All good things come to those who wait. For example, the Elive Linux distribution 2.0 release. It's been nearly three years since the last major release of Elive, but the project has finally gotten the 2.0 release out the door with tons of improvements and new features.

Elive is a Debian-based Linux distro that uses the Enlightenment e17 desktop environment. The distro is well-suited for older computers and netbooks, as it has minimal hardware requirements. Elive can get by on a 100MHz CPU and 64MB of RAM, though the project recommends at least 128 MB of RAM and a 300MHz CPU. No 3D card required to get the full effects of the Enlightenment GUI.

KDE fans are in for a treat today. The KDE Project released its KDE Software Compilation 4.4 today, spot on time and with more than 1,433 new features. The project has also decked out the KDE Website with a fresh new design. Code-named "Caikaku," this release brings social media features to Plasma and a brand-new netbook interface for users who dig the tiny notebooks.

The Plasma Netbook is debuting in 4.4.0 as an alternative to the standard Plasma Desktop shell. Specifically designed for small screens, it has a full-screen app launcher and is ready to work with touchscreen devices. It's been in development for some time. The interface features a special "newspaper" layout that organizes KDE applets (plasmoids) to better make use of limited space.

The KDE team is getting very close to a final release of KDE 4.4. The second release candidate came out yesterday as a testing platform for users and developers to find and squash bugs before the final release date of February 9th.

The 4.4 release brings quite a few changes over 4.3, new applications, enhancements, and much more. Bloggers will find a new blogging tool, Konqueror has been beefed up with a history sidebar, KDE's groupware has received several improvements including POP3 support in Akonadi and other changes.