The following is a list of KDE distros I either will not recommend, or can no longer recommend. I include the reasoning behind my decision with each one. Some of these are actually great distros, but for reasons I simply won’t recommend them to anyone, especially new users. The primary motivator for me writing this article is when new user post in social media or forums asking about new distro recommendations based on KDE plasma. I regular see terrible recommendations to these new users that are mostly in this list.
Kubuntu: This one actually hurts my feelings just a little bit. I used Kubuntu for somewhere around 14 years and it was my go-to distro every time, for everything. I still have a fondness for Kubuntu (probably because of nostalgia), but will no longer recommend it for the following reasons
- SNAPS: Snaps in my opinion are done incorrectly. Snaps install into the root directory system instead of the user space and therefore are not editable in an easy manner. They [SNAP apps] are also not available to some plugins, especially those that must be installed manually resulting in a set up that just doesn’t work when other install methods do. For example, if you want to install the Inkstitch plugin for Inkscape and you install Inkscape using ‘snap install inkscape’ the inkstitch plugin will not work.
- Removing FLATPAK support: The decision by Canonical to remove Flatpak support from default installs is disappointing. This isn’t the end of the world, and Flatpak support can be added after the install is complete, but for new users that just want their system to work and don’t care what the underlying method is this can be a deal breaker. This is just one of a long list of disappointing decisions Canonical has made over the years.
- Not the most up to date: Most people switching to Linux are interested in playing Windows games on Linux. The best bang for your buck to play games on Linux is to have the most recent Mesa and video drivers stack. This won’t happen on Kubuntu, even with the 6 month release version.
KDENeon: I couldn’t tell you how many times I have install KDENeon, wanting, hoping, and wishing it to be a wonderful distro only to be disappointed after a very short amount of time. KDENeon is perfect if you want to develop for KDE and/or you want to test/bug report KDE development. You should use KDENeon testing for this, otherwise, avoid KDENeon and pick something more relevant to your needs.
- Strange Mix: Neon is a strange mix of bleeding edge KDE stack and stale, old LTS other packages. By default you don’t get the bleeding edge goodness of anything that isn’t part of the KDE stack. If you really want bleeding edge KDE go with a true rolling release and get the entire system bleeding edge.
- Development distro: This really is a development and testing distro, so there is a decent chance for something to break that the developers didn’t foresee or they didn’t have your particular system to test against before pushing an update.
- Not the most up to date: Most people switching to Linux are interested in playing Windows games on Linux. The best bang for your buck to play games on in Linux is to have the most recent Mesa and video drivers stack. This won’t happen on KDENeon, especially since it’s based on Ubuntu LTS base.
Manjaro-KDE: This one also hurts my feelings just a little bit too. I still, to this day, love Manjaro-KDE. It’s a great implementation of an easy to install and easy to maintain Arch.
- The Parent Company: The parent company and/or group in charge of Manjaro seem completely and totally disorganized. There is a website devoted to how many times they have completely messed up the entire system of running and maintaining a Linux distro, from letting ssl certifications expire (there are automatic systems to autorenew certs as well as get notifications of soon to expire certs, so this really is unacceptable) to DDoSing the Arch AUR repository causing the AUR to be completely inaccessible to anyone and everyone from bad code in their pamac package system. I left Manjaro almost completely for these reasons. If I can’t have enough confidence in the owners of a distro to do the right thing and keep their own system up, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone else.
- Potential Instability: This one never actually bit me, but I’ve heard for a long time that the holding back of packages that Manjaro does for a couple of weeks to increase testing and stability actually has the potential to cause instability instead. This is theoretically, primarily only if you use the AUR for packages. The AUR for the most part can’t be held back, so packages from the AUR will attempt to build/update looking for required packages that on Manjaro have been held back for two weeks, thus causing issues. Again, I never had it happen and can also attest to when Arch got bit by that last Grub bug, my Manjaro machines didn’t. I’m only mentioning this because it does seem like a legit possibility.
Fedora-KDE: Just to be as open and honest as I can, my dislike for Fedora goes way back to when Fedora was just getting it’s feet wet. Back then it was extremely difficult for a new user to install codecs and drivers to make a computer actually do what computers do. This has improved a great deal but I just don’t like Fedora.
- Fedora is Gnome: Many of the Fedora devs also work on Gnome and vice-a-versa. Fedora is a Gnome first distro and anything that isn’t Gnome feels like a second class citizen. The KDE implementation on Fedora isn’t bad, but it just isn’t great. There are many distros that do a better job at showcasing the awesomeness of KDE Plasma (OpenSuse Tumbleweed is one of the best).
- The installer: The installer is pretty, but other than that it’s a mess. The UX is all over the place. Depending on what you need the installer to do you’ll click top left, bottom right, top right, etc on your screen. Also, if you need to do something other than the default settings it is very un-intuitive doing advanced settings.
- Not really interested in KDE: This is more true from the past than it is now, although now it is still somewhat true. The Fedora team has said before that they’re not really interested in KDE, so their sparse interest in it now could be discontinued at any time.
- Just use Gnome: I’ve seen many a user ask how to fix something in Fedora-KDE only to be told to use Gnome instead. Granted this isn’t a Fedora issue, but it is a toxic community issue.
- Redhat (Fedora parent co.) doesn’t want to support KDE: As you can see for yourself, Redhat gave KDE support the axe in 2018. They don’t want to support it and therefore I can’t support Redhat/Fedora. https://www.theregister.com/2018/11/02/rhel_deprecates_kde/
