KDE 4.0 stable for Linux now available !

With the fourth major version, the KDE Community marks the beginning of the KDE 4 era.

Beginning today, KDE 4.0 is available for immediate use by Linux enthusiasts. After half a year of development, KDE 4.0 stable is finally available. KDE 4 is the next generation of the popular K Desktop Environment the alternative to GNOME desktop environment.

New in KDE 4

• A new desktop shell called Plasma. Plasma provides a panel, a menu and other intuitive means to interact with the desktop and applications.
• KWin, KDE’s window manager, now supports advanced compositing features. Hardware accelerated painting takes care of a smoother and more intuitive interaction with windows
• New Oxygen artwork in KDE 4 to provide a consistent look and feel along all applications.
• KDE Applications have been improved. Visual updates through vector-based artwork, changes in the underlying libraries, user interface enhancements, new features, even new applications are now in KDE 4.
• KDE 4 also ships with Dolphin an alternative to Konqueror file manager.
• A new file viewer Okular is included. Okular makes use of the new underlying KDE technologies.

This is just a small list. Lots of more changes are there.

You can find the complete list in KDE 4 announcement available on the KDE blog.