It’s such a great desktop environment in so many ways: it’s customizable to an absurd degree, its defaults are almost Windows-like, so people switching from Windows to a Linux distribution with KDE will feel very comfortable, and the KDE team has some awesome apps like Kdenlive (a video editor), and Krita (an image editor).
On the other hand, there are so many moving parts that the user interface becomes unstable, and in my case tends to crash often. I’ve tried a dozen different ways to make it work, but it always feels like for every bug the developers squash, two more pop up in its place.
Now, I realize that’s how developing works, you fix a bug and now you have two bugs, that’s the joke, but it’s very true. At the same time, it gets frustrating when you watch your system’s user interface crash for the fourth time that day, dig into the logs, and can’t find any reason as to why it’s happening.
When I was on KDE Plasma 5.27.x, it was so stable and the user experience was buttery smooth. Now they’ve made some wonderful enhancements with Plasma 6.x, but I’m not sure the frustration is worth the improvements. If I wanted to go back to KDE 5.27.x, I’d have to switch to a stable distro, like Kubuntu or Debian, as they use the older repositories, and will for some time: Kubuntu won’t update to KDE Plasma 6 until Kubuntu 24.10 comes out in October, while Debian won’t update until late 2025 at the very earliest.
That might seem like the solution, and I’m considering it, but there are a few issues: Firstly, I’m on Fedora, and I like getting the latest software updates for my system. There is a tradeoff of stability, but for the most part Fedora’s solid as a rock.
Also, Fedora uses .RPM packages and Flatpaks, while Kubuntu is based on Ubuntu, and so uses .deb (which is great, I love Debian based stuff), Flatpak, and also Snap, and they push Snap really hard, to the point where it’s only a matter of time where disabling it won’t be an option because they’ll have so much of the operating system dependent upon it.
So what’s a person to do?
Well, not much at the moment if I want to keep using KDE, and I do, because KDE has the easiest method of theming, it’s very customizable without a lot of extensions, and it has the KDE file picker, which automatically preloads images and video thumbnails so you don’t have to click through file names to find the right image or video in the file chooser.
As I said in a previous post, I’m a distro hopper, and I love to jump from Linux distro to Linux distro trying to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each leap will be the leap to a home distro, but the search continues. I’ve used Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Solus, Tuxedo, Mint, Pop!_OS, Garuda, Manjaro, Damn Small Linux, PuppyLinux, Endeavour, Elementary, Nobara, Arch, MXLinux, Peppermint, FerenOS, and KDE Neon.
I’ve tried other desktop environments, too, hoping to find one that satisfies like KDE: Cinnamon, MATE, GNOME, Budgie, COSMIC (though not the new one, I can’t wait to see that one!), XFCE, LXDE, and LXQT.
No, I haven’t used i3, Sway, or any of the window managers, because while they are neat, I want something that’s ready to go out of the box and only needs minor adjustment to fit my needs. I really am a set it and forget it kind of person these days.
So if you’re like me, you know the position I’m in. Do I just hold on for possibly months? Dealing with crashes every day? Do I go to an older, more stable distro and accept that I’m only buying a little time? That seems to be where I’m leaning. I mean, surely by October, when Kubuntu 24.10 comes out, the KDE team will have ironed out the major bugs and maybe this crash, too (I have submitted it, by the way, in the hopes that whatever is causing it can be found)?
I don’t know, because I don’t like Snap. I can use it, but I don’t like it, but can I get along with it for a few months while the good people behind Kubuntu get Plasma 6 ready for release? I do have to say that Kubuntu has always worked as my favorite KDE implementation, and with the backports I can get almost current updates on KDE applications.
I don’t know, I’ll have to keep thinking about it. I sure do wish there was a distro that was up to date but reliable, and just as easy to use as Ubuntu and Fedora. Maybe someday. Hell, maybe Pop!_OS will do it with their new COSMIC DE. We’ll have to wait and see. Or not. I don’t know.
Well, that’s enough nerd talk for now. Sorry if you read this and your eyes glazed over.
.Red
