It’s no secret that KDE4.0 didn’t get good reviews. Fact is it was heavily criticized, mainly for instability problems. So much so that it was argued that KDE 4.0 shouldn’t have been pushed out as a .0 release. But that was past, and today KDE 4.1 was released. Judging from the reactions, its no doubt that the KDE team has almos redeemed its mistakes of the 4.0 release.

Linux.com carries a review of KDE4.1, and here’s what they say

One of the most controversial announcements during the KDE 4.1 development cycle was the reported removal of icons for the desktop. In actuality, desktop icons are not missing from the new version, they’re just handled differently. This version introduces a Folder View plasmoid, which is a container you can place on the desktop that can show the contents of any directory.

As far as eye candy, KDE 4.1 looks simply stunning. While its theme uses the same foundation as 4.0, the developers have improved it with many tweaks.

Some of the most notable new features in KDE 4.1 include the introduction of the minimalistic Dragon Player for videos, tree view and tabbed browsing features in Dolphin, and several improvements in Gwenview, such as a thumbnail bar and the repositioning of the rotate and full screen options to easier to reach places to minimize mouse movement.

TuxMachines has a collection of reviews of  KDE4.1, you might want to check it out.

For those who want to try KDE4.1, openSUSE KDE4.1 Live CD is available, download it from here.
If you’re already using openSUSE 11, upgrade to KDE4.1 using the 1-click installer.

In this day modern day, most software installations can be done using repositories and package managers. However, you might face a situation of having only the source files availalble with you – you probably would want to try out bleeding edge software, which hasn’t been packaged yet, or isn’t available in the repos yet.

So if you really want to try it out, then the only way would be to download the source files and compile them.

Contrary to what most people think – Compiling from sources isn’t that complicated – the entire process takes 3 commands.

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Admin’s Note: This is a guest post by Aditya. Though this post was drafted on 1st July, my work commitments and rather bad memory prevented this post being published. Due apologies.
I know that a title is a bit harsh but I am afraid it is true.
First lets get into some technical stuff.
Dream Linux is a Debian based distro(like Ubuntu) . It has both Xfce and Gnome interface. I’m reviewing the Gnome version.

The Installation

The first screen you get after booting into the CD ask you to choose the interface(Gnome or Xfce)
It also has memtest for testing memory but the CD cant be checked for defects, which is a very important feature, since the disk has to be free of defects as it is an operating system.
I choose the Gnome interface and booted. Here’s where I faced my first nightmare. The whole thing is pretty slow. Even after booting completely. I do know that a live CD is slow as it is limited by the optical drive but this was way slower than other live C.D’s.

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A lot of you out there must’ve read Linux Hater’s Blog, a blog with (some valid) rants about what’s wrong about Linux. John M Anderson ponders over what made him shift from Windows to Linux and here’s some of his choice quotes

You just bought built a brand new computer and want to install the brand spankin’ new Windows Vista Ultimate, you plop down $300, and away you go! What does $300 get you? A bare minimum operating system with nothing but MS Paint and Media Player. [...]