[ Thanks to Barbara I.
Irwin for this link. ]
“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.”