Best variant of Fedora for a Virtual Machine...?

[And Kemp]

Hi,

I'm currently trying to study for the LPIC-1 Linux certification exam 
and part of it is to familiarize oneself with the different software 
management utilities.  To this end I've tried to download and install 
64-bit Fedora versions on a virtual machine.  The version for Gnome just 
will not install, so moving down the list of options, I stumble upon the 
KDE version, download and install.  So far, so good...

To practice prior to my exam I would like to be able to enter commands 
at the command line: obtaining (separate) terminal windows using KDE 
comes across as clunky (I usually use Ubuntu - sorry!). Whilst 
<CNTRL><ALT><F2> to enter a full terminal screen is straightforward, 
it's not helpful (to me at least) in terms of being able to switch 
between panes (I generally like a lot of them for things like man pages, 
different directories, etc.). Konqueror, Konsole and all other thinks, 
"K" start off as being chipper but after a day, not so much...  Access 
via the main menu is now becoming more than tiresome.

I've trawled through the documentation as best I can (all I want is a 
couple of meaningful shortcut icons on a desktop - hardly a mammoth 
operation to my mind) in terms of, "getting started" but creating icons 
comes across as an insurmountable problem (That whole, "create shortcut 
on desktop" option just doesn't work on my installation .  The shortcut 
appears: does it run when clicked? Does it cuckoo...).  Simple things 
like mounting the CD drive from a command line can be summarized, 
according to my impression of Google forum replies, as, "RTFM!  
RTFM!...  It's automatic (the only thing missing here is, 'You 
idiot')!".  [Note: It's *NOT* automatic; nor is in any manual I could 
locate: one has to create a device folder (at least, that's how I fixed 
the problem in the end, having tried (and failed) to adopt the "Fedora 
way", assuming there is such a thing!)]  Part of this familiarization 
process is the reason I downloaded Fedora in the first place, but as a 
general-purpose (Ubuntu) Linux user, don't really expect to have to read 
through the entire manual to be unable to accomplish the simplest tasks 
for a variant of an OS I'm relatively comfortable with.

In terms of rpm / yum, it's mainly plain sailing, but I'm having an 
issue which don't appear to be addressed effectively from google 
searches: I try and query packages (using -qv) to be informed that the 
package is not installed.  I try and install it to be informed it's 
already installed!  Any advise you can offer in this regard would be 
gratefully received.

Equally, I (over?)looked the FAQs for this mailing list, so my pitiful 
cry for advise in terms of a palatable variant of Fedora may well be a 
case of, "RTFM, ..."

Finally(!) a question: At the risk of opening a kettle of worms [can of 
worms / kettle of fish] I believe I'm having a poor Fedora experience 
because of my being unable to adopt a KDE mindset (correctly?).  I 
believe I've missed something really 'obvious' with regards to the UI.  
Is it possible to eliminate KDE or should I attempt a different 
download?  Which would you recommend?  Am I creating problems for myself 
by selecting a 64-bit installation or should I go with 32-bit?

Hope you can help.

Thanks for reading,

Best wishes,

And Kemp.