If you were to track my history with Linux, you’d find that GNOME-based desktops have dominated. From GNOME 1.x to the current iteration, Pop!_OS (which will soon no longer be based on GNOME), Linux Mint, and so many others, I’ve always enjoyed GNOME. The clean, minimal desktop never fails to stay out of my way when I’m writing, being social, shopping, gathering information, or doing just about anything on a PC.
That doesn’t mean, however, that I can’t appreciate other desktops. One such desktop that I’ve always held with great respect is KDE Plasma. It’s not only beautiful, but highly functional, and offers one of the shallowest learning curves of all the Linux desktops. Plus, Fedora KDE puts that on display for all to see, use, and love.
You’ll find just the right amount of transparency in the KDE Plasma desktop.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
It’s been a while since I’ve kicked the tires of Fedora KDE. Since the last time I explored the distribution, Fedora has become one of the most performant desktop operating systems on the market. When you see Fedora at work, you might be inclined to think it’s a lightweight Linux distribution geared toward older hardware… that’s how well it performs. When you couple that with KDE Plasma, you’re in for a treat.
KDE Plasma has also evolved into a desktop environment that stands toe-to-toe with any other. KDE Plasma isn’t just a pretty face, but it’s capable of wowing you with speed, reliability, and ease-of-use.
Also: These 5 cool KDE Plasma features could woo you from Windows
So, I knew what I was getting into as I installed Fedora KDE as a virtual machine on my System76 Thelio. I gave it the usual 3GB of RAM, two CPUs, and roughly 100GB of storage.
Although that doesn’t sound like much, you’d be surprised at how well this desktop distribution performs thanks to Fedora and KDE Plasma, a combination that is absolutely stellar. I was so impressed that I briefly thought, “This could easily be my desktop of the future.”
Even the out-of-the-box dark theme had me nodding my head in appreciation… and I don’t generally like dark themes.
What’s “in the box”?
First off, Fedora KDE 41 ships with KDE Plasma 6.2, which includes the following improvements:
- Drawing tablet configuration and calibration built into the System Settings app
- Improved color management
- Better brightness and handling of HDR and ICC profiles for the Wayland protocol
- Tone mapping built into the KWin compositor
- Faster HDR performance
- Accessibility improvements, such as the “Sticky Keys” feature that allows users with limited dexterity/mobility to use keyboard shortcuts more easily
- The addition of color blindness correction filters
- The usual bug fixes and performance improvements
KDE Plasma wasn’t the only piece of the puzzle to receive some attention, as you’ll also find a new power profiles daemon, which provides you with more options to fine-tune the power consumption of your desktop or laptop. There’s also broader laptop camera support.
What I really like about Fedora KDE
If you’ve been reading my articles long enough, you know I like a beautiful desktop. Given how much time I spend writing, I don’t want to interact with a boring, uninspired interface, and KDE Plasma is about as far from that as it gets.
Even without so much as a single tweak, the take on KDE Plasma in this distribution is stunning. You get just the right amount of transparency, plenty of available effects and behaviors to modify, and you can easily change out the theme, style, and color with the help of the Colors & Themes section of System Settings.
You can tweak KDE Plasma to your heart’s content.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
The thing that strikes me the most about Fedora KDE is how polished and professional it looks. Even though I prefer to tweak my desktops to perfectly fit my personal style, the out-of-the-box look of Fedora KDE is beautiful.
Don’t let the beauty fool you; Fedora KDE is a fierce performer and won’t bat an eye at anything you toss its way. Even with the bare minimum resources I gave the virtual machine hosting Fedora KDE, it ran as if it had twice as much RAM and twice as many CPUs.
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Every preinstalled app (of which there are plenty) opened almost instantly, upgrades completed much more quickly than I expected, and app installation was fast.
Speaking of which, within Plasma’s Discover app store, you’ll find both RPM and Flatpak support built in, which means you can very often choose between installing from the Fedora repositories or Flathub. Either way you go, you’ll find app installation to be speedy.
You’ll find tons of apps to install from within the KDE Plasma Discover app store.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
What I didn’t like about Fedora KDE
To be perfectly honest, I really can’t find anything to dislike about this distribution. If there was something that made me shrug, it was the reboot requirement for system upgrades. This has been a part of Fedora for some time now, so it’s become acceptable practice. If I had my way, that would only ever happen for kernel upgrades, but I’m sure the developers have their reasons.
Other than that, my impression of Fedora KDE is that of a brilliant desktop anyone could use. It’s beautiful, user-friendly, flexible, and powerful.
Also: Thinking about switching to Linux? 10 things you need to know
What more do you want from a desktop operating system?
If I’ve piqued your interest, download an ISO of Fedora KDE, create a bootable USB drive (with the likes of uNetBootin), and install it.
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