I’m currently looking for a new OS, coming from KDE neon and I like it, but the fact I have to FUCKING restart because someone decided to push an OS update that broke my previous install, now the OS freezes my whole PC (never did before!) and I have to restart.
I’m looking for good apps support so Debian? Idk Using it for daily usage (Android/games development) and gaming.
I’m also looking for:
- Wobbly windows (yes useless but cool lol)
- Good customization
- KDE connect support (a must)
- Krunner or equivalent (MacOS like search)
- Idk?
Thank you!
Nixos, never have that break happen again
OpenSuSE with default filesystem configuration
or kubuntu
Fedora KDE or Linux Mint.
Yum. Not used to it but it’s not bad
Fedora Kinoite is KDE but also atomic, so you can easily roll back from bad upgrades in future.
Fedora KDE spin might be suitable for you.
I’m quite happy with Fedora. It has kde support, many apps (especially with rpmfusion), and is quite stable because it is still a 6 month ish major release schedule. Wobbly windows, kde connect, and krunnuer will definitely work. Good customization is subjective, and honestly I consider c/unixporn to be weird but cool wizardry, but I’m happy with it. One thing to consider is if you have a newer amd CPU with an iGPU being used it will get slow and crash every now and then (few months). It’s a bug in the linux kernel starting around 6.10.
Good customization is subjective
Yes, but I mean you can customize a lot in settings, themes, icons, etc
I have a 5800x and a 6950 so it should be okay
Yeah, that’s a kde thing, so I doubt it would be very different than neon.
If it doesn’t crash for no reason I’m happy with that
Nothing crashes for no reason. Until you identify the reason, you’re employing stochastic problem solving.
Except my KDE OS. No idea what causes freezes and sometimes (like yesterday) it happened while idle
Yeah, I was being trite but still there is a reason. Idle doesn’t mean doing nothing. Perhaps it’s obscure, perhaps as impenetrable as some combination of machine state and number of milliseconds since 1970 being an even number. But you could try to track it down.
And sometimes the easiest thing is to reinstall from scratch.
The problem started after they pushed an update that broke my install and others too. Reinstalled and started to get these problems, probably due to the new update
the Bazzite KDE flavor sounds like what you need
why not arch? it’s a fun distro to try if you haven’t yet
Because I’m used to Debian and the features listed? Krunner, Wobbly windows (useless but heh), etc
Krunner, wobbly windows and KDE connect are features of KDE Plasma, not Debian. You can install KDE plasma on arch and use all of the things you listed. Arch also has good app support through the AUR. Plus the wiki is called the Linux bible for a reason
I know. I’m also used to install package with apt
Is there an arch based distro with KDE support?
i mean arch supports kde?
you can even have the automatic arch installer (
$ archinstallin the live usb) set up a kde environment just like in the debian netinstallerEndeavourOS is Arch with an installer and a few utilities. You can install offline and it will use KDE or you can install online and choose KDE. The major difference is whether you need to update after installing.
I can also recommend EndeavorOS, mostly seamless install even with a Nvidia Optimus GPU (well that one took a bit of research on what to install exactly, not that it’s easier on other distros)
From all the ones I tried EndeavourOS is the one I liked the most but it doesn’t have apt but yum so I have to learn from 0 and it doesn’t have Plasma’s discover. I tried to install jellyfin package but couldn’t find it in my installed apps and I could only run it through command
Endeavor uses yay and has tons of software. The only other package manager I knew before was apt, but learning yay is super easy. Yay by itself is like apt update; apt upgrade, yay package to search for and install a package, yay -Rns package to remove.
I kinda like it, my only “problem” is: It’s not Debian so it’s not just install a deb file and that’s it, most of the programs I install have only a deb file or flatpak and for the latter I have to make my own shortcut (annoying)
what’s the difference between endeavour and arch with archinstall btw? do they use different repos?
It’s basically Arch with a familiar installer and an extra repo for their system maintenance tools. Also the community is friendlier.
The main difference is imo the preinstalled ( ery nice) theme /jk
Everyone is recommending KDE, but forgive me if I’m missing something, I don’t see it needing to be KDE support as a requirement on your list?
Any mainstream GNOME distro, eg Fedora, will have all the features you need through extensions (compiz window effect, gconnect for KDE Konnect, GNOME has the search you want by default and supports lots of customisation via shell themes, GTK themes, icon packs and extensions.
Edit: )
Why cripple Gnome to something Knomeish when OP is already familiar with KDE and there are gazzillions of KDE distros?
Gnome is ugly IMO and the extensions and custom themes to make it pretty break at each and every update. I just don’t bother with it anymore. KDE was customized to my liking once and it stays that way through updates without any failure.
Try Aurora DX (it means the developer edition). It’s KDE but with a Fedora base and immutability. It means that even if an update breaks something (unlikely but still) you will always have a working system available to fall back to. It does mean that development is meant to be done via containers, but I find this solution to be way cleaner and easier to work with than traditional package conflicts madness. Give it a go.
It also means updates are just full system images, so no way for a package manager or differential update to mess anything up. It also means no way of downloading tiny differential updates (if I understand everything correctly).
If you don’t need DX or would like to switch off of KDE, there are other fedora atomic desktop based distributions available.
Oh right, a distribution is just an image, so switching distributions is as simple as switching the base OS image and rebooting.
I also had kde neon and switched to kubuntu. Its really nice and only has minor issues. I also tried opensuse beforehand, which was not a good experience, for example the sound did not work (which is a typical probl, at least says their wiki and the fixes were obsolete, but not documented that they were.) and as a final straw, YouTube video played without hw acceleration, even with codecs installed.
I had less problems with endeavour os (arch), which runs on a second rig as a steamdeck.
I (after a lot of prior distro hopping) went from neon to tuxedo OS and have had very few issues, and only one that was major (was my own fault).
I’ll install it tomorrow! I want to try it
cool, lmk what you think after you try it. also, there’s no posts yet but on one of my Lemmy accounts I made a community for it.
you should take a look at TuxedoOS it’s KDE with quality control
Do I really want KDE again? Not sure. The “recent” (a few months old) update broke my previous install and I had to format and now it freezes my whole PC out of nowhere. I’m tired of restarting it at least twice a week for this
That’s the quality control piece, since tuxedo uses it on their computers and wants the customers to have a seamless experience they test all updates
I wish people at KDE neon did the same. Broke mine and others installs
Out of curiosity, can I have /home/<user> in a separate disk? So if I have to reinstall I don’t lose everything nor I have to back up everything
That’s a thing with Neon. It’s the “testing ground” for new KDE releases so they won’t guarantee stability. It literally is just Ubuntu LTS with a KDE repo thrown on top, and the Neon devs themselves only maintain that repo, with just a short delay after the new Ubuntu LTS release comes out. In Neon, the users are the quality control for KDE releases. I was using it for a little over a year until the rebase to Ubintu 24.04 broke my install. I went to Nobara, a gaming focused distro based on Fedora that uses a custom version of KDE as the default. I just upgraded to the newest version not realizing it wasn’t official yet, and it must have been the smoothest major version upgrade I’ve ever had in a non-rolling distro. It’s maintained by GloriousEggroll, who also builds/maintains the customized GE versions of Proton on Steam. I’m finding it’s not just a good gaming distro but a solid and stable distro overall. GloriousEggroll puts a lot of work into ensuring that on top of the Proton work he does. If you don’t want the gaming performance customizations he makes, try Fedora KDE spin, it’s likely to be pretty similar and I rarely ever hear someone have a problem with Fedora.
On your other question, next time you reinstall you can create a separate Home partition on your drive that should allow you to do what you’re looking for. So you have your boot and swap partitions and the one you install your distro to, and then your home partition, so you just install the new distro over the old distro and it should leave your home partition alone.
i know and I wish there was an update to address the problems/revert them but after months of freezes, I have Christmas vacations to change OS.
I went to Nobara, a gaming focused distro based on Fedora
What do you use? Official? What does “gaming focused” means here?
The official looks tempting but not sure if has any of my “requirements” but I could try the KDE version
I don’t remember if I went with the official or the pure KDE version. Either one should work. You can always try both out in a live USB before installing. The gaming focus refers to some modifications made to some drivers/software for the purpose of improving gaming performance. When you update your software you have to use Nobara’s update program in order to ensure that those mods are applied and preserved.
Nobara has a tick to auto mount partitions! Kinda cool
it sounds like you’re looking for kubuntu since it checks off every one of those bullet points.
I’ll see if someone suggests me anything else and I’ll try it. Not sure if it has the apps menu at full screen (macOS style) or not, not a big deal though
Not a fan of Macbooks but Idk how to explain it otherwise
i used to use the baghira kde theme and it mimics the unified system/apps menu that osx uses.
it’s a bit dated so you’ll have to look for something newer and i would be surprised if it doesn’t already exist somewhere
If you like KDE your night find endeavouros with KDE pretty good. It is an arch derivative so it is rolling release, if that is acceptable then I would say give it a try.
I don’t like the recent update and all the problems it has but I like KDE as OS yeah
KDE is a desktop environment, you can install it on almost all distributions and it will look and behave same (yes can use wobly windows and krunner). I do not recommend KDE on Debian12 as its outdated enough that you can’t install themes from kde’s settings anymore.
Personally I recommend Fedora’s KDE Spin, I believe its a distribution that you can install and forget and occasionally check for updates on kde’s software center.
There’s also arch based distros like cachyos or endeavouros with calamares installer that let you choose desktop environment before install.
Debian is not good for KDE
Huh? It’s been a while since I’ve used non-headless Debian, but why is it bad for KDE? Needs more cutting edge versions?
To me, it’s a matter of:
- Doesn’t do anything extra. openSUSE runs automated tests and reports bugs to the KDE devs before a release. They also maintain a Firefox patch to integrate it into the KDE MIME type system. Semi-decent distros will at least still package that patch and setup
xdg-desktop-portal-kdeby default. To my knowledge, Debian/Kubuntu/etc. do none of that. - Old dependencies, which sometimes cause bugs in KDE that you don’t see elsewhere. But also just old versions of KDE Plasma, even though Plasma gets better and more stable with each new release. We’ve got Kubuntu LTS at $DAYJOB, and you would not believe the number of times people mention something not quite working as they expected or wanted, and I get to respond that this would be fixed already, if we weren’t using such an ancient version…
- Doesn’t do anything extra. openSUSE runs automated tests and reports bugs to the KDE devs before a release. They also maintain a Firefox patch to integrate it into the KDE MIME type system. Semi-decent distros will at least still package that patch and setup
I don’t exactly know if Debian or anything else but my “requirements” is short sooo I’m open to anything I guess
openSUSE does the nicest KDE. It also comes with BTRFS snapshotting out of the box, so you could’ve just rolled back that broken update. Downside is that not as many apps are packaged for it.
