The developers behind the open source KDE desktop environment made some major changes when they launched KDE 4.0. While KDE 3.5 had long been described as one of the best Linux desktop environments for users familiar with Windows, KDE 4.0 introduced a whole new look and feel. The start menu was completely redesigned and the desktop environment made heavy use of widgets. And oh yeah, a number of KDE 3.5 applications were left behind.

Now the KDE has released KDE 4.1 beta, which introduces or brings back the following features:

• The KDE PIM manager, Kontact is back
• Dolphin, the file manager gets tabbed views
• KDE CD Player is back
• Konqueror now supports web browsing sessions, an undo mode, and smooth scrolling
• Gwenview image viewer now supports a full screen interface
• The Plasma interface which covers the launcher menu, panels, and desktop has been refined
• Dragon Player, a new lightweight media player has been added

The final release of KDE 4.1 is schedueld for July 29. In the meantime, you can download a virtual machine image to test it out, or grab an image that will run in Virtualbox.

[via Tombuntu]