Official Desktop Environment branches like Kinoite

Hello,

I have an idea to make official branches with other desktop environments like PLASMA or XFCE like Fedora Workstation. I know that there is a Kinoite projects already but it is not official, so, it is not tested as well as the official GNOME version, Kinoite can be abandoned, and I don’t know if Kinoite is recieving security updates as fast as the official one. Another thing is that if it will be official, it will be possible to offer all Desktop Environment variants in the Silverblue download page, right now, if I would like PLASMA I have to download GNOME and then rebase to PLASMA using Kinoite. I think it will be good to make official version of Kinoite. Is it possible?

Hey, Kinoite maintainer here. The goal for me is definitely to make all variants become official builds from Fedora. This is under discussion at least for KDE and I think this would also be accepted for other variants. From my point of view, the reason this has not happened yet is that we need help to make it happen.

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and I want official minimal branch via only cli

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As part of the (non-official) Kinoite project, I am currently building and providing a base branch with no desktop environment installed by default. Can you give it a try to let me know if this is the kind of thing you are looking for and then we could try to figure out where it fits between Fedora CoreOS and Fedora Silverblue.

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Hello @siosm,
Could you please provide a link to the minimal variant you have created? Is it based off of SB? Sounds like it may be a good headless candidate, what’s it’s installed size?

The base ostree ref is available from the same Kinoite repo. The code is in the -variants branches in my workstation-ostree-config fork and in PR waiting to be merged upstream.

It is based on the packages common to all variants but I have no idea how much space it takes. I created it for those that want to use a minimal desktop environment such as Sway that can easily be overlayed on the base image. If you need anything more server oriented, Fedora CoreOS is a better (official and properly maintained) alternative.

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Will there be an official incorporation of KDE Plasma into Silverblue? I can’t deal with GNOME, I don’t understand why it’s pushed down people’s throats.

because most people use tablet_pc, on which KDE does not work well, no swipes or adaptations.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, this is planned but not actively being worked on right now.

Please do not do that. No one is forcing you to use GNOME and I am actively working on providing alternatives for people interested in other desktop environments. It’s fine if you don’t like GNOME, but then please help us make the alternatives better instead.

A lot of people are thankful for that. Your efforts are not being diminished in any way in my own assessment of GNOME so I’m not sure how you’re tying Kinoite to what I said.

Thank you for your response, that makes sense :slight_smile:

It is actually your assessment of Gnome which was what @siosm was referring to I believe. It doesn’t do the community at large any good to gripe about some bit of software you don’t use or like.

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