- Install the kde-desktop group.
- Install sddm-wayland, disable gdm and enable sddm
- Create a new KDE user and only login to KDE with that
- Move over your user files to that user, using the
admin:/feature in dolphin
@joeyjonnson
You can try Fedora 41 KDE Live-DVD on a pendrive USB. The configuration is much longer than GNOME configuration, patience is needed. Live-DVD does not write anything to your hard disk (without your knowledge) and does not damage your files. Discover is the software package manager (although I prefer dnfdragora and dnfdragora-updater). If you like it, back up all your personal files, and overwrite your hard drive with KDE. I made so years ago and I am happy having installed kde. I don’t like dual boot and it can create problems, so I generally tend to advise against it for everyone.
Thanks. I have heard of it before. I read the guide, I don’t see any benefit from the description. So the OS is ‘the same as every other installation of it’. I don’t understand why that’s a good thing, obviously my understanding/knowledge is limiting my ability to see what may be useful benefits.
In my semi-ignorant position, I just see risks of more problems, especially when it talks about how the apps don’t have access to any of the host system. I like the ‘sound’ of that, but I have had a lot of problems since starting out with Fedora, very much due to this point. For example my Thunderbird installation had to be switched from Flatpak to RPM (as did Brave and a few others) because it didn’t ‘just work’ nicely, after investigation and help from users here, I foudn it was because of that ‘isolation’ the apps had. So, for example, Thunderbird couldn’t open file attachments in some cases.
Overall I don’t see how Atomic will improve my situation/experience, but interested to hear how it might
This is one of my areas of nervousness about changing. I am not certain how to ensure I back up all my personal files. I understand most is in Home directory, which I can back up easily, but I have heard/seen that SOME important stuff is hidden in system files, such as Thunderbird profile data (i think).
This is why I haven’t tried switching thus far, just generally nervous about where everything lies.
One advantage that atomic desktops can bring, especially to not-so-advanced users, is that they can be rolled back to a previous state of the base system (for example after a standard upgrade, or after a system upgrade to a new major version) in case the upgrade brings issues. You can’t really do that OOTB with a traditional desktop OS. Atomic systems certainly have a learning curve though.
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Your Thunderbird profile data should be in the /home/yourusername/.thunderbird folder.
Opening Nautilus (which would usually open in your home folder) and then pressing Ctrl+H should show hidden folders/files (whose names begin with a .) and the .thunderbird folder should be visible.
Thanks. Yes, I rarely get trouble after updates as I don’t jump on them straight away, and I could do without any more learning curves right now :D.
On that point… I see Fedora41 in my Software Updates. I haven’t done it yet. I usually wait a month or two, do you see that as a good or bad move?
No it’s not there, that’s something I have had to learn a bit about.
My profile is in /home/user/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/.thunderbird/
It is certainly good to wait a couple of months. There are still a few unfixed bugs related to certain hardware config.
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I still wouldn’t recommend it for most people unless they are happy to live on the experimental side. It seems that there are still some packages that can’t be layered, many tutorials and troubleshooting guides just won’t work, etc. It’s pretty good these days, but not quite there yet.
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Why this step? GDM is required for screen locking in GNOME, while KDE should work fine with GDM as far as I know.
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Don’t worry, I can’t follow those instructions anyway! Not without learning what each step means and how it’s done 
Probably true. However, I was suggesting the alternative of atomic variants based on @joeyjonnson ’s usage, who is mostly using GUI apps (based on previous posts), so probably no need to actually layer packages.
I am mainly using Fedora Workstation, but on one of my test systems I have Silverblue installed, and except for GNOME Tweaks, a theme for legacy gtk apps and rclone, I saw no need to layer other packages. Granted the system is set up for an average user’s use case. Things might be different with advanced usage. You have containers for that setup though.
Gone above my head now.
The only time I have done any layering is when I tried to cut my wife’s hair, it didnt end well either. 
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Joey, it is relatively simple. The “atomic” distributions have the system files “read only” so you cannot make changes. The idea is you download an “image” of the OS that is provided “as it is”, then you add your own applications in a self contained package like “flatpak”, and you get those from the “store”. Installing your applications don’t make any change to the system.
There are some corner cases like drivers or some software that requires to place files across the system when you have to actually make changes on the “read only” part of the system and there is a tool for that. That is “layering”.
I don’t understand why “atomic” would be useful for the “average joe” but this gets philosophical.
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Its not really complicated.
- Create a new user
Open the terminal
sudo useradd kde
sudo passwd kde
sudo usermod -aG wheel kde
this makes the user a typical user with sudo rights and a password
- Install the plasma desktop
sudo dnf install -y plasma-workspace-wayland
That is a metapackage and should install everything you need.
- Log out and in again
Log out of the GNOME session, in the login manager in the bottom corner, the cogwheel, you should see a KDE Plasma (Wayland) option.
Switch to the KDE user, only login with that one, otherwise your dotfiles like /home/username/.config may cause messed up icons etc.
Alternatively, a better solution would be a script that would delete them, then you login and KDE creates the default configs.
- Remove GNOME
if you are happy with KDE Plasma, you can remove GNOME packages, there will be some group to remove all GNOME packages.
In that case you should also run these
sudo dnf install -y sddm-wayland
systemctl disable --now gdm
systemctl enable --now sddm
Then remove the GNOME packages
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That’s where the Flatpak of Thunderbird has placed it (but it is still in your Home folder). I thought you said above that you had switched to the RPM version of Thunderbird - https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/beginner-advice-whats-best-way-to-try-kde/135514/23
I don’t understand why you want to switch to kde plasma desktop enviropment. You just need to install Dolphin.
He also plans to enable telemetry in fedora 42, at least he wants to.
If you don’t want spying, don’t use an operating system developed by a company. This is a handicap. Because a company’s organizational power, motivation and planning ability can be used to develop a perfect and useful operating system.
Community-developed operating systems are inefficient and problematic because it is impossible to make a perfect and efficient and capable desktop operating system because of the lack of motivation and planning and the difficulty in organizing and because there is no title, no seat, no money to motivate.
So if you want data privacy you have to give up efficiency and usability.
If you want usability and efficiency, you have to give up data privacy. In this reality, your choice determines your path.
If you are going to choose the second way, apple is more reliable than an operating system developer company (for example ms) that sells data to all kinds of institutions, organizations and companies. apple only uses data to develop products and services for its own company. It is unreliable, it can sell its data at any time, it is possible.
Data security is not the same as data privacy. apple secures data, fedora secures data, redhat secures e. w.s. provides data security, but web browsers cannot provide data security, as long as there is javascript, data security is out of the question.
apple (as long as there is no internet connection) provides data security (at least for now), not data privacy. If you want data privacy, no matter what operating system you use, as long as you are connected to the internet, data privacy is impossible.
If you want data security, closed source OSs are more secure. Open source is easy to infiltrate, because everything is open and the auditing mechanism is very weak, because there are no paid auditors, how much can the unpaid community defend the security of open source?
But if you want an open source OS developed by a company (e.g. redhat), secured and audited by that company; if possible a paid OS (Redhat Enterprise Workstation OS) can fulfill all your needs.
But if something is free, the price is your personal data.
That wouldn’t solve number 2 would it? Plus dolphin will look weird in GNOME, and might not be as integrated.
Fewer ways to mess up the system (eg by package manager deleting key packages, power cut in the middle of an update, etc). Also in normal fedora you either apply updates immediately (convenient, but slightly risky), or do it offline, which requires 2 reboots (particularly annoying if you need to enter the disk encryption password each time). With atomic fedora, updating is done in the background, but is only (instantly) applied on the next reboot - nice, safe and fast. And of course you can rollback if things went wrong.
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