As many of you expected, the first beta version of KDE 4.1 was released into the wild last night, as the good people behind the KDE Project announced, and it comes with great new features for you to test. Let's have a quick look at the highlights of KDE 4.1 Beta 1:

￭ The desktop shell configurability and functionality were considerably extended;
￭ The PIM (Personal Information Management) suite was finally ported to KDE 4;
￭ A lot of applications were ported to KDE 4.

Being the second development build of KDE 4.1, this beta brings a more mature Plasma, the technology behind the KDE 4 desktop environment which is responsible for the panels, menus and desktop. Kickoff was greatly improved and has a fresh new look, the Run Command dialog is now more powerful than ever before, and the composite window manager provides better and faster desktop effects. Konqueror contains a couple of cool new features, such as an undo mode, browsing sessions and improved smooth scrolling.

Among the applications that can be found in KDE 4.1, we notice a brand new media player called Dragon Player, KDE CD Player, the popular Gwenview image viewer, Kontact, the KDE PIM suite, and Dolphin as the default file manager.

The KDE 4.1 release schedule:

￭ April 29th, 2008: KDE 4.1 Alpha 1 Release
￭ May 27th, 2008: KDE 4.1 Beta 1 Release
￭ June 24th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 Beta 2 Release
￭ July 15th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 RC 1 Release
￭ July 29th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 Release

Would you like to see KDE 4 in action? Download the openSUSE-based KDE 4 Live CD based on this beta release right now from Softpedia.

Are you a console freak and you want to compile KDE 4.1 Beta 1 yourself? Download the KDE 4.1 sources right now from Softpedia.