BananaTrifleViolin

The text here on the fediverse is the prologue; bit confusing but click through the link and it makes sense.

Interesting read, thank you. Also I recognise this type of procrastination: sit down to do one thing, end up installing a whole different OS :D

KDE is genuinely incredibly flexible - you can make it into pretty much any GUI that exists. The default windows like set up is fine, but there are so many easy tweaks and changes you can make to get it however you want. I have a floating dock-like set up instead of a window-like taskbar, with application launcher, icon-only view, system tray, clock and power button.

For simple tweaks yoy can right click on most component of your KDE panels and select “Show alternatives…” to see different official versions of the same component. For example, the Application Launcher offers an alternative Application Menu with cascading menus like an old-school windows start menu, or a full screen gnome-like Application Dashboard. And there are also loads more user made tools if you right click and select “Add or Manage widgets”. Every component of the desktop is a widget and can be moved, swapped out, duplicated or replaced.

It’s really not that difficult with a Global Theme; anyone can do it. There are step by step tutorials on line (such as this one from howtogeek) for people who want to do it manually. The benefit of manual is if there is a major KDE update it is more likely to be completely unaffected; very rarely Global Themes can break and need their own updates.

The Mac ones are the 2nd most popular in the Global Theme store and well maintained though.

Yeah KDE is incredibly flexible. You can get most of the way there downloading a Global Theme from KDE’s settings menu (such as MacOS Big Sur) - that lays out all the panels, including the top bar context menu, power menu, dock, left sided window buttons. There are then some extra visual themes such as cursors, icons that people can get separately if they really want to completely mimic a Mac.

No one is born knowing this stuff; everyone learns it somewhere. But omg it’s still frustrating after you spend days taking the difficult route and someone says “oh you could have just done this in 2 mins”. My sympathy to you! :D But GG on getting your parents onto Linux and saving them from wasting money on a new laptop!