KDE ushers in new era, launches KDE4
Posted January 11 2008 5:08 pm by kobewan
Tags: kde, linux
The desktop environment of choice for most Linux users, today launched it’s newest major release - KDE4.0 brings with it a nice list of changes (included after the break). According to the KDE website, pre-compiled packages available for Kubuntu, Fedora, Debian, openSUSE and Gentoo. Of course, as with the release of all major or minor Linux software, the release has already caused many people to proclaim 2008 as “the year of linux of the Linux desktop”.
- KDE 4.0 has been ported QT4, which uses less memory and is much snappier than previous versions. On top of that, QT4 is also available cross-platform for free - work has already started on porting KDE libraries to Windows.
- New icons, themes, and look in general thanks in part to the Oxygen Project. The Oxygen Project is also more in line with open human interface guidelines, so that there can be a more consistent and standard layout across all desktop environments.
- There is now a dedicated file manager called Dolphin, as opposed to using Konqueror as a web browser/file manager. Of course, Konqueror is also included for the people who can’t stand to lose the power and flexibility of Konqueror (and besides, how cool is it to have a file manager that has tabs?)
- Okular, a new viewer, is going to replace most of the old document viewers. Why should you be excited about it? Last I heard, Okular was the only free viewer which allowed you to keep track of bookmarks in PDF file. It does it by keeping a list of bookmarks in a local file.
- Built in indexing and search using Strigi
- Built in compositing effects (somewhat similar to a weak version of Compiz). It also has rewritten desktop managing code, allowing you to add widgets directly on the desktop.
- Pretty much all the useful applications from KDE3.5 have been updated, including the favorites Amarok and K3B.