KDE 4.1 is supposed to make everything right with the recently troubled desktop. Everyone agrees now that KDE 4.0 was a mistake. However, what the mistake was -- and whose -- is a matter of opinion. KDE developers blame distributions for rushing to include a release that was never intended for everyday use, while users blame developers for changing everything.

On the Fedora list, some are calling for keeping KDE 3.5 as an option in future releases of the distro, while one reviewer has suggested that KDE development should be forked, so that no one has to use the 4.x version. To these reactions, which seem as much a fear of the new as legitimate criticism, KDE speakers have replied by encouraging everyone to wait for the improvements coming in 4.1.

However, if the second beta of 4.1 is any indication, it will be only partly successful in quieting user dissent. On the one hand, KDE 4.1 includes the first 4.x versions of several major KDE applications, which goes a long way toward improving the user experience. And, in both other programs as well as the desktop, the second beta sports countless improvements in functionality and design. On the other hand, not only are many of the interface changes that people complain about still there, but the new Folder View raises a whole new set of issues about how users organize their desktops.

The second beta is still prone to unexplained crashes, so you probably do not want to compile it from source, or install it on any of the distributions that have packages for it, like Debian and Ubuntu. Instead, the simplest way to investigate KDE 4.1 is to download and burn the latest openSUSE KDE Live CD.

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