KDE 4 is finally here! The KDE team announced the release of the final version of KDE 4. KDE 4 incorporates many major changes over KDE 3.5 and has received so much attention in the Linux community that it is almost hard to believe it is really here. After numerous delays, though, KDE 4 really is here.

While I am writing this, another computer is working away installing the OpenSUSE KDE 4 Live CD, so I can try it out. While I was waiting for the install to finish, I noticed that the CNet blog Underexposed covered the launch of KDE 4. It is great that KDE is getting some attention from the mainstream tech media, but the title of the post amused me. This is the title:

“KDE 4 gives Linux some Mac, Windows flavor”

I am sure that is intended to be a compliment, but I suspect not everyone would view it that way. Don’t take that as a criticism of the post itself, I just think it underscores the different perspectives of the technology world.

I was really glad to see that KDE got mainstream tech coverage. The work the developers put in certainly merits the attention it is getting. Although Linux gets nowhere near the amount of coverage that Windows and Mac do, that is slowly changing through huge announcements like this one, companies making deals to distribute Linux on their computers, and other news worthy events.

Although I have not used KDE 4 yet myself, I do plan to do some coverage of the new features/art/etc. soon. Instead of a review, though, I am going to do a comparison of KDE 4 and GNOME to see which one *I* want to run on my desktop in the future. That will be published later tonight or (more likely) on Saturday.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Future of Linux, KDE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.