319
Fedora proposal to change default desktop to KDE
(fedoraproject.org)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
In the end I don't care whether the "default" Fedora is KDE or GNOME, as long as the spin of the other DE is maintained well. Except for the ootb experience which is better on the GNOME version with setup steps for proprietary drivers and whatnot, the KDE spin feels like a first-class citizen.
But KDE just makes more sense for most users I feel. Currently you start wondering where your tray icons went (for example) when switching from a non-Linux OS. For gaming, KDE is simply more mature with built-in Wayland VRR support for example.
To be fair, it would make much more sense to switch to KDE for distributions like Ubuntu. Fedora never sold itself as a distribution targeting new Linux users coming from other operating systems. Therefore at least that point shouldn't be the reason to use KDE. Also distributions aren't just for new users and should not decide too much because of that. On top of that, a user is new for a very short period of time anyway. I digress...
Whether it makes sense for Ubuntu I'm not sure, but I don't think that it would make less sense on Fedora either way.
Fedora is a "batteries included" distro the way I see it, and besides, I don't see how KDE likely feeling more familiar for, say, Windows users makes it a worse choice for experienced Linux users.
A big part of what should be the default DE for a given distro is obviously very subjective, so I'd actually be surprised if they really changed the default because of this proposal. It has valid points and I'd say KDE is on average more appealing to the very broad target audience that Fedora aims to have, although as I said: that's just my opinion/gut feeling.
As long as KDE support stays at least as good as it has been so far in Fedora, I'll be happy.
You obviously don't have NVIDIA, kudos, but no CUDA... Also, some of us like codecs, etc.
I wasn't saying everything is included, and sure, proprietary things like Nvidia drivers aren't included (and I'm aware of the mesa-freeworld packages that replace the bundled ones). I was referring to Fedora being a "complete" experience in a sense that you get a preconfigured desktop environment, an installer where you can say "just install to this drive, I don't care about anything else" and quite a few preinstalled applications. It's not like Arch for example, where you manually partition your drives and chroot into your system to install packages and a bootloader just to get up and running.
I was more referring to the need for RPMFusion (batteries), which is a stumbling block for newbs unless they check the what to install after you install Fedora sites etc. I appreciate the purity, but the poor confused person coming from winblows may not...
GNOME 46 has experimental VRR support too
I know, that's available just now with Fedora 40. And you have to know that the flag exists, it's not a visible setting until you enable it. With KDE it's just there (and has been for quite a while).