Edit: Tumbleweed and bazzite are currently the most attractive options based on what I’ve learned from the comments. I will trial run those and 1 or 2 others.
I am currently on Pop OS.
I am dissatisfied with the DE/UI and I’ve been playing with others but half the point of this distro is it’s custom UI. So I figured I would try another. I have several criteria that may narrow it down.
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I am going to use KDE or KDE Plasma (preferred). This is the only non-negotiable criteria.
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I will be gaming. This means I would like relatively up to date kernel and software. Rolling or semi-rolling releases are preferred.
2.5. I also work from this pc. This mainly entails using discord and Firefox though so no special requirements. I do have 4 different sized monitors with 3 different refresh rates that I use for work. Only one for gaming. One is vertical. I can tell I’m pushing x to its limits with that setup.
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I would prefer Debian-based as that is what I’m used to and because .deb packages are so common.
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I don’t want it to be a ton of effort to set up. Pop OS worked out of the box with my Nvidia GPU and all other hardware. I am willing to put in some effort though.
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I have been using and very much like apt and flatpak. This is not a requirement, just an observation.
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Wayland is neat
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Active community with lots of support to search through. Pop OS has been good for this as it’s Ubuntu based and has its own great community.
Ultimately I want an easy to use desktop OS that uses some sort of KDE, supports up to date packages and drivers, supports most games and isn’t a pain to maintain.
Here are some contenders that fit at least some of my requirements.
KDE Neon user edition
Opensuse tumbleweed
Kubuntu
Endeavor OS
Debian
Manjaro
Bazzite
Mint Debian edition
Right now I’m leaning toward KDE Neon, Kubuntu, or Debian (whatever the rolling release version is), but the others all have their draws. I’ve heard the aur is great but I have come across several applications only available in website downloads of Deb packages so I’m hesitant.
I have been using pop as my first desktop distro after Windows and I’ve enjoyed it a lot. I barely run into anything I can’t solve with some effort and headache and not a single game I can’t play. I’d like to keep it that way.
Now that that’s out of the way, does anyone have suggestions? Am I looking in the wrong direction? Am I asking the wrong questions? Should I just install arch, live in the terminal, and throw away my mouse? /s
Thank you all for your advice in advance.
You don’t say what else other than gaming you want to do, so it’s harder to advise. Still, consider bazzite KDE, easy, stable, relatively close to the bleeding edge without all the cuts, everything you need for gaming in the tin.
I do gaming and work. Work is mostly web browsing and discord. Most of my time is spent in a game or Firefox. I use steam, lutris and a few flatpak launchers like bolt for osrs and prism for minecraft. Amongst others. I use many other apps, but none as extensively as those.
I have seen bazzite here and there but haven’t checked it out yet, thanks for the recommendation. I have stayed away from gaming-centric distros so far as many of them are made by a small team and have a small community which means there’s no guarantee of finding support for a specific issue or no guarantee it will be updated into the future.
Bazzite is based on Fedora, so the support base for using it would be large.
Edit: the Plasma version of Bazzite is called Aurora if I remember correctly.Fedora itself also has a KDE Spin which I’ve been using for about two years, so I can recommend that as an easy option as well. I personally ran both Kubuntu and Neon (both Ubuntu based) but had major hardware compatibility issues with both so I can’t personally recommend either. I’ve heard they’re generally good though.
Thanks, I’ll probably prefer aurora then for plasma.
Sorry I just looked into it and Bazzite actually comes with KDE. I was thinking of another distro by the same organisation.
Your use case seems fine, all of that works (in flatpak). FWIW wouldn’t consider bazzite particularly gaming-centric, although it’s good at it, it’s immutable fedora with add-ons, so it has all of fedora behind it. The ublue project also has non-gaming variants. I’m a dev, but I have it on my desktop as I game, still develop on it (in distroboxes (basically containers with an OS, I mostly dev in Arch for AI stuff for example, but my main OS doesn’t get touched by my random mucking about)). Have a poke around in my history, I’ve said a bit on it, I find it good…Feel free to question later.
What’s your main OS?
Bazzite (ublue fedora kinoite derivative). Distrobox lets you install containerized alternate OSes, so you install stuff there, isolated from the main OS. If something breaks, you can just blow it away and start again without affecting bootability etc. Such is the beauty of immutable operating systems.
Damn!
I know, right!
Would definitely not recommend KDE Neon. It’s more of a showcase of new KDE features than an actual usable OS. I currently use Kubuntu and it’s fine. I wish it updated more frequently but the update frequency isn’t slow enough to really be a deal breaker.
I disabled snap Firefox, not really because I’m ideologically against snap, but because snap Firefox is annoying to use. Other than that, the OS generally just works out of the box.
I’ve heard good things about OpenSUSE, but I’ve never tried it. My personal opinion is that I want to stick to the most common distros so that it’s easier to find troubleshooting advice
Genuine question, but is there a version of Firefox that isn’t snap?
Yes, you can add the Mozilla ppa and they offer a non-snap version. I think the Deb that you download from their website also isn’t snap, but I haven’t tried it
I use my pc for similar purposes on Linix Mint Debian Edition. Basically mint which is based on Debian instead of Ubuntu. Steam and emulation have been a breeze on it with flatpaks and I’ve fiddled around with Lutris as well. A lot of features are plug n play in many aspects, but the os gives you enough freedom as to not feel restrictive.
I’ve found that the community is helpful and big enough to have all my questions answered. You might need to do some tinkering if you use an Nvidia GPU though. I have an all AMD system, and it was relatively easy to get and install graphics drivers, which will probably be your biggest hurdle/headache with other distros outside of PopOS.
Yeah I’ve heard that pop OS has great Nvidia support out of the box, more so than most other distros. I do like your idea of mint Debian edition though. I’m already a fan of mint but didn’t want their slower kernel and software releases. I eventually want to build a new pc with amd hardware instead of intel/Nvidia. Maybe the right play is to stick with pop until that happens.
For what it’s worth, I use Mint with the Xanmod kernel installed and the kisak-mesa PPA. This means I get the stability, strong UI, and “just works, no fuss” factors of Mint, but a cutting edge kernel with an optimized build and gaming-specific tweaks to it, plus the latest release of Mesa. Every individual app I want to guarantee is fully up-to-date I just get the flatpak, which mint will offer to update through its gui updater tool, right alongside native packages. Steam and Heroic keep the games up to date and ProtonUp-QT lets me keep the Proton-GE versions up to date as well.
Anyhow, just putting that out there. I’ve used every major distro over the past 16 years and this is my personal “I just want it to always work and be up to date” solution for my gaming PC. Everyone will have different compromises for what they consider best.
So what’s the pros and cons of Mint on Ubuntu vs Mint on Debian? I’m more familiar with Ubuntu, and that’s what I’m running on my PC now, but I’m thinking about trying to go back to Mint.
Main things I’ll need to install is development tools (VSCode, IntelliJ, docker, java) plus Firefox, Discord. I’m also running KDE Plasma - it’s nice, but also I don’t really have a strong opinion so if I wasn’t i wouldn’t care all that much. Nvidea graphics, AMD cpu.
I’m a bit frustrated by the weekly or so discord updates and it would be nice if auto update or apt upgrade would just update it, but maybe that’s a completely separate concern.
Anyway if you time to respond I appreciate it. If not that’s cool too. Have a good one!
if you google “mint ubuntu update to” you will find hundreds of people wondering if thats even possisble just to end every thread with: do a fresh install. its the best.
would not touch that ever again.
For my use case, I wanted a hybrid distro that is more rock solid/no hastle but also updated enough for gaming. Og Debian’s update cycle is too slow for some of the things I was doing with proton and wine, while rolling release distros like Arch/Manjaro broke or required fiddling too frequently for my taste. I feel like LMDE is the perfect balance for me personally, taking the rock solid stance of Debian even further than og Mint or Ubuntu, while also being updated enough to not have problems gaming.
Secondly, I greatly prefer flatpaks to snaps, so that’s another reason I stay away from Ubuntu or Ubuntu forks.
I also respect the ethos of Mint and Debian much more than “corporate” owned Ubuntu. It feels much better being on a Debian based fork rather than an Ubuntu based fork, in case Cannonical wants to do stupid things to their OS.
Overall I think it comes down to me just wanting to use Debian, but with more frequent updates, that isn’t Ubuntu.
I am also gaming a lot and used nvidia in the past and by the description you give I would say openSUSE Tumbleweed is the one. It is rolling release, but they also have extensive QA tests before letting packages get released as updates so it is very stable for a rolling release. And another thing that openSUSE is awesome for is that they have BTRFS snappshotting very nicely configured out of the box so before and after each update it creates a snappshot and if something goes wrong you can just select an old working snappshot from GRUB boot menu. And with Nvidia this breakage was happening well more often the I would like. I also like their Open Build Service where you can find many additional packages which might not be packaged by distro people themselves.
Thank you for this. From the replies in both of my posts, I’m leaning towards either tumbleweed or bazzite/aurora. Both seem great, but maybe tumbleweed is slightly ahead in my mind. I’ll probably try 2 or 3 distros anyway.
Of course there’s the suggestion of installing KDE plasma on PopOS! Which will work quite well but to give some info on the others:
KDE neon is mostly for devs and is less well maintained than other distros. Still definitly not a bad choice.
Tumbleweed stronk. Definitly out of what you say my preference though yes, it’s not deb based. You should be able to get what you want though through the app store and the open build service. Really it’s discouraged to find random .debs online and install but OpenSUSE runs on .rpm which are fairly commom.
Kubuntu is also good. Last time I checked it’s a bit slower moving than pop but that’s not inherently bad. Definitly a great “It-just-works” distro. Some people, myself included, dislike snaps which are built in but if you don’t know what they are I doubt you’ll care. Most of the hate is overblown.
I’d caution against endeavor as it’s arch based. It’ll demand more from you, stuff will definitly not just work all the time,and if an issue arises it’ll be the first to catch it. Like the grub rescue error that showed up about a year or so ago.
Don’t use Manjaro. The devs are incompetent and destructive to the ecosystem.
Debian is also chill. There’s always unstable (can’t remember the current name. Debian Trixie?) For something that’s more up to date
Last thing no matter what distro, just like an exe, a .deb is just an archival format like .zip and can be taken apart to be manually installed. I understand not wanting to do this though lol and it’s not always that simple
Debian is also chill. There’s always unstable (can’t remember the current name. Debian Trixie?) For something that’s more up to date
Debian Unstable’s code name is always Sid. Debian Testing’s code name is always the one that will become the next Debian Stable release, currently Trixie.
Sid
Named after the kid in Toy Story who would keep breaking and doing horrific builds with his toys. The Debian team is trying to warn you.
Thank you, that was helpful. Right now, Tumbleweed is currently in the lead, though I’m going to trial several of them.
Aside from your preference for debian-based distros, you’re describing Garuda pretty well. But the chaotic-AUR is enabled by default, so you’d never need to hunt for .deb files in the first place. And the update script, “garuda-update”, has a bunch of nice features by default, like taking snapshots and running grub-update (which would have prevented the grub fiasco that hit the arch-based distros a while back).
The only pain points are 1.) If you don’t like Garuda’s theming, you’ll need to do some minor ricing to start, and 2.) Plasma 6 updates often enough that on a rolling release distro, something minor about your setup might break once every few months, e.g. KDE allows themes to set a minimum taskbar size and all of a sudden your taskbar increases in size, or your wallpaper gets reset for some reason.
I’ve been using garuda for nearly 2 years and am loving it. I second this recommendation. I only had KDE do something weird once and that was when they went from plasma 5 to 6 initially around a year ago.
I also ran Pop for a couple of years before moving to Bazzite. Bazzite has KDE, Wayland, and can run .deb software through distrobox. It’s the best.
Yeah it’s looking like that or tumbleweed is the play here. Both seem great.
How’s Bazzite for Nvidia support?
They have an Nvidia version; although it should be mentioned that Nvidia doesn’t always play nice with Wayland. If you use X11 with Nvidia instead, it’s a much better experience and you still get most of the benefits of using Bazzite.
Personally, I switched to AMD due to the better Linux support. Wayland on AMD is fantastic.
I’d switch to NVIDIA if I weren’t doing ML development.
i used Tumbleweed. It is great, but you need to configure it for gaming
Just install KDE and see if you like it.
I did, which is why KDE is a hard requirement here. But pop OS and its many useful tools are dependent on gnome so I feel the need to switch distros to one that isn’t packaged with an entire suite of software I don’t want to use, and one that has more common support for KDE.
