Desktop

The second step asks “Which desktop?”. The desktop is what people see and use: the panels, the menu, the file manager and the login screen. All three work on both bases.

The three desktops

	GNOME	KDE Plasma	Cinnamon
The Workshop says	A top bar and a dock. Clean and focused.	A taskbar and start menu. Familiar and configurable.	A classic panel and menu. Easy coming from Windows.
File manager	Files	Dolphin	Nemo
Accent colour	The nearest of GNOME’s nine accent colours	Your exact colour	None: its theme keeps its own colours
Your logo shows	On the login screen	As the application launcher button	As the menu button
Your wallpaper shows	Desktop and lock screen	Desktop, lock screen and login screen	Desktop, lock screen and login screen

GNOME is picked when you open the Workshop.

Which to pick

GNOME suits people who like a tidy screen: one bar at the top and a dock of favourite apps.
KDE Plasma suits people who expect a Windows-style taskbar and like to change things.
Cinnamon suits people coming from Windows who want a plain panel and a start menu. It runs as an X11 session on both bases.

You can change desktop at any time; your apps and art stay. The preview on the right switches layout as soon as you click, and the examples under Hide from the menu on the Settings step follow the desktop too.

What follows from the desktop

Accent colour. The help under the colour swatches on the Look step tells you what your desktop does with your colour. See Look.
Pin to the dock. Pinned apps go after the desktop’s file manager: in GNOME’s dock, Cinnamon’s panel, or KDE Plasma’s task manager. See Settings.

On Fedora, GNOME starts from Fedora Silverblue and KDE Plasma from Fedora Kinoite. Fedora has no Cinnamon Atomic image, so Cinnamon is installed onto the base Atomic image those two are built from.