As usual beating the official Blog announcement.
Hopefully just a bug fix again and no new features. We will see more details soon.
It seems it does not (yet) ship with symbol library improvements that have been done since the 4.0.5 release.
Yup, just bugfixes. Some brief “release notes”:
- Fix an issue with handling backslashes \ in file paths in footprint library setup
- Use libcurl instead of avhttp for downloads
- Display pad mask clearance correctly in the footprint editor
- Fix an issue with reading PCB files from a buggy KiCad version
- Fix layer-switching bug causing effects to the OpenGL/Cairo canvas even when legacy canvas is active
- Rearrange eeschema toolbar to match user expectations regarding the workflow
- Rotate blocks correctly in symbol editor
- Rotate items correctly while dragging them in symbol editor
I think this is to be the final 4.0-series release.
On Ubuntu with 4.0.6 (out since Feb 21 (?)) I already noticed some library changes that required (minor) changes to some of my schematics.
However I don’t see a Windows 4.0.6 release out yet. Does that mean it’s currently hard or impossible to co-develop designs with a mix of ubuntu and windows installs (assuming one runs the latest version on each platform).
Any chance this will be fixed soon? Thanks!
I think currently it is only a release candidate not the official release?
It seems some teams are not ready yet.
Mailing list thread from friday last week:
https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg28439.html
I think it will not be very long until the official release.
I’m not sure why the Ubuntu 4.0.6 is out, they seem to have jumped the gun. The official release is not out yet, part of that process is to roll out the release for all (or nearly all) platforms simultaneously.
The official 4.0.6 release seems imminent (e.g. this week sometime), in the meantime you can get the 4.0.6 library snapshot from https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-library/releases which hopefully is the same as the official release.
Indeed, I should have been more clear earlier. The Ubuntu packager released a package early for some reason. The release is not out, but the code was marked internally for 4.0.6 and I guess he took that as meaning it was time to push out packages 
Ubuntu always seems to go first - Linux users are on average at a better technical level to find any issues than Windows users, so there may be a bit of an unofficial Beta Test going on
That’s complete nonsense.
Absolutely unintentional, just a miscommunication.
I was wondering, but it is still true that Linux users tend to be better at reading the manual
You haven’t met the Linux users I’ve met 
Depends on the distro. I bet arch/slackware have a very different userbase to ubuntu.
Then there are the fedora and debian unstable guys who just want the cutting edge stuff.
I’m also convinced that a lot of windows users know their way around. (I’m totally lost under windows. I don’t even understand basic functions of the operating system. I just recently learned that their application launch sequence is totally different.)
It seems to be official now:
Silly question. Re: footprint library renaming.
Capacitors_ThroughHole.pretty changed to Capacitors_THT.pretty.
What does the 2nd “T” stand for in “THT”
“Through Hole Technology” perhaps? Or perhaps the word order reversed due to French translation.
THT and SMT are “through-hole technology” and “surface-mount technology” respectively, yes.