Garbage. I just installed it, and have since uninstalled it. Here are my notes in the 30 minutes of use I gave it.

1) Very pretty, and seemed to boot fast to be as graphically cool as it is.
2) Widgets=good idea, allows the creation of desktop additions without additional software.
3) Menu could use a little work
4) Kicker panel isn't customizable at all. Even if I tried to make it bigger or smaller the icon for the menu changed to a pixelated and out of place red arrow, and then upon putting it back I got white space under it until I actually clicked OK to close out the config window.
5) None of the icons to locations that carried over from KDE 3.5.9 worked, even though they pointed directly to locations on my hard drive.
6) Upon installing KDE 4 versions of all my apps and restarting, my taskbar is completely gone with no apparent way to restore it, leaving me to try and build a new one out of widgets...

Good concept, but way to early in the development stages to be a public release.

Of course these are all just opinions based on my experiences, anybody have a good experience with it?

I had very bad experience,they need time,a lot of time I think.But 3.5.9. is different thing though.

Lest we forget, KDE 4 is still in Beta so there will be issues. If you want to help it develop, post to the KDE mailing lists so the devs will be aware of the feedback.

No,we don't forget,KDE4 was officially released,not as beta,then as KDE4.The thing that it's full of bugs is another thing.
I was aware of that option,thank you.

Bugs or not, I have been running KDE4 in a test environment on Kubuntu but I was also very unpleasantly surprised.

I cannot believe (but correct me if I am wrong) that the first version of a new release is much more limited in functionality than the previous one. First version is first released version, not beta, not beta2.

Although many graphic effects are beautiful, they don't add anything to stability or functionality.

Like alan_ri I missed a lot of functionality and option settings which are normal in KDE3. The start menu is unlogical and disorded and seems to be focused on the top 10 of programs used, and copied from WinXP. . Well, at least once a week I am searching for some useful program in Linux, which I don't even know it exists. In KDE3 that's no problem, I can read thru all menus. Good luck browsing in KDE4.

I can only describe KDE4 as a Vistalized and Gnomanized KDE 3.x.

As long as KDE is not part of the Debian Testing repository I can live with bugs, not with a vastly different policy of UI definition.

If that is the way KDE is heading, sorry, but then I hope KDE3 is being backported for a looooong time.

jlinkels

Well KDE 3.5.9 is good enough for me, it's very stable, has lots of in depth configuration options, etc. Seems like they're trying to compete with the GUI-fied desktops of the new OS's(Vista and OSX) when they could've just expanded the functionality and stability of KDE 3.5 and let Compiz handle the "pretty" aspect of things. Ah well too late to change it now, just hope they fix all the bugs in KDE 4. I'll check it out in a year or so after I get back from Iraq and see how it has come along.

Apparently quite a few people are using it though, there's already custom plasma applications on kde-look.org, maybe the community support and input will help it along as well.

I too am of the opinion that KDE4 isn't ready for my computer.

I just installed Fedora 9 from the KDE4 liveCD this weekend. I definitely am also shocked by the lack of options for everything. Even the desktop wallpaper seems to be locked to the handful of choices they give you. It let me choose my own picture, but wouldn't set it.

The one that really threw me was the lack of the ability to hide the panel. It takes up quite a big chunk of screen, especially on a wide-aspect laptop.

And, I don't get that desktop icons have to be widgets. Widgets are fine for those who like them. I don't hate them, but I won't really use them, except for the very basics.

I'm all for making things look pretty, but I would rather they start with "function" and then add "form". All the oohs and ahhs in the world don't mean anything if you can't do stuff.

So I installed XFCE and will be using that for now. KDE 4.1 should be out in July. I hope it gets better.