This is an amazing idea, KDE was an absolute game changer for me when I first got into Linux and I didn’t realize until diving down the rabbit hole of Fedora Spins.
The workflow and seemingly strange approach of Gnome’s interface made my initial experiences with Ubuntu back in 12.04 feel like I was playing with a foreign toy and not a ‘computer’ like my old g4 Mac on Tiger or the Windows 7 box it was hopefully replacing.
Not to mention that future attempts at running it on an old dual core intel core-m processor with limited ram just couldn’t handle how heavy out of the box GNOME was at the time.
The app draw felt clunky and slow to load, not having a desktop to put links or applications seemed absurd and having sites tell me to install GNOME extensions to do any form of customization seemed like unnecessary overhead and odd loop to jump through which proved to be a security nightmare.
The over simplification and seeming restrictive way GNOME approaches their users in only providing one seemingly right way of approaching a workflow always smelt like the sort or Apple-ish “your holding it wrong” mentality that I was trying to get away from. There were certain fundamental expectations of how to interact with a Desktop across what felt like all other OS’ that had served me reliably all the way back to my childhood that did not work and it acted as a major speed bump to my adoption of Linux as a daily driver.
Thankfully it lead me to diving down a whole plethora of alternates including XFCE, MATE and then finally settling on KDE.
Sorry for the rant, but there is a good and solid reasoning behind SteamOS picking KDE plasma for putting their whole weight behind, and while I can’t speak for Lord Gaben himself, I would hazard to say it is broadly because for the vast majority of users, it strikes a balance between modern style, functionality and a UX that feels familiar from what they learnt on, i.e Windows or Mac.
We shouldn’t just be doing things because “thats how the rest of workstation distros do it”, Fedora is supposed to push the envelope and help set a positive trend for the future. If we want Linux as a whole to reach a reasonable share of user adoption, I think providing them with a familiar starting point that doesn’t require them to re-learn longstanding assumptions of how to interact with a computer is an important first step.