"There seems little doubt that KDE 4, the flagship desktop environment used by many Linux aficionados, was released too early. After seven years of solid, steady KDE 3 deployment, KDE 4 was released amidst the much media hoopla and near-universal user disappointment. It simply wasn't ready for userville. There was too much missing and too many differences; it felt like a retrograde step. To be fair, the KDE team did describe it as a work-in-progress, and some of the fault lies with distro packers who slapped essentially beta code into their latest releases. As a result many users simply avoided it. Including me. At least until recently.
"Since its ill fated inception in November 2007 KDE 4 has undergone a number of significant upgrades. Version 4.1 came out in July last year, 4.2 in January this year, and for the last month I've been working with version 4.3 which was released in August. I reckon KDE 4's now ready for the big time, and with Kubuntu 9.10 ("Karmic Koala") due shortly, it's time to throw off the shackles of KDE 3.
"Moving from 3 to 4 is a big shift. There's lots of new stuff and many unfamiliar concepts so to start with I'm going to show you how to make it all look familiar. We're going to make KDE 4 look and act like good old KDE 3. That way you can ease into the new environment without losing productivity."
