XPde aims to recreate the Windows XP desktop environment on Linux in order to allow Windows users to "feel at home" in front of a Linux computer.

The XPde Team today announced the immediate availability of XPde 0.3.0, a major upgrade to the XPde desktop environment, while it's still in beta and under heavy development, this release includes a lot of improvements regarding stability and usability.

XPde includes a desktop environment, a window manager and several other tools to make your desktop experience easier. It's available for free under Open Source licenses, you can download the sources and binaries from http://www.xpde.com.

Major Enhancements
- Added a keyboard setup applet
- Added an IPC class for interprocess communication
- Added a first version of the file explorer
- Added installation instructions for RH 8.0
- Menus are shown with a fade effect and main menu bars are drawn ok
- Changed the default style to a Lycoris one
- The file explorer is integrated into the desktop
- Designed a common About Dialog for all XPde apps
- Changes on window captions are shown
- Removed the control panel, now it's browsed using the explorer
- Added support for trayicons on the taskbar
- Added a basic calculator
- Added initial support for PNGs with alpha channel