“With a new visual interface including new themes sounds and
effects as well as a semantic file manager, speed and multimedia
handling improvements, KDE 4 is a major release for the Linux
desktop.“While many of KDE 4’s new features will be visible to end
users, a lot of work has been done under the hood that will benefit
developers too with new frameworks, including Phonon for
multimedia, Plasma for desktop and panel interface and Strigi for
search.“The sum total of all KDE 4’s improvements could well serve to
help bolster its adoption against its Linux desktop rival GNOME as
well as Microsoft’s Windows…”