Debian and KDE4: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Guerrero's announcement on the Debian-KDE mailing list indicated that KDE4 is moving from the experimental to the unstable repository, although the exact date is not quite certain.

A special tool in KDE 4.2 called kaboom will aid in a flawless update from KDE 3.5 as well as from existing KDE4 installations. The issue is adopting user settings in the hidden .kde and .kde4 directories. Up to now it had been unclear which directory would be used in the final analysis. The kaboom tool does not support KDE4 installations from the Debian backport.

Debian had left itself quite a bit longer development time with KDE4 than other distros. For about a year adventuresome users could install from the experimental repository, with often problematic results. Some consideration was even made for a short while about releasing KDE4 together with Debian 5 (Lenny), although that idea was quickly scrapped. Now, after Lenny's release and a lot of preliminary work, KDE 4.2 is finally ready for exposure to a wider circle of Debian users.