Fedora 21 Beta KDE Spin Part 2

It’s a week and a half after the last time I looked at the Fedora 21 and about 2 weeks away from the final release if there aren’t any showstopping bugs. I just did an update and it appears that Fedora 21 will start out with KDE 4.x instead of KDE 5. I spoke to someone in IRC and it appears that KDE 5 is in no state to be included in Fedora. That’s fine with me. It appears we have learned from the KDE 4 fiasco. I’m OK getting KDE 5 later on in Fedora 21’s life or even Fedora 22. After all, if you really want it, there are ways to get it like COPR repositories or self-compilation. Fedora 22’s less than a year away, anyway.

I decided to take a look at the software included on the default ISO for the KDE Spin of Fedora 21. The games selection is pretty paltry. Then again, KDE has an astonishing number of games and I don’t think it’s necessarily important to include more than a few.

What I did think was odd was the non-inclusion of Digikam. With the knowledge of Fedora.next I went to the Fedora KDE spin page. This page doesn’t come right out and say that it’s for Developers. However, I’m going to chalk that up to a site that perhaps hasn’t been updated for Fedora.next. Clearly anyone savvy enough to a) use Fedora and b) know there’s more than one desktop is perfectly capable of installing the software he/she needs. I think what I would do if I were to install Fedora KDE for others or on multiple computers would be to make a custom Fedora KDE spin with all the software I typically use and use that to do installs. Or, perhaps more simply (and certainly smaller MB-wise) just have a yum or dnf command to install the stuff I usually use.

Perhaps more interesting to me than what wasn’t installed is some of what WAS installed. I didn’t know there was an AMZ Downloader. I had assumed I needed Windows if I was to buy music on Amazon. I’m going to have to install this on SuperMario and see how well it works. I also think it’s interesting that KsCD (a CD player) is installed. I am nearly 100% positive it’s been 10 years or more since I used a computer to play CDs.

Perhaps when I’m done with next semester’s class I’ll join the KDE SIG to help guide the direction of the KDE spin. I think it’s a good spin, but I think it could be a great spin with a bit more focus.