KDE 4 has been released, and it is very very pretty. However it isn’t stable or all that complete (insert Vista joke here). The new icon set is very attractive, and the rounded window edges for about all windows give a clean and completed feel to the desktop. As much as I LOVE gnome, and respect all the work being put into it, it looks like I might be switching desktop environments in the near future.

Here are some screens:

kde 4 logout
Logout window
kde 4 widget tool
Widget tool in upper left of screen
kde 4 dolphin/rounded corners
Rounded corners are a nice touch, and a visual for disc space remaining.

kde 4 storage media panel app
Applet tool for removable media

kde 4 dolphin columns
Dolphin file manager with column view like Mac OSX

kde 4 right-click
Right-click menu

kde 4 dolphin - split view
Dolphin file manager with split view showing /media/NONAME, and / directories.

You can install kde4 in Ubuntu 7.10 in these 5 steps:

  1. Open your sources.list file to add the new repository:
    gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
  2. Paste this line to the end of the file:
    deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main
  3. Save the file and close the text editor.
  4. Update apt:
    sudo apt-get update
  5. Install KDE 4.0:
    sudo apt-get install kde4-core

Thanks to tombuntu for the installation instructions.