Black Lab Professional Desktop KDE

Black Lab Professional Desktop KDE (previously known as Black Lab Enterprise Linux) is a commercial computer operating system derived from the popular and widely used Ubuntu Linux distribution and built around the modern KDE graphical desktop environment. It includes powerful and useful applications and provides users with professional technical support for one year.

Build around the KDE 4 desktop environment

As its name suggests, the KDE edition of Black Lab Professional Desktop is built around the KDE 4 desktop environment, has been customized and tweaked to look professional and to provide users with a fast, modern, beautiful and familiar desktop experience.

Distributed as a limited, 64-bit Live DVD

While the operating system is not free, it is available for free as a limited, 64-bit Live DVD ISO image that allows users to test the distribution before purchasing. The Live DVD can be deployed to either a USB thumb drive (4GB or higher capacity is recommended) or a DVD disc, which can be booted from the BIOS of a computer.

The boot options are identical with the ones of Black Lab Professional Desktop

The Live DVD boot menu is identical with the one of the first Black Lab Professional Desktop edition, allowing the user to start the live system with default setting or in safe graphics mode, as well as to test the computer's memory for errors, start the installation directly or boot an existing operating system from the first disk drive detected by the BIOS.

Default applications

Default application include the Mozilla Firefox web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird email and news client, Steam for Linux, Blender 3D modeller, Inkscape vector graphics editor, GIMP image editor, Scribus desktop publishing software, Pidgin multi-protocol instant messenger, Dropbox client, Audacity audio editor, SimpleScreenRecorder desktop session recorder, Cheese webcam viewer, VLC Media Player, Spotify client, WinFF video converter, as well as Wine for those who want to install apps and games designed for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Some of the best KDE apps are also included in this edition of Black Lab Professional Desktop.

Bottom line

Just like Black Lab Professional Desktop, which is built around the GNOME/GNOME Shell interface, this KDE edition does not disappoint and provides users with a commercial computer operating system designed for small to medium sized businesses. Black Lab Professional Desktop KDE can be purchased from its official website and it uses state-of-the-art Linux technologies and applications.

What is new in this release:

• KDE 4.14.2
• Mate 1.8.2 (RHEL 6 compatible desktop)
• GCC 4.9.2
• Firefox 38
• Thunderbird 31.7
• Skype 4.3
• ScudCloud - Which is a Slack Client
• Citrix Receiver
• LibreOffice 4.3
• Focus Writer
• Timeshift restore facilities
• Backup Utility
• Black Lab Enterprise Desktop 6 also supports a wide variety of NAS and other enterprise capable devices
• kernel 3.16.0-38 which has a ton of bug fixes and stabilized device drivers
• Ubuntu LTS kernel 3.13.0-53 which is the default kernel included with Ubuntu 14.04

What is new in version 6 Service Release 3:

• KDE 4.14.2
• Firefox 35.0.1
• Thunderbird 31.4
• GTK+ 3.14
• QT 5
• LibreOffice
• Pidgin
• GLOM
• Kexi with PostgreSQL and MySQL drivers
• Simple Screen Recorder
• GNUCash
• Kmymoney
• Updated Flash Player
• Kernel 3.13.0-45
• DWM
• Nanny parental controls for
• system access controls
• Gnome EncFS Manager for creating
• encrypted data folders