases, the recommended way to install a KDE application is to use your operating system's software management tool to install it. It comes included with most Free operating systems.

Trying the KDE Software Compilation

Applications

KDE applications run fine on most Linux, BSD systems. In these cases, the recommended way to install a KDE application is to use your operating system's software management tool to install it. It comes included with most Free operating systems.

The Workspace

Trying out a desktop workspace can seem a daunting task. Installing Linux or BSD requires a commitment that you may not be quite ready to give yet. Try KDE provides a list of resources for alternative methods of trying a KDE desktop and applications, some of them without even needing to have Linux or BSD installed.

Installing one of KDE workspaces on your system is easy if you use the major Linux distributions; it's included in nearly all of them

What does KDE produce?

For users on Linux and Unix, KDE offers a full suite of user workspace applications which allow interaction with these operating systems in a modern, graphical user interface. This includes Plasma Desktop, KDE's innovative desktop interface. Other workspace applications are included to aid with system configuration, running programs, or interacting with hardware devices. While the fully integrated KDE Workspaces are only available on Linux and Unix, some of these features are available on other platforms.

In addition to the workspace, KDE produces a number of key applications such as the Konqueror web browser, Dolphin file manager and Kontact, the comprehensive personal information management suite. However, our list of applications includes many others, including those for education, multimedia, office productivity, networking, games and much more. Most applications are available on all platforms supported by the KDE Development.

KDE also brings to the forefront many innovations for application developers. An entire infrastructure has been designed and implemented to help programmers create robust and comprehensive applications in the most efficient manner, eliminating the complexity and tediousness of creating highly functional applications.

It is our hope and continued ambition that the KDE team will bring open, reliable, stable and monopoly-free computing to the everyday user.

What's New:

  • Plasma Workspaces 4.10 Improve Mobile Device Support and Receive Visual Refinement
    • Several components of Plasma Workspaces have been ported to the Qt Quick/QML framework. Stability and usability have been improved. A new print manager and Color Management support have been introduced.
  • KDE Applications Improve Usability, Performance and Take You to Mars
    • KDE Applications gained feature enhancements to Kate, KMail and Konsole. KDE-Edu applications saw a complete overhaul of KTouch and many other changes. KDE Games introduced the new Picmi game and improvements throughout.
  • KDE Platform 4.10 Opens Up More APIs to Qt Quick
    • This release makes it easier to contribute to KDE with a Plasma SDK (Software Development Kit), the ability to write Plasma widgets and widget collections in the Qt Markup Language (QML), changes in the libKDEGames library, and new scripting capabilities in window manager KWin.

Note: The download link leads to the ftp folder where the different files for the SC are stored. For the list of available applications and what they do go here.