I need some advice regarding which distro to choose. I tried installing fedora workstation on my laptop as test and it seemed quite annoying to get the user interface right.
I dont mind the technical differences, in fact i’m looking forward to them as linux is more secure and better designed.
The problem i’m having is that i want the good things from windows desktop. for example; tray icons, being able to control filesystem easily with gui, shortcuts on desktop.
Every distro i have tried or seen has been really basic regarding this out of the box with very little customization options. I prefer not having to download million extensions for every little feature that might stop working at every major update or if developer doesnt feel like continuing.
I also would like to be able to easily backup customization settings so i dont have to do everything again if i need to reinstall. I like being able to easily customize everything so having a lot of settings is good thing for me.
I read somewhere about kde plasma and screenshots seemed promising and downloaded kde fedora. Haven’t installed it yet but am I on the right track for what i’m looking for? Are there other even better choices? I’d like to nail this from the start so I dont have to reinstall later. I really dont want to wade through every possible distro.
Thank you all, you have been big help
the kde website has bunch of distributions. opensuse, neon, fedora, manjaro, kubuntu. Does it matter which I pick? I chose fedora mostly on a whim. I have understood that plasma is something separate to this and probably included in anything kde related…? What is the fundamendal difference between these?
+1 for the fedora KDE spin. Fedora has been rock solid for me. (Though I am currently using workstation with GNOME)
Fedora is an incredibly well run distro. By default it only ships foss software so remember to enable the non foss repo if you can’t find an app.
Look for Fedora kde on their website
The difference isn’t very significant. Software is packaged slightly differently, and there might be slight philosophical opinion design differences in the system, but for the most part it doesn’t matter.
Fedora is fine. Ubuntu (or Kubuntu, same thing with a different interface) is fine. They’re very common choices so there will be plenty of community support.
Plasma is largely plasma, regardless of where you get it from. Distro wise, the biggest difference tends to be theming and default settings. All things you should easily be able to change yourself to make it work the same no matter where it’s from. The only real gripe I have with plasma. Is distributions that enable the global menu by default. No easy way to turn it back off. And while I don’t mind the global menus. It’s the inconsistency of the global menus that’s that issue. Any plasma or QT application works fine generally that anything gtk or otherwise and it gets to be a mess. Not Plasma’s fault.
But in general it doesn’t matter what distribution it comes from
I like Debian-based distros, so I usually suggest Linux Mint or Linux Mint Debian Edition to beginners.
Regarding the ones you mentioned: Fedora has a strong following, so you would probably find plenty of community around it, if you’re okay with a distro so closely linked to Red Hat corporate decisions. (I am not.) Kubuntu conveniently uses KDE Plasma by default, so you wouldn’t have to install it yourself, but recent Ubuntu variants impose some controversial things like Snap packaging; it’s a matter of preference. Manjaro and Neon have relatively poor track records in the stability department. I don’t have any experience with openSUSE.
It doesn’t matter very much which one you pick, because you can always install a different one later if the first one you try doesn’t suit you. The only way to get a feel for that is to try them.
When people say “KDE”, they generally mean KDE Plasma, which is the desktop environment that was originally just called KDE. (Kool Desktop Environment.) It was renamed somewhat recently, I think so that “KDE” could refer to the organization that also develops applications and other software.
why do some consider the snap thing bad?
The reasons vary from person to person. Some of the complaints I’ve seen:
In Snap’s defense, its design looked potentially better than Flatpak at sandboxing when I investigated them both a couple years ago. Unfortunately, it was pushed out with too many rough edges to feel like a better choice for most users, and the closed app store is a deal-breaker for many of us.
That sounds quite bad, I dont want to switch from one oppressor to another. Do you think they will try locking things down at some point so people cant work around their bullshit? I think i might be able to live with it if i have option of using something else too but I dont want to have to move again if things become unbearable, like with windows now.
Both Canonical (Ubuntu) and Red Hat (Fedora/CentOS) have a history of pushing their own stuff on people and locking it in when they have the opportunity to do so. This is no surprise, since both are trying to walk the fine line of being profitable business system/service providers using open-source software. I expect they will do more of this in the future.
They can only do it so much, though, since they don’t have unlimited resources and don’t want to alienate too many users. Some people find one or both of them tolerable. Some don’t even notice the changes, since most of that stuff is just behind-the-scenes plumbing to a typical desktop user.
If you want to reduce the chances of having your setup disrupted by some future obligatory change, I think Linux Mint would put you in a good place. The regular edition is based on Ubuntu, but Mint insulates its users from nonsense like the Firefox Snap (providing a native package instead), and the maintainers have a Debian edition as an exit strategy in case Canonical ever goes off the rails. Ubuntu is based on Debian, so migrating Linux Mint from an Ubuntu base to a Debian base would be fairly painless.
Tip for installation time: Consider putting the /home directory on its own partition. This will allow swapping distros in the future without having to mess with backup/restore cycles to preserve your files and user settings.
Plasma is just the name of the latest KDE release, I believe. Might I suggest Kubuntu? Ubuntu is the most popular distro in general, and Kubuntu is the KDE/Plasma Version of it.
Because Ubuntu is so popular, it is easy to find support online. I had my husband try Kubuntu, and so far he’s loving it. He has a bit less Linux experience than I do.
You can always change your distro again later!
kubuntu seems nice based on descriptions. I’m mostly torn between that and fedora now. I have always been a little anxious about malware and cyberattacks. But to temper my “paranoia” i’m also a bit lazy or rather want to avoid needless work. Is it easier to make kubuntu as secure as fedora than make fedora as easy to use as kubuntu? I even asked the ai about it and it said fedora might require more manual configuration. Then there is also the perspective of threat actors which would likely rather target the most popular choice. I fear that might become more relevant in the future as world is going to shit.
if you’re worried about security that much, I’d go with fedora. Or maybe go with a distro based on Ubuntu without the snaps, like Linux Mint? I’m far from an expert, but the main thing the enthusiasts around here complain about with Ubuntu is the use of snaps. I think they’re less secure?
Linux Mint IS the current top distro on distrowatch. It uses “cinnamon” instead of Gnome. Cinnamon is forked from an older version of Gnome from before gnome started looking all weird and touchscreen-y.
I haven’t used cinnamon, so I can’t say anything about it really.
But, ultimately, if you’re worried about cyber attacks and malware then ANY distro of Linux is very safe. Hackers mostly target Windows. The people who use Linux are harder to dupe! Also, because of the fragmented nature of Linux (all the different distros), it is much harder to design malware that works on all of them.