Oh, one really good thing about openSUSE: since they have this openQA and test everything before release, they usually don't get affected by critical bugs. Recently on Arch Linux and other Rolling Release distros we saw a problem with people that couldn't use their machines because of a problem in a upgrade of the GRUB. It didn't affected openSUSE because they spotted it with the openQA and didn't update the GRUB package until it get fixed. The same happens for Plasma, we didn't get the Plasma beta on the "official KDE beta repository" on the day that it was release because of a bug, it took some days until they release it on the repositories because of that bug. Is because of these things that openSUSE is known by its stability, even on its rolling release distro.

OpenSuse Tumbleweed was the first Wayland by default distro that I know of. Fedora followed a month or two later.

openSUSE also releases Argon and Krypton versions. Argon similar to KDE neon gives you the latest builds of KDE on a stable base, where as Krypton gives you the latest snapshot of tumbleweed with builds of the master branch of KDE.

The best KDE distro is the one that have KDE run smoothly on your machine

I switched from Neon to Garuda about a year ago as my main distro. Absolutely love it, I get the power of Arch but without the headache. Garuda's custom tools for management works very well and makes most maintenance task a breeze. Example 1: If I use a secondary packet manager to install something odd I get an alert that I should update the whole system to keep the integrity. Example 2: I messed up my install by installing something I shouldn't (well, in the wrong way). Reboot, choose an older snapshot, boot with that and got the question if I wanted a roll-back... Yes please and thus I was back to before my stupidity. I really like the "rolling distro" concept as end user and will likely not go back to "version update". I usually base my install on the "Dragonized" variant since I love the looks but I need to change the looks to something more traditional, not fond of hovering menus (I keep start button, activity tray etc on the left side due to today's stupidly wide monitors). And from my experience their user forum is a good and pleasant one I'm about to install a Linux system for my 75 year old neighbour (runs win 7 now), I'm leaning towards Garuda for him as well (but more likely the XFCE variant)

Thank you for the video! I would recommend Opensuse tumbleweed easily because like you said, it brings the latest version of plasma and kde framework but OpenSUSE has a great support of btrfs too. They made snapper, a tool that make it easy to rollback your system to an old snapshot. Tumbleweed is not really an immutable OS like kinoite is, but I think it's a good compromise and easy to use OS if you want to be able to rollback when something bad happened. Now thanks to you I want to try kinoite to make my own opinion about it.

OpenSUSE is a distro for someone who needs to get the work done, period. Not only is it rock solid but it is also well designed and has very sane defaults out of the box. It just works! And if it doesn't, there are snapper with btrfs to roll back to previous "working" snapshot if/when SHTF. I've been using it as my main distro (work and personal life) for almost 3 years now and I'm not planing on moving to anything else. P.S. OpenSUSE has it's own beer, I mean what other distro has/brews it's own beer?!

KDE Neon for me. It's been rock solid and I enjoy the combination of the latest and greatest KDE atop a stable LTS base.

Opensuse tumbleweed is just the best experience I have got in kde

KDE Neon is just amazing. Moved to it from EndeavourOS and Neon just works!

the setup for your videos are improving thats nice keep up the good work

I'm using Manjaro with Plasma and my OS install was 8,5 years ago! So that means, it still works and there were no reinstalls in that time. Sure, there were some issues once in a while, but nothing that I couldn't fix. So Manjaro can be incredibly stable if you are familiar with the Manjaro and Arch, and know what you are doing. Manjaro is easy and nice, but still for more advanced users. Plus, if you are a developer, Manjaro has also KDE beta packages.

Arch + KDE = ❤

SUSE was my first daily driver, over 20 years ago! This was because obtaining a CD or DVD was quite easy at the time :D

Been using KDE since version 2.0 days and in my opinion the best KDE distro is OpenSuSE Tumbleweed. Oh and Nico can I have different wallpapers for each virtual desktop back, please.... :)

I feel comfortable enough with base arch, however I really liked the way garuda felt also when I tried it

Honestly, Kubuntu LTS. I've used it for years, and had absolutely zero reasons to hop from it. By default it's as good as it can get, and adding a few (legit) ppa's can turn it into a BEAST

I switched to Garuda Dragonized (Plasma with heavily customized theme) and dropped Manjaro (what a shame). Love the theming of Garuda and that it's set up the way it suits me, I only changed the topbar into a panel on the bottom. It's also fast to boot, slightly faster than EndeavourOS, so I wouldn't say it's bloated despite the heavy ricing. These two distros I can recommend, would have been happy to see them covered.

Home: Arch with KDE for >4 years now :) Currently on the 5.27 Beta Work: Fedora KDE Spin with zawertun COPR repo for the latest and greatest

Been using Garuda for something like 2,5 years? Time flies... Dragonized on my main rig and itx-rig, plain kde on T61-laptop. Surprisingly headache free usage! Love it!

18:40 You might be getting confused with bigLinux. Feren OS merely forks Kickoff to change its look a bit and uses said fork as its menu (although has a sister variant which does fill the screen instead). However, bigLinux, if I recall correctly, does use a fork of Application Dashboard.

I use EndeavourOS, an Arch bases distro, and they give you a choice of over 6 DE's. KDE Plasma is one of them and Endeavour installs it as is, other than EndeavourOS wallpapers, no changes from it's vanilla install as KDE packages it for Arch. You can customize it to your hearts content, as no matter what choices any distro may make for you, there just is no such thing as "One size fits all", and so many may not like what they get from any distro. I love EndeavorOS, Arch and KDE PLasma! It makes my penguins happy! 🐧🐧🐧

I realy love the new ideas that Cachy OS brings to the table. It has not this fancy new look that garuda brought in. But its idea to compile for newer hardware is great. And some things linke there own version of proton where a real eye-opener for me. As someone who runs relative new hardware it fixed quite some flaws that i had to find work arrouds on other distros. And on top there developement team is very active and present on matrix. I simple love these guys.

Been using KDE since v 1.01, mostly on FreeBSD & Red Hat back then. I find Opensuse Leap a very stable platform for KDE, if you care more more about stability than new features.

openSUSE tumbleweed is the best rolling, when it comes to stability, latest bleeding edge, and with KDE Wayland it is also one of the best.

Hi. KDE is my favorite desktop. The best Gnome experience was Garuda but I could not stand Gnome morexthan few weeks :) I run KDE on several PCs and laptops. KDE NEON is clear winner desipte few crashes after updates a while ago. However Manjaro KDE is super stable and fast offering latest kernal etc. It works great for my daily use with both office and video editing apps. No hickups at least the last 6 months... So I don't know but Manjaro KDE is now the best option reg to my experience. :) Oh and did try most other KDE distros, still Manjaro and Neon Winns.

MX Linux w/ KDE for me. Tried Mint, POP OS, Manjaro, Endeavour OS, Fedora workstation and Kinoite, Opensuse, Spiral, AntiX. Until recently, I was pretty happy on Endeavour OS. But then i got a new Brother Printer and was having issues with WiFi operation. MX just worked perfectly, printing, and scanning

Nicco the quality of your videos has been getting so good. keep up the great work!

I use Xerolinux, arch based. I started with Manjaro KDE and enjoyed KDE since but with Xerolinux I found amazing customization for myself and really love it.

What Gnome is to Fedora, KDE is to Opensuse(Tumbleweed).

If you haven't try OpenSUSE you should try it. Because IT WORK as solid as rock.

For me: OpenSUSE Leap (the best). Kubuntu. KDE Neon.

I have been a MX Linux KDE Edition user for about four years and I never broken it in a way that forced a reinstall. Their custom toolset is rock solid and has not failed in bringing me back from the black screen of death. Great distro should have gotten a mention in my opinion.

Thanks!

I use arch and alternate between plasma and a riced combo of xfce with awesomewm. Kde’s great for days I just want that polished out of box experience 😊

I use KDE 6 on Garuda, updated 2 days ago. Very nice upgrade!

Great videos! For personal use KDE Neon. For work mx-linux KDE edition.

Great video, I found distros, I've forgotten about. But I missed Garuda Linux in this video. Would have been nice to see how you're feeling about that one.

I tried openSUSE and I love almost everything about it. The only thing I was pulling my hair with was network printing. Any other distro does it seamlessly, on openSUSE I couldn't do it

I use a customized arch for KDE since the AUR has the wallpaper engine for KDE plugin

EndeavourOS is also a great option for people who want Arch and stable KDE

Being not too advanced, but a long-term user, I recommend trying kde neon or manjaro. Now I use manjaro since 2020 and it still getting better.

I use and love Feren OS, which uses KDE Plasma for the DE.

Debian (12) KDE user here and I have to admit that this particular release is the most consistent (and stable) that I've ever seen around.

Benn running the same Arch install since 2021 with KDE and I've never been happier. I also like Slackware though you have to really tune it unless you want EVERY KDE application ever made. I had a minimalist list of packages for it but I lost it.

Endeavour OS with kde is what I'm using, it's been great so far.

I'm on Manjaro today. Before I was on NEON (and still on one of my laptops) and befor that I was on OpenSUSE, but main distro is Manjaro for me.

great list!!! if you had issues with microOS, i just want to warn you, it can't be install on bare metal by just booting the ISO, it has to be burn in a physical media, was an issue i stumble upon every single time i wanted to try out, KDE microOS is pretty barebones in my opinion, it won't even come with telemetry or screenshot tool, but, ironically, is one of the best integrations so far of KDE i had saw in a system, tried kinoite as well, it wasn't as polish as microOS, hope you can try it out

I've used openSuse for 10 (or so) years. I've tried to switch but rage quit any other

Just a few points about KDE on openSUSE - In the past we had some problems with Discover on it yes because of the zypper backend for Discover but this is not a problem anymore. The Discover on openSUSE is now stable as in others distros. About their "KDE brand theme", I personally found very ugly and the first thing that I do is change to default Breeze. And finally, they have a immutable distro too, the openSUSE MicroOS. Is a very new distribution and they officially support only GNOME and KDE Plasma for now, but is very stable and basically read for use. I use it with KDE Plasma on my production machine with no problem.

I've used Debian 11 with Plasma, EndeavourOS with Plasma, and Kubuntu. EndeavourOS offered the best Plasma experience for me because I feel that KDE benefits from rolling release. Debian's Plasma was too old, with Kubuntu being in the middle; LTS will be older than rolling release, but point releases and Kubuntu Backports PPAs can make up the difference. My problem is that after running EndeavourOS for just about a year, I had to leave it behind. Arch-based distributions are not for me. Kubuntu's Plasma may be older, but the distribution itself is a lot easier to setup and works better on my hardware.

Have you tried Ultramarine Linux which is a Fedora based version with a KDE configured desktop. It supposedly simplifies access to nvidia drivers and other "non-free" items that Fedora makes difficult to install from the get-go?

currently openSUSE tumbleweed (well Krypton) with wayland on Nvidia RTX 3060Ti (wayland has been working well)...for now I'm waiting for SUSE's MicroOS to mature little bit more, hopefully usable when KDE plasma 5.27 is out. my family has also been using openSUSE, the Leap version. Also few of my friends also use openSUSE

I think the flagship kde distro should be opensuse. Though i am using fedora kde .. switched from manjaro kde a week ago. Oddly faced some ui freezes and crashes in fedora kde while installing window button plasmoid and a cursor theme uninstalling them resolved the issue

The Linux Experiment (YT channel) has introduced me to Tuxedo OS - based on Ubunto but without Canonical's lean toward Snap and away from FlatPak.

I use Fedora Kinoite (used kde neon beforehand). I really love it, though it needs some fixes

KDE Neon. I had not a single time installing arch/archbased distro without something borked (kde included). I like bleeding edge because you get hands on newest and sweetest but Arch is just to much maintenance since i don't have enough spare time anymore. On Neon KDE packages are bleeding edge and it is fantastic. Most non-KDE software has flatpaks that work well-enough (not perfect) and are bleeding edge also. So all-around Neon is better than Kubuntu for me. Opensuse (tumbleweed) is always behind Neon for Plasma releases so no pass here. Fedora's installer appeared more confusing that installing Arch manually so no pass in that also.

Kde Neon since forever! Tried most of mainstream distro but always came back!

The only experience I have with a distro having KDE plasma out of the box is Kubuntu (Because I always choose GNOME) so this is interesting

For me it is the BigLinux, a Brazilian Manjaro based with a lot of polish

Manjaro KDE....by a lot. Nothing else comes close. Before anyone responds, I've tried Kubuntu, KDE Neon, OpenSUSE, Nitrux, Feren, Garuda, arch and Fedora with KDE and multiple versions of all of these. They all suck compared to Manjaro.

Great video, thank you. I know it's late, Plasma 6 is around the corner... though, so many years I tried to use Plasma, I never got Discover to work :/ I'll give another try with Neon, let's see how it goes... otherwise, I'll be back to XFCE

KDE Neon rolling release also offers a test version

I use KDE with four PCs. Three have Debian 12.1 and one has SID 2023.1. Plasma works great with Debian. No issues.

Right now I am using Nobara Linux, KDE edition. I switched over from Arch. I used Arch for years but I no longer have the patience for the necessary upkeep it requires. I decided to switch over to a Fedora based system. I could have gone mainline, but I did want the gaming niceties that Nobara provides, and it is still a point release. Totally somewhat off topic, where can I get the Jinx wallpaper that shows up at around 5:55?

by the way: tuxedo linux is pretty good and optimized ubuntu lts (with updated drivers and some apps). Ugly kde personalization, imho, but not a real problem. Out of topic : ma sei italiano?

I used to be a Linux Mint user with a KDE installed. However, I discovered Ubuntu and its other flavors, then ended up with Kubuntu itself. Now I am happy with what I am using right now. Also, I watch some videos on what distros are good for a newbie or a shifter like me so I have an idea with what works and not.

Currently using KDE on top of Pop. It would be really nice if System 76 had a Plasma spin, even if it's a community edition! 🙂

I like plasma desktop and kde apps, but most annoying thing about it is when I install one app, all its cousins get installed. I don't mind it, but it effect my work flow, for eg:- when I search write i want to open librewrite but it suggest me kwrite because I installed Kate, or qt creator(ide) Installs 4-5 apps with same icon which allways confuse me.. Is there anyway to hide not user installed apps from showing on search result

Hi, Check out garuda linux as well. Pretty interesting arch based distro that ships KDE Plasma. Its quite intereting

After upgrading my SSD to higher capacity, I decided to install EndeavourOS with KDE Plasma (because i got lazy to install arch the arch way and for some reason had EndeavorurOS ISO) and converted it to pure Arch (which was already pure enough but now everything reports Arch instead) and I can easily say that I prefer this over Fedora KDE. Both will give you a solid KDE Plasma experience but since EndeavourOS is kinda pure Arch, you basically can use any kernel (I use Linux ZEN kernel) and probably a way better setup for my NVIDIA dGPU (no need to enable a third-party repository if the main repositories has the driver for me) and still have equal amount of software with it (I counted AUR). I also enabled chaotic-aur so my system is unholy combination of EndeavourOS, Arch and Garuda with some AUR packages that are converted from DEB and RPM and I daily drive KDE Plasma. But hey everything is working fine.

At the moment, I've been on KDE Neon for a month or so. But I do think I'll switch back to Kubuntu 22.04 LTS, as I find the continual updates to KDE a bit bothersome. OK, so I won't have the most recent version of KDE, but I prefer stability over being most up to date.

I like Arch + KDE, I installed vanilla Arch with vanilla KDE via archinstall. Also for Arch I recommend Garuda KDE lite, Chachy OS with KDE or Xerolinux. And KDE with other distros I recommend Nobara Project (Fedora-based) with KDE or KDE Neon.

Arch was great for me, then a week ago I did an update that basically nuked Plasma-X for me and I'm fighting Wayland to stick with it. Considering doing a full system backup and put KDE in "quarantine" for a bit. 5.26.5 was sooooooo good for me until the update.

Endeavour Os, just amazing

I'm interested in this kitty desktop environment.

I'm liking EndeavorOS. Allows you install a vanilla arch with KDE, easy-peasy.

I wish I saw this video two months ago. I've been switching from Manjaro to KDE Neon. I would have used Kubuntu instead.

My last distro shipped with KDE ws Feren.

I've used Kubuntu for my desktop since it first came out - 1st - love KDE as an environment 2nd - love that it is Deb based 3rd - Love that it is ubuntu - this means that I run ubuntu server on my server and on my raspberry pi I add the backports to get the latest plasma

Solus Plasma absolutely rocks

I use Cachyos (Arch Based btw) and I quite like the nord theme and the power profiles and it is a comfy distro to be on. Speaking of power profiles are those going to be in future versions of plasma? I would love if we could get something similar to system76 power but integrated into plasma by default!

I like Kubuntu KDE Distro it works great on my hp laptop

"If you're unsure on whether you should use Arch Linux, dont" You sir deserve a medal!

I use Arch btw. I wanted Ubuntu based like PopOS! but without snap firefox but I didn't find that at the time so I installed Arch.

Installing KDE on Linux Mint 💚

Rolling distros are useful if you have very new hardware

I love fedora and think it's the best distro currently, but their KDE spin is a bit of a mess in terms of default packages it comes with. I don't usually complain much about bloat, I am able to remove everything I don't need in 15 minutes normally. But Fedora KDE just comes with many extremely old obscure programs that nobody else ships.

Arch of course

I think that whatever gives you all kde plasma packages to give you a full plasma desktop experience is what makes a good distro for plasma. Everything else has to do with the distro, save for how old the packages are.

I was using Neon for 2 years but switched back to Kubuntu 2 months ago when after an update "resume from sleep" did not work anymore.

Ciao Nicco The best distro for me is the one I don't even notice, the one that does not bother me or interfere with my work. I am used with XFCE and Cinnamon. Said that, unfortunately KDE does interfere daily with my work. I always test distros on VM for 6-12 months to understand how they work and behave before using them in production. I tried KDE Neon and I had KDE-related updates every day (and I am talking about 250MB to 1.1GB updates every time), I always had to reboot after the update (which is not the case on other DE) and often I had to reboot multiple times after the same updates had to be re-updated and applied. At the end, with a last update a couple of months ago, the system just got stuck and did NOT restart. I deleted the VM (yes, I am lazy and noob). After that I tried Fedora KDE (for a vanilla, maybe more stable experience), I thought maybe it will bother me less. No, same thing. Daily huge KDE updates and multiple reboots. I gave both systems the same CPU cores, disk space and RAM. On both systems the update process also takes incredibly long time (XFCE or Cinnamon 1-2 minutes, KDE 15 minutes minimum on same PC, even with parallel download tweaked on dnf Fedora). I also noticed an important use of RAM on both systems (more than 1.6GB at boot). I would really love to use KDE. I believe that KDE created a great ecosystem with a lot of useful tools. On paper it is almost exactly what I need. But in practice it is memory hungry and it does heavily interfere with my daily work. Everyone talks so good about KDE and I also see a lot of value in it. But the above described problems really annoy me. Am I doing something wrong? Am I missing some tweaks? By the way, thank you Nicco. I follow you and you are doing a great work!

I almost installed KDE neon but I wanted the Ubuntu part to be just as important as the Plasma part. I am sick of distro hopping so Kubuntu for a few months will do me fine.

Arch Linux with KDE Plasma. And I honestly have no idea how this concept of arch being "hard" is still going like we're still in 2012, you read the wiki for 2 minutes, copy and paste few commands and done. I am not a power user, not even close to one asi I use Linux for only a few months now. Either way, I wanted Arch because I like the philosophy, and KDE has all the settings I need and do not need to configure it my way. It's a combo made in heaven.

I like Kubuntu and use it on all my computers (desktop and laptops).

Tuxedo OS Plasma 5.27 + Ubuntu LTS Perfect 👌🏻

For Work : Kubuntu (presently using 22.10 as my XPS 9250 has broken sound /no wifi on 22.04) For Home: Something Arch based (EndeavourOS currently) I've installed and tried every version of Fedora since 1 and for some reason I just do not get on with it. Used to use OpenSuse, their KDE implementation was always good, but I hate the package manager

Gentoo. That's it! But I knew openSUSE is KDE flagship. Only openSUSE ship KDE with full function package, with every newest feature of KDE.

For me its either Fedora or Arch... Fedora (nobara) for easy amd driver installation... arch for easy apps installation :)

Void linux + KDE plasma here