Beginner advice - What's best way to try KDE?

Ask Fedora
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4

Installing it on the iMac is the way to go I’d say.

The other options I can see are:

  • install KDE (sudo dnf install @kde-desktop should do the trick) on your existing fedora with GNOME and use the same user - this is a bad idea, KDE and GNOME, as with many other combinations of desktop environments, tend to mess up each other’s settings, themes etc. In my experience GNOME will be most affected by this.
  • install KDE on your existing fedora but create a new user and use that to log in to KDE (and be careful not to mix them up) - less problems than above (eg themes should be fine), but there may still be a few conflicts. Also, you will have two different home folders, which will probably be annoying. Still, if you just want to have a go at playing with KDE before going all-in, it should be fine for the most part.
  • try the Fedora KDE spin live iso without installing - fine for a quick look, but doesn’t do it justice imo. Things don’t always work so well when using it live, changes won’t be saved after reboot, and it’s just not the same as properly trying it for a while.
  • install the Fedora KDE spin and dual boot - this is great if it works. But if you don’t have experience with dual booting 2 fedoras, this might really suck, since the bootloader might only show one of the fedoras, and getting both to show in the same time can be a pain. Installing rEFInd may help (I wrote about it here). And of course you will still have two different home folders.
  • install the KDE spin and wipe Fedora Workstation - great if you like KDE (you will :slight_smile:), not so great if you don’t
  • install it in a VM as dalto said - doesn’t really capture the full experience imo, especially if your hardware isn’t very powerful. But still, it’s usually easy and doesn’t mess things up.

So that leaves the iMac. Trouble free, and once you see how great KDE is, you can erase gnome and be happy forevermore. :slight_smile:

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