Last month, Clement Lefebvre of the Linux Mint project announced the release of Linux Mint 18 KDE beta. Now that the KDE edition has been refined, a stable version has been made available. Anyone running the beta build can hit the refresh button in Update Manager and apply any outstanding level 1 updates, doing this will make your install the same as the stable release. Unfortunately, those on Linux Mint 17.3 KDE can't upgrade to this release due to Plasma 5.
The system requirements for Linux Mint 18 KDE edition are:
- 2GB RAM
- 10GB of disk space (20GB recommended)
- 1024x768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don't fit on the screen)
If your machine meets the requirements and you decide to install this release, there are several new updates to keep an eye out for. Firstly, the biggest change that arrived in Mint 18 KDE is Plasma 5.6. This is a huge step for the distribution, in the Mint 17 series users were given a Plasma 4 release. The major shift between the two Plasma versions is the reason why an upgrade path was not been made available between the Mint 17 and 18 releases.
As with the Cinnamon and MATE releases, the KDE edition comes bundled with the newly designed update manager and the new X-Apps. For now, the Mint team has opted to keep the KDE apps in place instead of installing the X-Apps by default. THe X-Apps can be installed from the software manager.
For those unfamiliar with the life cycle of Mint releases these days, Mint 18 will receive security updates until 2021. Until 2018, future versions of Linux Mint (point releases) will use the same package base as Linux Mint 18, allowing for easy upgrades. In 2018, the Mint team will shift its focus away from Mint 18 to the next release, Linux Mint 19.
Source: Linux Mint
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