Install Fedora 39 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)

This article will show the simple steps of installing a modern Linux Distribution like Fedora 39 KDE Plasma with KDE for the user graphical interface. First, it is offered the basic steps for installing the Operating system and then there are some screenshots of the installed system and its look and feel of it. Here is another article available with more screenshots of the installed and working Fedora 39 KDE Plasma – coming soon. If the user is interested in Gnome as a graphical interface there are two articles on how to install Fedora 39 Workstation Edition, which comes with GNOMEInstall Fedora Workstation 39 (Gnome GUI) and Review of freshly installed Fedora 39 Workstation (Gnome GUI).
This is the simplest setup. One hard disk device in the system is installed, which is detected as sda and the entire disk will be used for the installation of Fedora 39 KDE Plasma. All disk information in sda disk device will be permanently deleted by the installation wizard!

The Fedora 39 KDE Plasma Desktop comes with

  • Xorg X11 server – 1.20.14 and Xorg X11 server XWayland 23.2.2 is used by default
  • linux kernel – 6.5.6
  • KDE Plasma version: 5.27.8
  • KDE Frameworks version: 5.110.0
  • QT version: 5.15.10

For more packages and versions information the user may check out the Fedora 39 server articles – Software and technical details of Fedora Server 39 including cockpit screenshots.

We used the following ISO for the installation process:

https://fedora.ipacct.com/fedora/linux/releases/39/Spins/x86_64/iso/Fedora-KDE-Live-x86_64-39-1.5.iso

It is a LIVE image so you can try it before installing it. The easiest way is just to download the image and burn it to a DVD disk or to flush a USB drive with the ISO. Just use the Linux command dd and a USB flash drive. It’s worth mentioning the dd command will destroy all data on the USB drive and overwrite it with the Fedora KDE Live ISO, so be sure to use a UBS Flash, which data is not important or with no data on it. The dd command uses the ISO as input and the output is the USB drive in Linux device form as /dev/sd?. For the following dd command, the USB drive is /dev/sdd

dd if=/mnt/media/OS/Fedora/Fedora-KDE-Live-x86_64-39-1.5.iso of=/dev/sdd bs=8M status=progress oflag=direct
2399141888 bytes (2.4 GB, 2.2 GiB) copied, 24 s, 99.9 MB/s2481055744 bytes (2.5 GB, 2.3 GiB) copied, 24.8488 s, 99.8 MB/s

295+1 records in
295+1 records out
2481055744 bytes (2.5 GB, 2.3 GiB) copied, 24.8797 s, 99.7 MB/s

SCREENSHOT 1) Boot from the UEFI USB Drive Kingston device.

It is the same as the USB CD/DVD-ROM bootable removable drive. Choose the UEFI USB CD/DVD drive and boot the installation live drive.

main menu
UEFI BIOS DVD-ROM boot

Keep on reading!

Review of freshly installed Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop part 2 – System Settings

This is the part 2 of the Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop review – Review of freshly installed Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)
In part 2 only the System Settings of KDE Plasma is presented – the central place to configure and tweak the KDE Plasma – the graphical desktop environment with customizable layouts and panels, virtual desktops and sophisticated widgets. Some of the settings require an administrative account and whenever it is necessary the Plasma platform shows an authentication dialog to escalate privileges.
It worth mentioning the KDE Platform versions in Fedora 38:

  • KDE Plasma version: 5.27.4
  • KDE Frameworks version: 5.104.0, upgradable to 5.107.0
  • QT version: 5.15.8, upgradable to 5.15.10

The System Settings reflects the above versions and the functionality they incorporate.
The main components are:

  • Appearance
  • Workspace
    • Workspace Behavior
    • Windows Management
    • Shortcuts
    • Startup and Shutdown
    • Search
  • Personalization
    • Notifications
    • Users
    • Reginal Settings
    • Accessibility
    • Applications
    • KDE Wallet
    • Online Accounts
    • User Feedback
  • Network
    • Connections
    • Settings
  • Hardware
    • Input Devices
    • Display and Monitor
    • Audio
    • Power Management
    • Bluetooth
    • Color Corrections
    • KDE Connect
    • Printers
    • Removable Storage
    • Thunderbolt
  • System Administration
    • About this System
    • Software Update

System Settings may also be started from the console with

myuser@mydesktop ~ $ systemsettings

Here are the System Setting screenshots:

SCREENSHOT 1) Click on System Settings to launch the “System Settings” program.

View and edit KDE and some Linux system settings.

main menu
Main Menu – Favorites

Keep on reading!

Review of freshly installed Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)

After the tutorial on how to install Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop this tutorial is mainly to see what to expect from a freshly installed Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop – the look and feel of the new KDE GUI (version 5.27.4 of KDE Plasma). The Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop is part of Fedora spins – https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde/
Here the user can find how to Install Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI). Here it worth mentioning the included versions of KDE software for Fedora 36:

  • KDE Plasma version: 5.27.4
  • KDE Frameworks version: 5.104.0, upgradable to 5.107.0
  • QT version: 5.15.8, upgradable to 5.15.10

The idea of this article is just to see what to expect from Fedora 38 KDE Plasma – the look and feel of the GUI, the default installed programs and their look and how to do some basic steps with them, it is included also screenshots of the KDE settings program. Here you’ll find more than 250 screenshots and not so many texts we do not want to turn this review of many texts and version information and 3 meaningless screenshots, which you could not see anything for the user interface because these days it is the primary goal of a Desktop system. You can expect more of this kind of review in the future. The big missing is the Kate Advanced Text Editor, which is not installed by default in this release.
This article is the first part of reviewing the Fedora 38 KDE Plasma. The second article contains KDE System Settings screenshots and it is Review of freshly installed Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop part 2 – System Settings.

Some of the interesting screenshots

  • Logging
  • KDE Plasma Overview with Panel Toolbox
  • Fedora KDE main menu
  • Plasma Widgets
  • Activities
  • Install/Update applications with Discover
  • Install applications with dnfdragora
  • review of multiple installed GUI applications and games.
  • Dolphin – the KDE File Manager
  • KWrite – Text Editor

Fedora 38 KDE Plasma screenshots

SCREENSHOT 1) Fedora (6.2.9-300.fc38.x86_64) 38 (KDE Plasma)

main menu
grub entry boot

Keep on reading!

Install Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)

This article will show the simple steps of installing a modern Linux Distribution like Fedora 38 KDE Plasma with KDE for the user graphical interface. First, it is offered the basic steps for installing the Operating system and then there are some screenshots of the installed system and its look and feel of it. Here is another article available with more screenshots of the installed and working Fedora 38 KDE PlasmaReview of freshly installed Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI). If the user is interested in Gnome as a graphical interface there are two articles on how to install Fedora 37 Workstation Edition, which comes with GNOMEInstall Fedora Workstation 38 (Gnome GUI) and Review of freshly installed Fedora 38 Workstation (Gnome GUI).
This is the simplest setup. One hard disk device in the system is installed, which is detected as sda and the entire disk will be used for the installation of Fedora 38 KDE Plasma. All disk information in sda disk device will be permanently deleted by the installation wizard!

The Fedora 38 KDE Plasma Desktop comes with

  • Xorg X server – 22.1.9 XWayland is used by default
  • linux kernel – 6.2.9
  • KDE Plasma version: 5.27.4
  • KDE Frameworks version: 5.104.0
  • QT version: 5.15.8

For more packages and versions information the user may check out the Fedora 38 server articles – Software and technical details of Fedora Server 38 including cockpit screenshots.

We used the following ISO for the installation process:

https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/38/Spins/x86_64/iso/Fedora-KDE-Live-x86_64-38-1.6.iso

It is a LIVE image so you can try it before installing it. The easiest way is just to download the image and burn it to a DVD disk or to flush a USB drive with the ISO. Just use the Linux command dd and a USB flash drive. It’s worth mentioning the dd command will destroy all data on the USB drive and overwrite it with the Fedora KDE Live ISO, so be sure to use a UBS Flash, which data is not important or with no data on it. The dd command uses the ISO as input and the output is the USB drive in Linux device form as /dev/sd?. For the following dd command, the USB drive is /dev/sdd

dd if=/mnt/media/OS/Fedora/Fedora-KDE-Live-x86_64-38-1.6.iso of=/dev/sdd bs=8M status=progress oflag=direct
2306867200 bytes (2.3 GB, 2.1 GiB) copied, 14 s, 164 MB/s2408269824 bytes (2.4 GB, 2.2 GiB) copied, 14.6423 s, 164 MB/s

287+1 records in
287+1 records out
2408269824 bytes (2.4 GB, 2.2 GiB) copied, 14.6466 s, 164 MB/s

SCREENSHOT 1) Boot from the UEFI USB Drive Kingston device.

It is the same as the USB CD/DVD-ROM bootable removable drive. Choose the UEFI USB CD/DVD drive and boot the installation live drive.

main menu
UEFI BIOS DVD-ROM boot

Keep on reading!

Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop part 2 – System Settings

This is the part 2 of the Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop review – Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)
In part 2 only the System Settings of KDE Plasma is presented – the central place to configure and tweak the KDE Plasma – the graphical desktop environment with customizable layouts and panels, virtual desktops and sophisticated widgets. Some of the settings require an administrative account and whenever it is necessary the Plasma platform shows an authentication dialog to escalate privileges.
It worth mentioning the KDE Platform versions in Fedora 37:

  • KDE Plasma version: 5.26.4
  • KDE Frameworks version: 5.100.0
  • QT version: 6.0.12

The System Settings reflects the above versions and the functionality they incorporate.
The main components are:

  • Appearance
  • Workspace
    • Workspace Behavior
    • Windows Management
    • Shortcuts
    • Startup and Shutdown
    • Search
  • Personalization
    • Notifications
    • Users
    • Reginal Settings
    • Accessibility
    • Applications
    • KDE Wallet
    • Online Accounts
    • User Feedback
  • Network
    • Connections
    • Settings
  • Hardware
    • Input Devices
    • Display and Monitor
    • Audio
    • Power Management
    • Bluetooth
    • Color Corrections
    • KDE Connect
    • Printers
    • Removable Storage
    • Thunderbolt
  • System Administration
    • About this System
    • software Update

System Settings may also be started from the console with

myuser@mydesktop ~ $ systemsettings

Here are the System Setting screenshots:

SCREENSHOT 1) Click on System Settings to launch the “System Settings” program.

View and edit KDE and some Linux system settings.

main menu
Main Menu – Favorites

Keep on reading!

Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)

After the tutorial on how to install Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop this tutorial is mainly to see what to expect from a freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop – the look and feel of the new KDE GUI (version 5.26.4 of KDE Plasma). The Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop is part of Fedora spins – https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde/
Here the user can find how to Install Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI). Here it worth mentioning the included versions of KDE software for Fedora 36:

  • KDE Plasma version: 5.26.2
  • KDE Frameworks version: 5.99.0, upgradable to 5.100.0
  • QT version: 5.15.6

The idea of this article is just to see what to expect from Fedora 37 KDE Plasma – the look and feel of the GUI, the default installed programs and their look and how to do some basic steps with them, it is included also screenshots of the KDE settings program. Here you’ll find more than 200 screenshots and not so many texts we do not want to turn this review of many texts and version information and 3 meaningless screenshots, which you could not see anything for the user interface because these days it is the primary goal of a Desktop system. You can expect more of this kind of review in the future.
This article is the first part of reviewing the Fedora 36 KDE Plasma. The second article contains KDE System Settings screenshots and it is coming soon.

Some of the interesting screenshots

  • Logging
  • KDE Plasma Overview with Panel Toolbox
  • Fedora KDE main menu
  • Plasma Widgets
  • Activities
  • Install/Update applications with Discover
  • Install applications with dnfdragora
  • review of multiple installed GUI applications and games.
  • Dolphin – the KDE File Manager
  • Kate – Advanced Text Editor
  • KWrite – Text Editor

Fedora 37 KDE Plasma screenshots

SCREENSHOT 1) Fedora (6.0.7-301.fc37.x86_64) 37 (KDE Plasma)

main menu
grub entry boot

Keep on reading!

Install Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)

This article will show the simple steps of installing a modern Linux Distribution like Fedora 37 KDE Plasma with KDE for the user graphical interface. First, it is offered the basic steps for installing the Operating system and then there are some screenshots of the installed system and its look and feel of it. Here is another article available with more screenshots of the installed and working Fedora 37 KDE PlasmaReview of freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI). If the user is interested in Gnome as a graphical interface there are two articles on how to install Fedora 37 Workstation Edition, which comes with GNOME and the look and feel of the GNOME – Install Fedora Workstation 37 (Gnome GUI) and Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 Workstation (Gnome GUI)
This is the simplest setup. One hard disk device in the system is installed, which is detected as sda and the entire disk will be used for the installation of Fedora 37 KDE Plasma. All disk information in sda disk device will be permanently deleted by the installation wizard!

The Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop comes with

  • Xorg X server – 22.1.5 XWayland is used by default
  • linux kernel – 6.0.7
  • KDE Plasma version: 5.24.3
  • KDE Frameworks version: 5.99.0
  • QT version: 5.15.6

For more packages and versions information the user may check out the Fedora 37 server articles – Software and technical details of Fedora Server 37 including cockpit screenshots though it is for GNOME installation.

We used the following ISO for the installation process:

https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/37/Spins/x86_64/iso/Fedora-KDE-Live-x86_64-37-1.7.iso

It is a LIVE image so you can try it before installing it. The easiest way is just to download the image and burn it to a DVD disk and then follow the installation below:

SCREENSHOT 1) Boot from the UEFI DVD-ROM device.

It is the same as the USB bootable removable drive. Choose the UEFI USB drive and boot the installation live drive.

main menu
UEFI BIOS DVD-ROM boot

Keep on reading!

Removing of kwayland-server and kwayland-server” is soft blocking kde-plasma/kwin-5.25.2

A big change for Plasma KDE happened two months ago – a “Merge kwayland-server into kwin“.
So after KDE Plasma 5.25, there is no kwayland-server any more (respectively no kwayland-server with version 5.25 and no package in Gentoo) and it may block a Gentoo update with the following error:

mydesktop root # emerge -va --verbose-conflicts --verbose --backtrack=300 $(qlist -IC|grep -i kde)
......
......
[ebuild     U  ] dev-util/kdevelop-php-22.04.2:5::gentoo [21.12.3:5::gentoo] USE="handbook -debug -test" 1,057 KiB
[ebuild     U  ] kde-apps/umbrello-22.04.2:5::gentoo [21.12.3:5::gentoo] USE="handbook php -debug -test" 5,544 KiB
[ebuild     U  ] kde-apps/kross-interpreters-22.04.2:5::gentoo [21.12.3:5::gentoo] USE="-debug" 149 KiB
[blocks B      ] kde-plasma/kwayland-server ("kde-plasma/kwayland-server" is soft blocking kde-plasma/kwin-5.25.2)

Total: 340 packages (329 upgrades, 5 new, 6 reinstalls), Size of downloads: 1,001,699 KiB
Conflict: 1 block (1 unsatisfied)

 * Error: The above package list contains packages which cannot be
 * installed at the same time on the same system.

  (kde-plasma/kwayland-server-5.24.5-r1:5/5::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) pulled in by
    kde-plasma/kwayland-server
    kde-plasma/kwayland-server:5::gentoo required by @selected 
    kde-plasma/kwayland-server required by @selected 

  (kde-plasma/kwin-5.25.2:5/5::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) pulled in by
    >=kde-plasma/kwin-5.25.2:5 required by (kde-plasma/plasma-desktop-5.25.2:5/5::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) USE="handbook ibus kaccounts scim semantic-desktop -debug -emoji -telemetry -test" ABI_X86="(64)"
    >=kde-plasma/kwin-5.25.2:5[lock] required by (kde-plasma/plasma-meta-5.25.2:5/5::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) USE="accessibility bluetooth browser-integration crash-handler crypt desktop-portal display-manager elogind gtk handbook kwallet legacy-systray networkmanager pulseaudio sddm smart wallpapers -colord -discover (-firewall) -grub -plymouth -sdk -systemd -thunderbolt" ABI_X86="(64)"
    >=kde-plasma/kwin-5.25.2:5 required by (kde-plasma/libkworkspace-5.25.2:5/5::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) USE="-debug -test" ABI_X86="(64)"
    >=kde-plasma/kwin-5.25.2:5 required by (kde-plasma/plasma-workspace-5.25.2:5/5::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) USE="calendar fontconfig geolocation handbook policykit semantic-desktop -appstream -debug -gps -screencast -telemetry -test" ABI_X86="(64)"

emerge could not continue with the upgrade to KDE Platform 5.25.2.

main menu
emerge error

kwayland-server is pulled by selected, but the last version of the package is from 5.24 release, which should immediately signal that there is something wrong with it, because the emerge command shows the latest KDE Plasma version to be 5.25 (with the exact version 5.25.2).

Solution – deselect/remove kde-plasma/kwayland-server

The solution is simple, just deselect it from the world slot to be sure it won’t be pulled again in the future. Remove the package manually if the error still persists, but only deselecting should work. Of course, it should not be selected in the command-line with emerge, neither. In general, such package won’t be available any more.
Always keep eye on the pulled versions and the versions you are trying to install, most of the time the problem is obvious and from a single “wrong/bad” package, which may generate e great deal of erroneous and frightening dependencies output.

mydesktop root # emerge --deselect kwayland-server
>>> Removing kde-plasma/kwayland-server from "world" favorites file...
>>> Removing kde-plasma/kwayland-server:5::gentoo from "world" favorites file...

And now the emerge command is OK and no problem with the dependencies and blocks:

mydesktop root # emerge -va --verbose-conflicts --verbose --backtrack=300 $(qlist -IC|grep -i kde|grep -v kwayland-server)
......
......
[ebuild  N     ] kde-plasma/kwin-5.25.2:5::gentoo  USE="accessibility (caps) handbook lock multimedia -debug -gles2-only -plasma -screencast -test" 6,468 KiB
[uninstall     ] kde-plasma/kwayland-server-5.24.3:5::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc -test" 
[blocks b      ] kde-plasma/kwayland-server ("kde-plasma/kwayland-server" is soft blocking kde-plasma/kwin-5.25.2)
[ebuild     U  ] kde-plasma/libkworkspace-5.25.2:5::gentoo [5.24.3:5::gentoo] USE="-debug -test" 0 KiB
......
......
[ebuild     U  ] kde-apps/akregator-22.04.2:5::gentoo [21.12.3:5::gentoo] USE="handbook -debug -speech -telemetry -test" 2,209 KiB

Total: 339 packages (328 upgrades, 5 new, 6 reinstalls, 1 uninstall), Size of downloads: 1,001,483 KiB
Conflict: 1 block (all satisfied)

More on Gentoo blocking – Gentoo update tips when updating packages with blocks and masked files

Review of freshly installed Fedora 36 KDE Plasma Desktop part 2 – System Settings

This is the part 2 of the Fedora 36 KDE Plasma Desktop review – Review of freshly installed Fedora 36 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)
In part 2 the only the System Settings of KDE Plasma are presented – the central place to configure and tweak the KDE Plasma – the graphical desktop environment with customizable layouts and panels, virtual desktops and sophisticated widgets. Some of the settings require administrative account and whenever it is required the Plasma platform shows a authentication dialog to escalate privileges.
It worth mentioning the KDE Platform versions in Fedora 36:

  • KDE Plasma version: 5.24.3
  • KDE Frameworks version: 5.91.0
  • QT version: 5.15.3

The System Settings reflects the above versions and the functionality they incorporate.
The main components are:

  • Appearance
  • Workspace
    • Workspace Behavior
    • Windows Management
    • Shortcuts
    • Startup and Shutdown
    • Search
  • Personalization
    • Notifications
    • Users
    • Reginal Settings
    • Accessibility
    • Applications
    • KDE Wallet
    • Online Accounts
    • User Feedback
  • Network
    • Connections
    • Settings
  • Hardware
    • Input Devices
    • Display and Monitor
    • Audio
    • Power Management
    • Bluetooth
    • Color Corrections
    • KDE Connect
    • Printers
    • Removable Storage
    • Thunderbolt
  • System Administration
    • About this System
    • software Update

System Settings may alse be started from the console with

myuser@mydesktop ~ $ systemsettings

Here are the System Setting screenshots:

SCREENSHOT 1) Click on System Settings to launch the “System Settings” program. View and edit KDE and some Linux system settings.

main menu
Main Menu – Favorites

Keep on reading!

Review of freshly installed Fedora 36 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)

After the tutorial of how to install Fedora 36 KDE Plasma Desktop this tutorial is mainly to see what to expect from a freshly installed Fedora 36 KDE Plasma Desktop – the look and feel of the new KDE GUI (version 5.24.3 of KDE Plasma). The Fedora 36 KDE Plasma Desktop is part of Fedora spins – https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde/
Here you can find how to Install Fedora 36 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI). Here it worth mentioning the included versions of KDE software for Fedora 36:

  • KDE Plasma version: 5.24.3
  • KDE Frameworks version: 5.91.0
  • QT version: 5.15.3

The idea of this article is just to see what to expect from Fedora 36 KDE Plasma – the look and feel of the GUI, the default installed programs and their look and how to do some basic steps with them, it is included also screenshots of the KDE settings program. Here you’ll find more than 200 screenshots and not so many texts we do not want to turn this review of many texts and version information and 3 meaningless screenshots, which you could not see anything for the user interface because these days it is the primary goal of a Desktop system. You can expect more of this kind of review in the future.
This article is the first part of reviewing the Fedora 36 KDE Plasma. The second article contains KDE System Settings screenshots and it is coming soon.

Summary of the screenshots

  • Logging
  • KDE Plasma Overview with Panel Toolbox
  • Fedora KDE main menu
  • Plasma Widgets
  • Activities
  • Install/Update applications with Discover
  • Install applications with dnfdragora
  • review of multiple installed GUI applications and games.
  • Dolphin – the KDE File Manager

Fedora 36 KDE Plasma screenshots

SCREENSHOT 1) Fedora (5.17.5-300.fc36.x86_64) 36 (KDE Plasma)

main menu
grub entry boot

Keep on reading!