Get Involved/Quality/Beta/InstallingBeta1

Using a LiveCD

You can get an ISO for a LiveCD here: http://susestudio.com/a/tAWYe6/kde-plasma-daily

Installing 4.9 beta 1 with your distribution packages

Slackware

The packages will be obtainable at http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/ The instructions for usage will be posted on http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/

Arch Linux

There is a dedicated [kde-unstable] repository. This repo only contains KDE/Calligra beta and RC releases (with their unstable deps); when the stable version is out, the packages are moved to the [extra] repository.

Installation steps are at:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KDE#Official_kde-unstable

In case you want to test Pairs alone, you can use the package from aur 'pairs-git': http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=56310

Gentoo

Provides scm versions (ebuilds) for master/trunk & stable branch, betas and rc's in an extra repository (overlay). Detailed install instructions can be found here:

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/kde/kde4-guide.xml

Fedora

There is an unofficial kde-unstable/kde-testing and a kde-stable repo maintained by Rex Dieter - the place where the newest bits come for already released stuff. But Fedora Rawhide is always the first place for all builds.

OpenSuse

See http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Unstable:/SC/openSUSE_12.1/

Kubuntu

Using Project Neon

Project neon will install the latest version of KDE *alongside* your current installation. This has the advantage that your main system is not upgraded, but does require a significant more amount of disk space.

Note that project neon runs with a different KDE config directory so your settings will not be transferred, this means original settings will not be affected.

Installation

First add the project neon repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:neon/ppa

Then upgrade apts list of packages

sudo apt-get update

Install the minimal set of packages required to run Neon:

sudo apt-get install project-neon-base

If you would like to install all the packages from the repository :
[ NOTE : This WILL take up alot of space ]

sudo apt-get install project-neon-all

Running

When at your login screen, click the blue arrow to select your Session, here select "Project Neon". To revert back to your original stable KDE setup, select "KDE Plasma Workspace" at the login screen.

Compiling the sources

Compiling a single application against your KDE 4.8 installation

You need the Qt (>= 4.7) and kdelibs (4.8) development packages. Then follow:
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Building_An_Existing_Application

Using build-tool

Build-tool is a ruby program which will build the 4.9 beta 1 packages. It also has some neat features like progress bars and eta for compile time. It can also automatically generate a ~/.xsessionrc which can be used by KDM when you select to boot into a "Custom" session type. That will enable you to easily get into a KDE session which was built from source, without even having to modify any of your scripts like ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.

Install ruby 1.9 and rubygems through your package manager. Run 'sudo gem install build-tool'. Now that build-tool is installed, we need to install the KDE recipes to have it build KDE from source. Run 'build-tool recipe add git://gitorious.org/build-tool/kde-trunk-recipe.git kde' to add the KDE recipe to the program. Then 'build-tool recipes install kde'. From there, you can run 'kde-build help' to see the commands available for the KDE recipe, as well as compile and update the git repositories. For more detailed information, visit:http://michael-jansen.biz/build-tool/quick-start.html

Ask annma on IRC #kde-quality and/or mjansen on #kde-devel (freenode) for help