Korora KDE

Korora KDE is an open source Fedora-based operating system, a special and official edition of the well known Korora Linux distribution (previously known as Kororaa) that uses the KDE Plasma Workspaces and Applications project as its default and only desktop environment.

Distributed as Live DVDs for 64-bit and 32-bit computers

The KDE edition of Korora can be downloaded from our website or from its official homepage (see link above) as two Live DVD ISO images or approximately 2.5GB in size, which must be written to USB flash drives or DVD discs in order to boot them from the BIOS of a computer. It supports 32-bit and 64-bit computers.

Minimal boot menu à la Fedora Linux

The boot menu of the Live DVD images is very minimal, similar with the one used in many other Fedora-based distributions of Linux. Its main ability is to start the live environment with default boot options and drivers, but you can also perform a system memory test, boot from the local drive or start the live session in safe graphics mode by accessing the “Troubleshooting” section.

Professional looking desktop environment powered by KDE Plasma

As mentioned, the main purpose of this Korora flavor is to promote a modern and professional looking desktop environment that uses the latest upstream version of the KDE Plasma Workspaces and Applications technology. An intuitive and innovative welcome screen will help the user to learn more about this operating system.

Includes a mix between KDE-specific apps and third-party open source programs

It appears that the distribution includes a great selection of open source applications, among which we can mention the Mozilla Firefox web browser, KTorrent BitTorrent client, Choqok micro-blogging client, showFoto photo viewer and editor, Darktable virtual lighttable and darkroom, GIMP image editor, Amarok audio player, and LibreOffice office suite.

Bottom line

Summing up, Korora KDE has been specifically designed for KDE and Fedora fans, providing them with a some of the best open source applications and general optimizations that are not distributed in the official Fedora Linux operating system.

What is new in this release:

• Cinnamon 2.8
• This new release of Cinnamon includes lots of refinements. Refer to the Cinnamon Release Announcement for more details.
• GNOME 3.18
• GNOME 3.18 brings Google Drive integration in Files, automatic screen brightness and Touchpad gestures. GNOME 3.18 also has improved support for the Wayland compositor. Refer to the GNOME Release Announcement for more details.
• KDE Plasma 5.5.4
• A modern, stable desktop environment, KDE Plasma 5.5.4 sees a large number of improvements including better dpi support and improved memory use plus many bug fixes. Refer to the KDE Plasma Announcement for more details.
• Mate 1.12
• This release mainly focused on bug fixes and improving support for GTK3. Refer to the Mate Release announcement for more details.
• Xfce 4.12
• This release mainly focused on polishing the desktop and improving the user experience in various ways. Refer to the Xfce Tour for more details.

What is new in version 22 / 23 Beta:

• A modern, stable desktop environment, KDE Plasma 5.4.2 sees a large number of improvements including better dpi support and improved memory use plus many bug fixes. Based on Fedora 23.

What is new in version 22:

• Plasma 5, the successor to KDE Plasma 4, is now the default workspace in the Korora KDE edition. It has a new theme called Breeze, which has cleaner visuals and better readability, improves certain work-flows and provides overall more consistent and polished interface. Changes under the hood include switch to Qt 5 and KDE Frameworks 5 and migration to a fully hardware-accelerated graphics stack based on OpenGL(ES).
• Faster and better dependency management with DNF:
• With Korora 22 we're introducing a major change under the hood; we're now using DNF and hawkey to manage packages. DNF is much like the Yum software package manager (it's largely command-line compatible), but re-written and re-engineered to provide optimal performance and (along with Hawkey) provide a strict API definition for plugins and extending projects. DNF also makes use of the libsolv library initially pioneered by the openSUSE Project to provide faster and better dependency management.
• It also boasts a better performance and memory footprint vs. Yum, and is designed to have a cleaner codebase and be easier to maintain.
• Elasticsearch:
• Elasticsearch is full-featured and very popular self-standing open source indexing server, and now it's available by with just a "yum install elasticsearch" - no, wait, make that "dnf install elasticsearch" :-)
• GNU Compiler Collection 5:
• Korora 22 comes with GCC 5.1 as the primary compiler suite.
• Captive Portal Detection:
• Korora GNOME, by default, enables a captive portal detection that requests known content from a trusted Fedora server. If the request is redirected, a window automatically appears for you to interact with the portal's login webpage.
• To disable this feature, remove /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/20-connectivity-fedora.conf
• Developer orientated firewall:
• Developers often run test servers that run on high numbered ports, and interconnectivity with many modern consumer devices also requires these ports. The firewall in Korora GNOME, firewalld, is configured to allow these things.
• Ports numbered under 1024, with the exceptions of sshd and clients for Samba and DHCPv6, are blocked to prevent access to system services. Ports above 1024, used for user-initiated applications, are open by default.

What is new in version 21:

• A modern, stable desktop environment, KDE 4.14 sees a large number of improvements but fewer new features as development focus shifts to the new KDE Frameworks 5 (expected to be the default in Korora 22).

What is new in version 21 Beta:

• A modern, stable desktop environment, KDE 4.14 sees a large number of improvements but fewer new features as development focus shifts to the new KDE Frameworks 5 (expected to be the default in Korora 22). Refer to the KDE Software Compilation Announcement for more details.

What is new in version 20:

• GNOME 3.10 represents another iteration to the new desktop which is also targeting native Wayland support.
• KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.11 brings a host of bug fixes, speed ups and improvements to the native applications including Kontact, KScreen and KGet.
• Application Installer brings a new interface for installing packages in GNOME.
• NetworkManager should be able to configure bond master and bridge interfaces with commonly used options and recognise their existing configuration on startup without disrupting their operation.
• LVM has introduced thin provisioning technology, which provides greatly improved snapshot functionality in addition to thin provisioning capability. This change will make it possible to configure thin provisioning during OS installation.
• Plasma-nm replaces the current network applet in KDE with a new one and bring the latest features in NetworkManager to KDE.
• SSD Cache is updated thanks to the recent kernel to support (fast) SSD caching of (slow) ordinary hard disks.
• VirtManager user interface for managing virtual machines has the ability to easily manage snapshots.