My thoughts on KDE Neon (or the Plasma DE)

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Uh, where should I start? It's been over a week since I jumped to KDE Neon 5.27 (based on Ubuntu 22.04) from Ubuntu 22.10.

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Here are my thoughts on using it (or at least the Plasma DE):

What I liked:

  • The splash screen at the start.
  • The built in widgets.
  • The interface is polished (like most distros).
  • Some apps like Steam open faster.
  • KDE's System Monitor is more user-friendly than GNOME's.

What I disliked:

  • Wine was slightly harder to install (you would have to downgrade the libpoppler-glib8 dependency) and secdrv.sys doesn't seem to work (though, that's probably a WINE 8.0 issue).
  • One click on a file or folder in the file manager opens it (I'm used to double click) and I'm not sure there's a way to configure that.
  • If you move a image set as the desktop background, next time you login, it doesn't show the background.
  • The setting to change the desktop (background, etc.) is not found in the settings. Instead, you would need to right click on the desktop to access it.
  • You would need to restart the computer to apply updates (similar to Fedora).

Overall Verdict:

There are some things (in my opinion) that KDE does better than GNOME (no offence), which is why I'm staying on KDE Neon for now.

There, I'm done. I hope I don't get the look (not for distro jumping BTW). Oh, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.

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KDE Neon is more trouble than it is worth imo. I would advise the latest version of Kubuntu over it personally. It just is not really designed to be a user system and has a lot of weird choices.

KDE has grown on me overall the past few years. I used to absolutely hate it.

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While I am not interested in this I did not know that Tuxedo OS used the latest version of KDE. That is interesting.

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Did you try Feren OS? I have not used it much but I know a lot of people love it.

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The 22.04 version is currently in Alpha I believe.

I just checked and it is. Posted that about 3 weeks ago

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There are a lot of things KDE does better than Gnome. It is far less rigid than Gnome being the biggest one.

But my big annoyance with current KDE is it is so easy to accidentally change something in the interface and fix what you did. It is your fault that it happened but it is just easy to actually do it.

But if you are happy with everything that is great! I would personally prefer KDE Neon over say an Arch based distro.

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New users also have to be careful with downloading and applying 3rd party global themes because they can change everything. Just about any desktop layout is possible with KDE once you know your way around a bit.There are settings that I haven't begun to learn yet even after using KDE on and off for a couple of years.

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I've been using kde plasma on Zorin for the better part of a year and a half. I'm pleased with it. I like the customibility and fine tuning you can't get but maybe in xfce.

It has so many prebuilt themes that you can swap them in seconds. I've learned to apply plasma, global, window (gtk included), then icons. Once that was determined, I found the rest of the settings easily enough, though the configuration of the settings app is not at all intuitive. It can be annoying having two terminals, file managers (though kde respects even nautilus and Nemo being default), internet browsers as well as writing apps.

The keyrings can drive you crazy depending on what you're doing. You'll access kde's keyring for the desktop and some functionality, then have to repeat for gnome applications in certain areas of the system. That doesn't happen often, but every once in a while.

For the most part, once configured and customized the way you want, it drives well and handles everything I do in it. I've had the desktop kick me to the login screen a few times, but usually when I'm using memory intensive applications and multiple resource hungry applications (zoom [in a call], discord [in a call], slack, firefox, VS Code and the terminal [usually running a script]). It's intermittent whether I'll get kicked though.

Kde is not that much different than gnome. About the only major difference, other than base library, is that kde doesn't require hacks (extensions) to maintain basic functionality and a lot of extended functionality.

I have live wallpaper going because of a widget and two useful desktop widgets, otherwise it is a vanilla kde installation. Something you can't say about gnome without extensions, unless you like the lack of functionality.

No matter what DE, Kernel, File Manager, Window Manager, Lock Screen Manager, package manager and firmware you choose for your configuration, if your happy with it... you can't go wrong.

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Is this something recent? I got a Tuxedo laptop a while back and it was based on Budgie. Maybe since this is not seeing much development these days they decided to change it. I think I used Tuxedo OS for about two or three months, and didn't have any issues with it.

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as much I really want to like KDE - there's always something that crashes on/in it when using it for me. That's what I like about Gnome, it may be dull (compared to KDE) but it's stable.

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Thanks everyone for the heads up. I do want to say:

  • I have a Live CD of Tuxedo OS. Unfortunately when I gave it a spin, it was in German.

  • I'm quite used to seeing bugs in software.

  • Everyone's cool with me, right? Sorry, I just felt some slight hate thrown at me. I should really stop with the people pleasing thing.

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Noone hates you :). You can use whatever you want. I use mostly Fedora at the moment and other regulars on this forum uses other distros as well.

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Honestly this is a blessing and a curse and ultimately what tends to drive me away from KDE. It has to much going on, far more than most users need/want.

While I feel Gnome is to much in the complete opposite direction. (WHY ON EARTH IS APPLYING A THEME ANNOYING!!!!)

But I feel Gnome is just more "stable" than KDE. I do not even care for using the word stable because issues with KDE are almost entirely user error but it just throws so much at you, you are bound to run into issues that just do not exist in Gnome. I do not recommend KDE to anyone who does not know there way around Linux pretty well. (Zorin/Mint have been my go to distros for my friends/family who got tired of Windows lol.)

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I hope I did not come off that way. That is one of the things I like about this forum is people here are more open minded than most Linux forums.

Use whatever makes you happy and if people do not like it. Tough :slight_smile:

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