For the tinkerers and testers, 2010 is shaping up to be a perfect year. Almost every desktop and application we can think of is going to have a major release, and while release dates and roadmaps always have to be taken with a pinch of salt, many of these projects have built technology and enhancements you can play with now. We've selected the few we think are worth keeping an eye on and that can be installed easily, but Linux is littered with applications that are evolving all the time, so we've also tried to guess what the next big things might be.

Take a trip with us on a voyage of discovery to find out exactly what's happening and how the Linux desktop experience is likely to evolve over the next 12 months...

KRunner

KRunner has been part of KDE for long time. It's the tool you see when you press Alt+F2, and is commonly used to run applications quickly by typing their names rather than resorting to the launch menu. In the face of stiff competition from the likes of Gnome Do though, KRunner has had to up its game recently, and there are several neat enhancements for the KDE 4.4 release.

The most obvious change is that the KRunner dialog itself is now at the top of the screen rather than in the middle. This makes more sense, because it's now less likely to tread over some important application information or Slashdot story. You can also close the window again by pressing Alt+F2.

Now that KDE 4.4 has a working search engine, the first new thing you can do with KRunner is search your desktop. Results are listed in the panel below. Everything else more or less looks the same until you click on the small spanner icon.

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