Earlier this year, a proposal was made to replace the primary edition of Fedora from the GNOME variant to the KDE variant. This proposal, while serious, was mostly intended to stir up discussion about the position of the Fedora KDE spin within the larger Fedora community, and it seems this has had its intended effect. A different, but related proposal, to make Fedora KDE equal in status to the Fedora GNOME variant, has been accepted.
The original proposal read:
As discussed at Flock, the Fedora KDE SIG and the newly forming Fedora Personal Systems Working Group that will oversee the SIG are requesting that the Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop spin be upgraded to Edition status for Fedora Linux 42.
This includes the following:
↫ Original proposal
- Listing Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition at the same level as Fedora Workstation Edition on fedoraproject.org
- Production of a flagship site page for Fedora KDE similar to Fedora Workstation on fedoraproject.org
- Marketing support in a similar vein to Workstation at events
After a few months of being live, the proposal has now been unanimously accepted, which means that starting with Fedora 42, the GNOME and KDE versions will have equal status, and thus will receive equal marketing and positioning on the website. Considering how many people really enjoy Fedora KDE, this is a great outcome, and probably the fairest way to handle the situation for a distribution as popular as Fedora.
I use Fedora KDE on all my machines, so for me, this is great news.
For sure KDE deserves it, considering it’s the only remaining classic, feature full and modern desktop environment out there. It turned out that is actually a good thing.
What are you talking about? Xfce, cinnamon, Budgie, and even Mate are classic feaure full desktops.
Classic yes, feature full, when compared to KDE, no. All of them are lacking in some way, when compared to KDE.
Sure, like what?
C’mon lets be serious. KDE is notorious for supporting every use case one can think of and more, other mentioned ones don’t. People not using KDE often argue it’s an issue, people using KDE for sure don’t see it as an issue, being able to perfect desktop environment to your liking. But OK lets say wobbly windows, there you have it.
So nothing. A niche thing that 10% of the population might use.
So i guess you are one of those “lets dumb it down” kind of people, aren’t you? Thanks but no thanks. Anyway, people are not dumb, as some seem to believe, and one can see the result of that when reading this news. KDE positioning itself as default desktop environment of GNU/Linux and GNOME losing ground. With their “lets dumb it down” approach. As nobody uses anything anyway, everything is a niche and BS like that.
So what you say is that all the people who don’t use KDE are “dumb it down”. Sure. I gave you a chance to explain and you gave as an example the most superflous and dumb feature.
You said give me an example and i gave you one. Instead of acknowledging it you are not trying to trivialize it. What i can tell from that is you really didn’t want me to give you an example, you just wanted to waste other people time with BS. On top of that i use the mention feature and i don’t find it neither superfluous or dumb. What i do find dumb is you telling other people this feature is superfluous or dumb. An approach GNOME folk chose and look on where that got them. Rather dumb approach if you ask me but to each their own.
Some people prefer GNOME and others prefer KDE, Who cares. People can choose whatever is best for themselves and that’s a good thing, No drama needed.
Quite on the contrary, KDE was always demoted in Fedora, as lesser. No more and this is rather significant. On top of that i care, i don’t want GNOME to be “the face” of GNU/Linux as i want it to be KDE instead. That is to be default option in both Ubuntu and Fedora instead of GNOME. Beyond that indeed people are free to chose.
Geck,
But that’s just it, whatever gripe you had before, you can drop those gripes now and be happy that both have equal status now.
Great, so choose what you like and move on. I’d also choose KDE, but that doesn’t make it superior for everyone. This is a good outcome with nothing to argue over.
If we should really all act the way you proposed then this news would have never have been written. It took effort by people that do care to make it happen. On top of that no need to move on just yet, KDE is not default option in Ubuntu hence some work left to do. After we indeed can move on until things change significantly again to reconsider. As in the end it’s not all the same, doing a good job should be rewarded instead of suggesting it doesn’t really matter all that much. It does.
It’s great that you like KDE and it’s great that they’re getting equal treatment. But we should be happy about it without reducing things down to chauvinistic “my desktop is better than your desktop” antics, That turns people off. Ugh. Seriously, it’s no different than people dismissing your opinion by claiming gnome is better….take a look in the mirror.
No, that is not it. That is first of all i provided my reasoning, KDE being the only remaining classic, feature full and modern desktop environment. Nobody really refuted that, there was an attempt to relativize my claim by listing a couple of other desktop environment but that was quickly dismissed as unfounded, easily proving them not being anywhere near as feature full as KDE. So all in all this is not another “my desktop is better then yours” discussion. It’s about facts. And this news further backs such claim, as if what i just wrote wouldn’t be a fact then no way Fedora would elevate KDE to the same status as GNOME. It just wouldn’t happen. So again to summarize there is nothing wrong in acknowledging KDE is doing a good job and as such deserves for their status to be elevated, moreover it should be elevated above GNOME. Reason being defaults are a powerful thing and currently GNOME is (was) default for Fedora and Ubuntu. It’s time for KDE to take that place and to be perceived as default choice for GNU/Linux on desktop. After all there is a reason the author of this article, you, me … all use KDE, that really can’t be a coincidence. Anyway, things are moving in this direction and i am sure that eventually this goal will be achieved. If we ever switch back to GNOME or some other desktop environment, fine, that should be acknowledged and defaults to change again. Considering such things take years nobody will be affected by it to such extend it couldn’t be done. Selecting sane defaults and pursuing a proper acknowledgement.
Geck,
Ok, that’s your opinion, but then you carry on as though your opinion is authoritative over everyone else and that doesn’t hold water.
But you must concede that our preference for KDE is no more authoritative to others than their preference for gnome would be authoritative to us. Honestly as a KDE user, I think this is a good outcome that lets everyone choose for themselves. It gives me no additional pleasure to be a pompous ass pushing my preferences on others.
You keep repeating the same. I am sure there is a feature that other desktops have that KDE does not. for 99% of the people, XFCE, Cinnamon, Budgie, atc, are as feature full as KDE. You just like it more and you are sour that not everyoby likes it or uses it. But calling it the “last feature full” desktop is delirious.
Budgie has a unique feature called the Raven sidebar, which combines notifications and applets into one panel for convenience. This is a distinct feature not found in KDE by default.
So KDE is not feature full untill they provide a raven sidebar. There you have it.
@kwanbis your attempt to relativize IMHO already failed, what you are trying to do now is to argue against KDE being notorious for supporting every use case out there. Good luck with that. @Alfman this news goes against everything you wrote in your lest reply. That is first of all it’s not just my opinion, as a lot of other people share this opinion, some went ahead and started the initiative and on top of that an authority took the decision and elevated KDE to the same level as GNOME in Fedora. By doing that pushing KDE on others. So at best what we can say is your opinion wasn’t respected in this case, on how this shouldn’t be done, you claim all are the same and it’s the people that should chose, meanwhile both Fedora and Ubuntu pushing GNOME on us. I am glad that your opinion was not respected in this case. As when somebody is doing a better job it’s in my opinion important to recognize and reward that. In this case i didn’t do that, other people did. So your claim on how this is just my opinion and all, it’s not it’s a fact and you will need to accept it as such.
Geck,
Of course people can share opinions, that’s a statistically inevitability, but ultimately it’s still an opinion by definition. More importantly though respect for other opinions makes it possible for Fedora to work on supporting both KDE and GNOME. While you don’t seem to have any respect for anyone’s opinion but your own, ironically it’s the respect for differing opinions that was instrumental in promoting KDE user interests within Fedora. This respect is a great outcome and I for one really appreciate distros that provide choice. To me, more than any specific feature, choice and freedom are what make FOSS great. I don’t want or need some dictator coming in and telling me their preferences are best for me. Linux gets ahead by embracing freedom and respect. Dismissing these only regresses linux in the direction of commercial operating systems that don’t value user freedoms.
So my point is, don’t be so harsh on GNOME users. Infighting is unnecessary and doesn’t benefit the linux community.
@geck, no, I already showed you a feature that KDE has not, so it can not be feature full.
@Alfman Still it’s not really an opinion in the first place. It happened, so at best it’s a description on what actually happened. As for being harsh on GNOME, they did exactly what you say you oppose to, started acting like a dictator coming in and telling you their preferences are best for you. Their user base telling them that is not the case, they couldn’t have care less. Fortunately such behaviour was not rewarded and now KDE is not considered as being a lesser option to GNOME in Fedora, GNU/Linux user base in general has spoken. @kwanbis Fair point, KDE still has some room left for improvement. To squeeze in some additional features in the future users actually like. I do support that.
Geck,
So you’d rather rehash gripes from the past than appreciate the progress we’ve made? This attitude seems more harmful than helpful for community building. You call Gnome a dictatorship, but if your solution to one dictatorship is another dictatorship, then you haven’t really solved anything; You’re still supporting dictatorship. I get the distinct impression that you don’t really care if there’s a dictatorship, as long as it’s imposing your preference on others. But this is antithetical to why I came to linux in the first place.
@Alfman You say you are not in support of dictatorship yet you defend GNOME dictatorship and go as far as saying we should appreciate them for their actions by claiming they made progress? You don’t even use GNOME as instead you use KDE but somehow feel offended KDE was elevated to same status on Fedora as GNOME … From some other debates we had you for example don’t use Windows but most of the time praise Windows over GNU/Linux, you don’t want to use blobs but are strong supporter of GNU/Linux supporting blobs … Why are you always contradicting yourself? Why do you tend to defend things you don’t support more then things you actually support? Some sort of fetish?
Geck,
Incorrect, I’ve consistently liked outcomes where everyone’s choices are respected. However I am critical of your hypocrisy, you are no friend of freedom if you’d impose your own choices on others.
I see, you are basically after me and couldn’t care much about the rest, that indeed explain all the contradictions. Makes sense. Well, how is that working out? Are you making any progress?
Geck,
Obviously I’d prefer that everyone valued freedom and I wish you’d see how one sided interests run counter to that. In terms of Fedora embracing both KDE and GNOME, I think that’s a great outcome!
That two sentences are again a contradiction. First one indicating on how people (insinuating me) are against freedom if they have opinion on how something is a better sane default option then some other option, as presumably people then aren’t making a choice, disregarding altogether they aren’t making a choice in the first place, as somebody made that choice for them. And then in the next sentence praising the outcome of people (sharing the same opinion as me) achieving elevation of KDE status in Fedora. You can’t have it both ways, either you are praising both, or neither. On top of that you praised the outcome of GNOME dictatorship, opinion i don’t share as in my opinion the outcome is horrible, compared to lets say KDE option, so you are rather flexible i guess. When determining what things like having freedom of choice really are. Here i sort of share your sentiment, as it’s not a given, agreement on what having a freedom (of choice) really is.
Geck,
GNOME being default makes sense because that’s genuinely what most Fedora users expect. Heck this is coming from a KDE user. It doesn’t take away anyone’s freedom to choose.
No, I’m praising the outcome of Fedora supporting both and users having the freedom to choose for themselves. Not liking GNOME is a valid a opinion and the great thing about freedom is that you don’t have to choose Fedora or GNOME. But stop being a damn hypocrite preaching what others need to do. Get over yourself Geck!
But that is the thing isn’t it? GNOME is now not the default choice for Fedora any more, due to people sharing my opinion achieving that. So if you are parsing such outcome you are parsing my opinion too. And if i am a hypocrite then people achieving that are hypocrites and you praising it makes you one too. Or maybe you just pulled that whole hypocrite BS out of your you know what. As for you reserving the right to yourself, to preach to other people. Here i agree with you, get over yourself, rest assured that is not the case. Anyway i am glad we got this one sorted out as in the past i was a bit confused with the amount of contradiction from your side involved. Now i understand on where it’s coming from and what the main aim is. So i will end this debate by dictating to you only one thing and that is you must use KDE. Contradict that.
Geck,
As I keep saying I respect the choice of both KDE and GNOME users. This is not hypocritical and I think fedora supporting both is a good outcome for users of either.
But even you should be able to see why that is the opposite of freedom. Can you agree that it’s better for the FOSS community to respect other people’s preferences than to dictate them? If so great, that’s what I’ve been trying to get at. If not, then can you offer any justification that is not based on hypocrisy?
@Alfman Actions speak louder then words, hence if you are opposing people taking action on their opinion and dictating to other people to use KDE in Fedora, instead of GNOME, then you can always switch to GNOME out of protest, arguing that your freedom of choice is valued higher. Instead of praising the outcome and at the same time calling people hypocrites. As for the arguments, where have you been living in the past couple of years? All the abusive and toxic behaviour coming out of GNOME camp, total disregarding of their user base opinion. Dictatorship in its worst variant. If they would do a good job and the end product would be something to praise and people actually wanting to use, then fine, one would need to accept that. If instead they failed to achieve that and are not willing to change, then it’s not appropriate for them to continue to represent or portray themself as the “face” of GNU/Linux, to be set as the default option. There are more sane defaults out there, mainly KDE. Responsible people have a job to make sure it happens, other people can indeed do whatever they want, ultimately they will accept it as being the right choice made.
Geck,
You are projecting, I don’t have animosity towards users of KDE or GNOME. I just find it incredibly unfortunate when members of any society feel it’s not enough to have the freedom to make choices for themselves, but would rather force their choices on others….Fascism at it’s finest. I don’t understand why you are embracing it because to me FOSS stands ideologically opposed to the devaluation of choice. This is why most of us have left commercial platforms like windows and macos. It’s beyond me why anyone feels the need to bring that garbage to linux. If you are dead set on it, then I guess that’s that, but is there no way I can convince you to leave that crap behind and become an advocate for user choice instead?
So now you are calling people that had strong opinion about something and acted on it to elevate KDE status in Fedora fascists? You have to admit that is a bit too much? Even calling them hypocrites is just plain wrong, fascists? For the love of … Promoting projects and setting them as sane defaults, projects that are in general doing a better job and by doing that demoting the ones that are currently in a bit of a limbo. That for you is fascism? Do you feel that is a healthy approach to anything? Being totally out of touch with reality and not resulting to any constructive criticism regardless of the actions? As this is what this is, a wake up call to GNOME, to get their act together or to move on a side while they are figuring it out. Instead of what? Letting them continue with abusive behaviour and acting like they are still in a position to get away with it? Get real. Anyway. Enough about that from my side for now. 90% of what you argued in this debate i don’t support in the slightest. And i am really glad that all people in FOSS community don’t think like that, otherwise this news would have never been written. If this is fascism to you then no wonder we often have this lengthy discussions that at times feels conflicted, to say the least. There is nothing wrong in doing a good job, better job, and pushing for it, to be accepted as a default. That is not fascism nor it is hypocritical. That is something to praise, reward and to desire.
If 10% of a user base uses a feature, its not niche. There are a lot of configuration things you can only do in kde. That is the feature, it enables endless customizations. Its the anti Gnome, so its inclusion next to gnome makes sense.
Geck,
No, you are using a straw man. Fedora are not forcing this change on users, they are giving users the choice. Elevating KDE status in Fedora is a good thing and I’ve said so. But it doesn’t mean everyone wants to use it.
No, they are not the ones acting like fascists and hypocrites. Please answer this candidly: would you be happy to let everyone else run what they want, or are you only going to be happy if they’re running what you want? Because that’s how you get to fascism.
@Alfman Never ever have i said all people must use KDE, you just made that up. What i said is that currently KDE should be perceived (set as default option in popular GNU/Linux distributions) as the “face” of GNU/Linux, not GNOME. So OK, you are now backing out, people elevating KDE closer to that goal are now in your opinion not fascists or hypocrites any more and you even support them. Good.
Geck,
It’s just that you often pretend that other user’s opinions and preferences matter less than yours. So to be clear, you agree that your opinions and claims about GNOME’s inferiority are only your opinion and not something that others have to agree with you about? If so, great! Seeing things from other people’s perspective can help discussions be more balanced and less one sided.
I am a KDE user myself and I’ve never had a problem with Fedora supporting KDE. But I do have a problem with fascism and hypocrisy and that’s why I call out those tendencies when I see them. Having respect for other people’s opinions is extremely important to FOSS. It doesn’t mean people have to agree on everything, but having mutual respect does yield productive discussions a lot more efficiently than one sided arguments that remain closed to what others think & feel. I really wish we could get to the more productive discussions. Honestly the fact that not everyone accepts KDE being the best desktop should be a “gimme”, yet the discussion remains stuck here. 🙁
@Alfman So what do you want me to say, that your opinion in this debate holds higher value then mine? Aren’t other people supposed to judge for themself? On whose opinion they will accept and agree to more, based on the arguments? Anyway, if you have some issues with me, personally, note that that is your problem, not mine. You need to figure that one out. I in any way don’t owe you nothing or am required to explain myself to you. Especially after you claiming on how my opinion should have lesser value and shit like that. Not through some arguments but just because you say so. You can always argue against my claims and other people can then decide for themself. Attacking other people personally, like that has ever worked? Anyway, unless you have anything to say beyond focusing on me i feel that this debate is settled now. In the end you basically agreed to my claims and that shows me nothing was really wrong with my claims, that is good enough for me.
Geck,
The difference is that I don’t deem my opinions on desktop environments more important than anyone else’s. Whether it’s KDE, GNOME, windows, whatever. everyone gets to choose the tool that works best for themselves, and I am happy for them. This is genuinely more important to me than having my choices imposed on others. This is the principal I’ve been trying to get you to adapt too. While you are free to disagree with me on this, I’d note that the opposite of this is a textbook definition of fascism:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism
“2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control”
And yes, I’d concede that when it comes to fascism itself, there’s a logical exception. A fascist might say “stop trying to push your non-fascist opinions on me, that’s hypocritical”, but this is because fascism is an explicit rejection of other people’s opinions and freedoms. When someone advocates for fascism, it runs counter to everyone else’s individual choice.
This is why I’ve been asking you to specifically acknowledge that when it comes to other’s desktops, their opinion matters more than yours. If you find this difficult to do, then maybe it’s time for you to seriously consider that your position encapsulates some fascist tendencies. Geck I get that you dislike the label and I’m rooting for you to rebut it, but it turns out that it’s a lot easier for non-fascists to admit that other people’s opinions have merit and their opinion is not the only one that matters.
OK that is settled then, first of all you agree with all my claims, secondly the one on where you said you don’t agree with me was made up by you, as i never said that and thirdly the only reason you continue to drag this on is to personally insult me. Why? Are you butthurt or something?
Geck,
No, you’re only deceiving yourself when you lie about that.
So if I am wrong, do you admit that your opinions on KDE and GNOME are only subjective and no more authoritative than those who prefer GNOME? If so that’s great, but I want to hear you say it. But if you won’t say it, you’re proving my point.
I am glad we got this one sorted out. You are just being petty and i will acknowledge that in our future discussions. Up until now i was conflicted with your contradictions but now i understand what purpose they serve, your main aim is just to insult and nothing else. You are not here to agree or to accept arguments, even when you agree you will end up conflicting instead, just to be able to insult in your mind. As for my claims and if you agree with them or not, anybody can read the whole discussion and then decide for themself. What i claimed and what you agreed or disagreed too. On top of that this exact news was written because people acted on their opinion and elevated KDE status in Fedora. They have done exactly what you argued against in this debate. All in all i am glad that your opinion was not respected, FOSS doesn’t have to respect an opinion of every ass out there, you know. Especially when arguments are made in such conflicting way and their sole reason is to insult. So deal with it, that would be my advice. If you can’t, fine, i already acknowledged you have issues in this regards and will act accordingly in future debates, will take that into consideration.
Geck,
You are wrong, I’ve always favored elevating KDE status in Fedora. But then this was all a misdirection…
For the record you chose NOT to admit that your opinions on KDE and GNOME are only subjective and no more authoritative than those who prefer GNOME. You keep reinforcing my point about your tendency to be dismissive of others. You had the opportunity to prove me wrong, served up to you on a platter, and you couldn’t. Here’s the thing about that: you can either admit that your opinions are not more important than everyone else’s (proving me wrong about you), or you can continue parading your opinions as having authority over anyone who disagrees with them (proving me right about you).
Look Geck, it doesn’t please me to be right about you. I’d truthfully rather for you to concede that your opinions are not superior to others. The point is that logically either I am right about you, or you have the concede that your opinions are not superior to others. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too. Think about it.
Sorry but in my world on when somebody calls you a fascist hypocritical liar then one tends to pull the plug. And all this while we basically agreed on claims made, imagine if we would actually be in disagreement. As for you saying on how ones subjective opinion holds no authority whatsoever. Well, this news proves you wrong. On top of that note that in FOSS world benevolent dictator is a praised position, on what was accepted as a no go, with a series of code of conducts applied all over, is ad hominem attacks. FOSS hence never excluded dictatorship per se. Projects that took it too far and lost a healthy dose of that, such projects usually tend to struggle in a limbo. Firefox being a good example of it, Wayland another good candidate, ecosystem refusing to develop a common Wayland compositor … Here benevolent dictatorship is currently much needed.
Geck,
Go ahead, but that doesn’t make it wrong. You can’t escape the logic.
Many of those projects were run by leaders who didn’t listen to or care about others. You’d be right to point it out but what’s hypocritical is that you would do the same thing if you were in charge. As I said earlier, you don’t solve authoritarianism with more authoritarianism… what we need is to have mutual respect.
@Alfman a word of advice, don’t go around calling regular people fascist hypocritical liars and then preach them about respect. It just doesn’t work like that. I stand by everything i said or claimed in this debate and i am not a fascist hypocritical liar. As for respect part, obviously this takes a hit, on where somebody runs out of arguments and results to ad hominem. Once that happens i don’t know what you expect but rest assured respect ain’t one of them. As for Firefox or Wayland leadership, who in your opinion are benevolent dictators for this two projects? For example i perceive Firefox as a rather anaemic in regards to leadership, so who did i miss out?
Geck,
Regular people don’t a crap about other people’s desktop preferences and what they run on their own computers. Only fanatics do this.
And about that respect, I fully respect your technology choices for yourself. Your computer is your business, no problem there. However this respect hasn’t been mutual. I do not respect your dismissive view of other people’s opinions. When it comes to linux, you are so damn preachy and dogmatic it ain’t funny.
I see, another barrage of insults, that i guess is that in regards to my advice. Anyway, fine, see you in the next debate. Hopefully something in the lines of GNU/Linux to reach two digit numbers on desktop and KDE set as default desktop environment, that would be something. Note that i am OK if we force it a bit. Hopefully for Firefox to snap out of it and follow this lead, Wayland … Never mind, Wayland likely still needs another 20 years, for now we still need a gazillion of Wayland compositors, there is still enough willing people around for doing that, eventually we’ll get to there.
Geck,
My intention is to keep your opinion on the same plane as everyone else, even including myself. You take it as an insult because you want your opinion to count more than others’. All it takes for you to make this false is to admit it’s not true: concede that your opinion is just an opinion and nothing authoritative. Easy as pie and I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. I only have a leg to stand on because you won’t admit your opinion does not count more than others. Logic is funny this way.
Ok, until then.
When i read 10 opinions on the internet about something i usually don’t value them as being on the same plane. Most are pure rubbish, some are OK-ish and from time to time i have to recognize the quality of ones opinion. The idea we should value them all the same is not sustainable. Try it for yourself if you do want to but i can already tell you it won’t work. To perceive all opinion as being on the same plane.
Geck,
Yes, I understand your elitist attitude, but it still proves my point.
I’ll share my opinions and disagree with people, but at the end of the day I am vehemently antifascist. I’d rather live in a world where people have freedom to choose than in a world where we live under dictatorship.
I think what Fedora is doing is great. I don’t give a crap about your KDE elitism, but I’m glad users will get to choose!
Feature-full is obviously relative when the baseline you’re using is the environment with the absolute most features of pretty much any environment through its almost three full decades of existence.
To call KDE “feature full” and say that nothing else is is pretty ignorant and unfair to literally everything else out there, don’t you think?
It’s pretty ignorant if you don’t acknowledge what KDE is in this day and age, a sane default for GNU/Linux. Especially under a news written on where this exact thing was done.
@kwanbis
You are clearly correct that there are multiple classic, full feature desktops available on Linux. Sorry that you had to endure such a response.
Still, none like KDE.
Point being GNOME is getting replaced as being set as a default option for GNU/Linux in a lot of popular GNU/Linux distributions, reasons for that rather obvious to people that had been involved in GNOME development in the last couple of years, and we have to chose a successor. One of them in general has to be set as default option, representing the face of GNU/Linux most suitable for general public. KDE is currently it. Not the other ones mentioned by @kwanbis. That ones can continue to serve as good choices for niche markets, just like a gazillion of Wayland focused solutions out there, like Wayfire, niri, Hyprland … the list goes on and on and that is a good thing. Still a sane default must be selected and arguably currently that is KDE.
Fedora is one of the few distros where a dual focus is genuinely achievable. There are far to many distros that have split their (invariably limited) resources across multiple DE. Mint is a good example, where supporting XApps became a drain.
This does open the door, even if only a Tiny bit to Gnome not being Redhats only supported DE too. And with that will come a lot more money into KDE
Welcome to upside down world where Fedora is the best KDE distro and openSUSE is the best Gnome distro.
Wild times.
You’re forgetting Ximian under the Novell era. Shame they dumped most of it in the move to G3
I liked the SLED menu they used for Gnome back then, and remember converting the rpm to a deb to run on SimplyMEPIS.
Yup. There was a moment (right around 2006-8) where SLED 10 was this great GNOME implementation. The Gilouche theme, the libslab Gnome Main Menu, and overall art design — I think they had custom icons and artwork by Jakub Steiner — was just incredibly polished.
Up until Gnome 3, that (or at least those assets) were my favorite GNOME. I hung on to Debian Stable with all those assets for as long as security allowed.
Haha isn’t that the truth!
Its been quite some time since I used Fedora. But hearing this, I might have to spin up a copy and give it spin since I prefer KDE over Gnome.
Give it a try. After much distro hopping, I’ve settled on Fedora KDE, which I think is the best KDE distro.
Yes, good! Gnome still suffers from so, so many papercut issues. In particular a bunch of stuff about HiDPI scaling is busted or poorly done, which seems to me like a pretty big deal for an OS used in office and educational settings.
Excellent news. So we have:
– Fedora: GNOME and KDE equal status
– Arch: GNOME, KDE, Xfce and a bunch of other desktops equal status
– OpenSUSE: GNOME, KDE and Xfce equal status
– Ubuntu: GNOME as the flagship
Time to pester Canonical now 🙂
I agree, position of GNOME in regards to Ubuntu should be challenged and for KDE status to be elevated, compared to current status. On top of that it’s unacceptable that Fedora users can use latest KDE and Ubuntu users must wait years for it.
Good luck on Canonical, would love to see it. I’m on Kubuntu now, due to fedora hardware support issues ( maybe fixed, who knows). Its missing a bit of default polish, and has some mobile/tablet first defaults that are annoying. I should really change those but laziness has set in and I’ve grown accustomed to them.
In my view, the most likely reason we are seeing KDE included as a more “official” component of these distributions is the release cycle. In the past, it was difficult to manage KDE as it released at inconvenient and perhaps inconsistent times. GNOME on the other hand released in sync with major distros.
invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/issues/52
With KDE now targeting releases in March and September, it is now a lot easier to get a new release of KDE in time for inclusion in and testing of a Linux distro. Taking Canonical, since some of the other commentary calls them out, it seem like quite a coincidence that KDE is targeting March and September for releases when Canonical releases in April and October. This new timing would make it a lot easier for Canonical to adopt KDE.
I have primarily been an XFCE user for a while and have been playing with COSMIC a bit lately but I use EndeavourOS quite a lot and they switched to KDE as their default desktop. On a couple of machines, I have kept KDE as it now defaults to Wayland. So far, I have liked Plasma 6 more than I remember liking KDE 5. For one thing, memory usage is a lot better than I expected. I cannot use it on my Proxmox VMs as there seem to be a few graphical glitches that I do not get on other DEs but it seems ok on real hardware so far.
I do not care the slightest about fedora and i hope a small potato falls on their feet at some point in time when they least expected it.
But i wish we could have done better as a community to replace all Pötteringware, do not get me wrong, pipewire is now ways ahead of pulseaduio. runit is immensly more powerfur and faster than systemd. Once we get rid of the rot, we can start to build again.
You should not build on a rotten foundation – Old swedish saying.
Another swedish saying is: if it is really cold you can always piss your pants. That displays the short time thinking of how bad pulseaudio war in the first place.