14 DAY TRIAL // The new KDE Plasma 5 Beta 2 that was released only a few days ago can be tested in Kubuntu 14.04 LTS with a just a minimum of effort.
The KDE developers are preparing to release the final version of Plasma 5, the replacement of the current desktop that is being used by KDE. It's still in the Beta stages, but the final version is close. The good news is that you can now test it in Kubuntu 14.04 LTS.
“The packages I'm pleased about today are the Next PPA packages which is the packaging Kubuntu (and hopefully Debian) will be using going forward. It doesn't co-install with Plasma 1 so only use if you want breakage and if you want to help fix breakage,” said Jonathan Riddell.
All you have to do is to add a PPA to your system by entering the following commands (you will have to be root in order to make this work):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/next sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
The final version of Plasma is expected to arrive in July, but it will take a while until it gets integrated into various distros.
Remember that this is a development version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.