Hi there. I m changing away from windows. I already tested some stuff. I started with fedora GNOME. But GNOME wasn’t for me I felt. So I did go with Linux mint cinnamon. That felt better but not as snappy and fast as fedora. Then I did go with fedora KDE plasma and man I like KDE plasma. That’s a thing for me. Then I tried because of recommendations popos with cosmic. I don’t know why but it didn’t felt right. So another recommendation later I tried cachy is with KDE. KDE was good but catchy gave me some erros and problems so back to fedora with KDE.
Now my real question.
- Manjaro Linux is a European distro? Only I often see it with popos and Linux mint and fedora that these are good beginner distros? Is it stable? Customisation in KDE is the same everywhere I guess? Does many people use it? Is it really beginner friendly and snappy? Is it stable?
- Opensuse also has KDE but it seems that its not a beginner distro. Also online its not often spoken about. Is it harder to use? Or is it beginner friendly? Customisation KDE again. Is it stable or does it break often? Does many people use it.
- Fedora, manjaro, opensuse? Which off these with KDE is most beginner friendly and stable. Is used much so I can find help when something is going on. Customisable. Stable?
Or any other Good KDE Distros out there.
Can anyone tell me something about the Linux mint Debian edition?
Dont choose your distro based on looks. For example, of you liked fedora but not gnome, try fedora KDE.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is excellent and no less beginner friendly than any other major distro, so I wouldn’t worry. It really is one of the most underrated distros out there.
Kubuntu could be a good option for you, but I recommend doing the “Minimal” install to avoid Snaps and bloat.
If you are mostly about gaming and flatpak, then consider Bazzite. You can’t just install packages on Bazzite, so if you need to do things that aren’t already built in then you need to use containers or, as a last resort, create a new layers with rpm-ostree.
For the record, Arch and it’s offshoots don’t especially resonate with me, either. I want my OS to “just work”, but at the same time I want to have the ability to go wild whenever and however I feel like it.
I’ve been spending a lot of time with Bazzite lately and I’d wholeheartedly recommend it to most Linux newbies, especially gamers who want their system to “just work.” It’s also a very interesting system for jaded old Linux users because it works so differently than we’re used to. The “everything needs to be a container” paradigm is very interesting and has a lot of security and stability benefits.
If you want more control and freedom, then OpenSUSE is definitely the best option here. I’d only fallback to Kubuntu if there was some software you need that only ships in .deb and you have no other options. I’m not a fan of Canonical or what they’ve done to the Ubuntu ecosystem.
I would second kubuntu as I use it daily, but I don’t mind the snaps.
I’m a recent convert from Mint Cinnamon to Kubuntu. I would definitely recommend it for being user friendly.
Manjaro is hot shit. If u want newbie friendly, Linux mint Gamer friendly bazzite
-
Yes, Manjaro is European. KDE is the same everywhere. IMO it is not stable, but that is just an opinion. I’m not sure how many people use it.
-
OpenSUSE is relatively beginner friendly. Leap is the stable, non-rolling release, and Tumbleweed is the rolling, less stable but still stable release; Leap’s packages can be old, so you may not have the newest KDE. For this reason, I’d recommend Tumbleweed. A fair amount of people use it.
-
I’d say use Fedora or switch to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Fedora is more stable and used more, but OpenSUSE is European.
I use fedora kinoite atomic fedora with KDE. I have had no stability issues on a day to day usage for going on 2 years. I agree plasma is plasma regardless of distro but some distros update slower. Fedora is not bleeding edge but does do a pretty good job of staying ahead of the curve. I have been a Linux user since the 90’s and have been around the block a few times with different distros. I always fall back to redhat/fedora for my desktop day to day.
-
This was originally intended as a longer comment, but the previous draft unfortunately blinked out of existence… Though, I’m more than willing to shed some light on the distros discussed below if you’re interested.
Or any other Good KDE Distros out there.
I’m surprised that no one else has mentioned them yet. Thus, for the sake of completeness, consider Aurora and Bazzite. It’s what I would personally install/recommend for/to relatives/friends that would like to make the switch to Linux.
Aurora on their website looks really promising but I guess its a rather small distro that not many people know?
but I guess its a rather small distro that not many people know?
It’s true that it’s not as well-established as many of the other distros discussed here; it probably has like 1k users or so. Which is quite literally just a small fraction of Fedora KDE’s over a 120k user base. Granted, it’s a relatively new distro built on Fedora’s latest/‘future’ tech. Usage numbers should follow eventually[1].
Thankfully, that same tech enables Aurora (and other projects like it) to be very robust and reliable; tangibly more so than the more popular ‘traditional’ alternatives. I assume you’ll come to cherish and value this reliability, especially as stability seems to be a concern of yours.
I’m currently using bazzite, and I have had a couple of hiccups with it so far. One was it being immutable, meaning for any software that wasn’t in the flatpak store, I have to spin up a container running a mutable version and use that.
The second is a weird audio thing where on install, the volume knob on my headset changed the system volume like I expected. Now, it changes like, local volume and doesn’t show up as changing in the system volume.
Anyway, my only real point is that looking problems up on a small distro is harder, because it might be a bazzite problem, or a universal blue problem, or an atomic fedora problem, or a kde plasma problem, and it makes it difficult to search if you don’t know the specific piece that is broken.
One was it being immutable, meaning for any software that wasn’t in the flatpak store, I have to spin up a container running a mutable version and use that.
Sorry for being that guy, but please allow me to nitpick the above:
- Bazzite’s founder and lead maintainer doesn’t refer to Bazzite as immutable[1].
- Bazzite supports a lot more than just Flatpak and pet containers. And that list isn’t even complete.
my only real point is that looking problems up on a small distro is harder
While I agree that Aurora definitely is a small ‘distro’[2], I’m not comfortable to refer to Bazzite as a small project. Both Steam’s own metrics as well as ProtonDB’s suggest that it holds a moderate chunk. Sure, with just over 25k users it isn’t quite comparable to (say) Fedora’s 300k+ user base. But it definitely ain’t a slouch either.
As for the looking problems up part, honestly, if a quick search doesn’t help ya, you should just go over to their Discord or Discourse and ask the friendly maintainers and community for help/support.
Heck, even their subreddit seems to be doing a commendable job.
I’d argue it’s their legit resistance against the common notion/understanding of immutability that doesn’t apply to Bazzite. ↩︎
The uBlue team doesn’t refer to their images as such 😅. Frankly, I agree that the daily pipeline their images go through to deliver system updates screams everything but the traditional model. To be clear, in uBlue’s model, the daily-delivered base system is rebuilt from source every single time. So, my base system of Bazzite is identical to yours (unless either one of us created their own image). ↩︎
You can also install KDE Plasma on Linux Mint: https://linuxiac.com/how-to-install-kde-plasma-on-linux-mint-22/. My own distro right now is TuxedoOS with KDE Plasma (Can go on any hardware, not just Tuxedo computers) and it works great for me.
EndeavourOS KDE Plasma is my favourite! It’s really really considerate and inherits all the arch linux advantage :3
I have to second this. It’s been amazing across the board for so much. Lots of documentation to assist with problems and you learn so much.
Why not Pop!_OS with vanilla Gnome3 and Wayland? It runs snappy and you don’t need the experimental Cosmic desktop.
openSUSE Tumbleweed is the rolling release, where you may have dependency decisions to make during regular updates. Updates must be done in the terminal.
The more beginner friendly version is openSUSE Leap. That has a longer release cycle, and you use the Discover interface (or yeast, or zypper in the terminal) to update.
Either is pretty friendly. Both have recent KDE.
Fedora KDE pretty much offers the best KDE Plasma experience, maybe right after OpenSuse.
If you are still using Fedora, I recommend sticking with it. It doesn’t get much better than that.
I wouldn’t use Fedora mainly because I object to how IBM/RedHat handled the removal of CentOS and how they hampered RockyLinux from keeping the original CentOS mission going
I would pick a leaf off the Debian tree
Which is why I moved to Debian/Ubuntu based and haven’t looked back. But functionally, nearly every distro has a different strength and purpose, so go with whatever piques your interest.
Fedora is not Red Hat. While they fund Fedora development, they don’t dictate how to it is ran.
For those of us that despise Red Hat, sorry, but increasing the user base of Fedora, dramatically helps Red Hat’s marketability and profitability (and IBM’s). These companies not only make decisions bad for the FOSS community but way too happy to do business with a country massacring kids as we speak too. Now, I still recommend using Fedora since, as you say they are not straight IBM and they are at the vanguard, yet, for those with a conscience on these matters, there are as equally comparable offers out there.
Fedora is upstream CentOS Steam which is upstream RHEL. It’s part of RHEL cycle/stream
easy non-gnome = plasma on Debian or xfce via mxlinux
If you install the latest Kubuntu with backports enabled, you can get a newer version of KDE than the one that comes “stock” with Kubuntu. The KDE version isn’t as new as KDE Neons’, but still newish.
I’ll give a contrasting opinion.
I’ve used both Fedora and Manjaro extensively, and I prefer Manjaro.
The reason is that I prefer the package management of Arch more than fedora. I’ve had no issues finding what I need through the official arch repositories and the AUR (secondary choice).
Manjaro is a bleeding edge distro so keep that in mind. Personally, I’ve had no problems in the last year of running it.
