this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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Linux

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switching from windows to linux, can you give some advice? (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I need some advice regarding which distro to choose. I tried installing fedora workstation on my laptop as test and it seemed quite annoying to get the user interface right.

I dont mind the technical differences, in fact i'm looking forward to them as linux is more secure and better designed.

The problem i'm having is that i want the good things from windows desktop. for example; tray icons, being able to control filesystem easily with gui, shortcuts on desktop.

Every distro i have tried or seen has been really basic regarding this out of the box with very little customization options. I prefer not having to download million extensions for every little feature that might stop working at every major update or if developer doesnt feel like continuing.

I also would like to be able to easily backup customization settings so i dont have to do everything again if i need to reinstall. I like being able to easily customize everything so having a lot of settings is good thing for me.

I read somewhere about kde plasma and screenshots seemed promising and downloaded kde fedora. Haven't installed it yet but am I on the right track for what i'm looking for? Are there other even better choices? I'd like to nail this from the start so I dont have to reinstall later. I really dont want to wade through every possible distro.

Thank you all, you have been big help

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

If you are a little keen on learning the ins-and-outs of Linux, I highly recommend staying with Fedora. In my opinion, it has a great balance of stability and cutting-edge software selection in its repositories. The problems you have outlined are due to the default desktop environment choice of GNOME in Workstation Edition. The developers of GNOME are kind of perfectionists and have their own vision of what a desktop environment should be like. This often leads to having some common functionality most people want missing, at least without community-made extensions. KDE Plasma, on the other hand, is quite receptive to feature-requests and has all the functionality you mentioned, while being just as well supported development-wise.