Mi Escritorio en Archlinux. - Credit: BiatoNotUnix on Picasa (CC BY SA)

The latest iteration of the multi-platform desktop environment has been released.

KDE 4.3 (Codename: “Caizen”) Delivers Incremental Innovations to the Free Desktop Users and Software Developers

4 August, 2009. The KDE Community today announces the immediate availability of “Caizen”, (a.k.a KDE 4.3), bringing many improvements to the user experience and development platform. KDE 4.3 continues to refine the unique features brought in previous releases while bringing new innovations. With the 4.2 release aimed at the majority of end users, KDE 4.3 offers a more stable and complete product for the home and small office.

This release is truly worlds apart from the highly controversial 4.0 release. If you were put off by the earlier releases I would say now is the time to give KDE another shot. Congratulations to the KDE community on this great release.

• Slashdot
• Release Announcement

The GNOME Desktop Environment went to version 2.26 on Wednesday. New features include simplified file sharing, improved Outlook-to-Evolution migration, a new sound preferences tool with PulseAudio integration, a new display settings tool with support for multiple monitors, and numerous other minor improvements.

Nothing particularly exciting with this release, though it’s nice to know we don’t have to rely on proprietary video settings software anymore to set up dual monitors.

• GNOME 2.26 Release Notes

KDE 4.2 - Credit kde.org

ZDNet Australia has done a survey similar to the Mojave expirement, seeing how people like Windows 7 (even though it’s actually KDE4).

The net result? Mainly, people just didn’t like Vista.

What do you think? Do Windows 7 and KDE 4 just look way too alike to tell the difference? Which one looks better? Post your comments below.

Haha, I wanted to see their responces when they found out it wasn’t Windows.

• ZDNet

KDE 4.2 - Credit: kde.org

KDE 4.2 has been released.

There are major improvements throughout the entire stack. The Plasma desktop shell gained additional panel functionality, a new notification system, and support for building plasmoids with Ruby and Python; I took a look at some of these features in my coverage of the 4.2 beta release. KDE 4.2 also introduces improved support for visual effects and compositing-based window management features.

KDE’s cross-platform compatibility is better than ever in version 4.2. Many of KDE’s most impressive applications, including Amarok, Kate, and Konqueror, can be used on Windows and Mac OS X. The Windows port has matured a lot and even has preliminary support for running Plasma.

I’m a KDE user, so this makes me happy.  I can’t wait until KDE 4 has all the functionality they are missing from KDE 3.

• Ars Technica
• KDE