Preparing for Mint to drop the KDE distro

[pcpunk]

I've tried almost all of the KDE options. I have a few requirements. It has to be based on Deb. No Arch or RPM. It has to boot.
(it's amazing how many won't) And it has to work well out of the box. (that eliminates most KDE distros) But I believe I've
found it with Neptune. So far it hasn't given me any problems at all and I would urge others to give it a spin.

Try https://ubuntubudgie.org/

[BubbaBlues]

I spoke too soon. Neptune is as bad as the others. I've given up and will switch to Mint xfce until Kubuntu decides
to put something out that actually works.

@BubbaBlues, I was happy to read your first post about Neptune. It looked promising, and I'm just starting to look at it. So far, it seems to be pretty solid. Can you elaborate on your second comment? What have you encountered that didn't work?

It just failed to boot a few times and various things would crash or freeze up. About like most of the KDE distros.
It might work well for you. It did for me for a couple of days.

[BG405]

It just failed to boot a few times and various things would crash or freeze up. About like most of the KDE distros.

That is a bit surprising; I've not had any issues related to KDE on the various machines I have tested & installed it on. Runs like lightning compared to the other DEs I've tried on my systems (with the possible exception of XFCE); these currently only include relatively ancient hardware, so this might be a relevant consideration.

[blue_bullet]

I have made the move from LM KDE 17.3 and 18.3 to KDE Neon. It is based on Kubuntu 18.04 LTS so there is a work around to running Dolphin as root. You have to load most of your applications yourself. For myself I consider that good therapy. Discover crashes a lot so I use Synaptic. I have learned to keep a list instructions of things to do after a bare bones install. The list grew longer with KDE Neon. Even kate needs to be installed.

[banjo]

I am currently testing Mageia 7 Beta 1 on my backup machine. In spite of being a beta and hundreds of updates each day it is surprisingly stable. It is worth a look.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

[Fixer1234]

I've been looking at Neptune. I haven't had any of the problems BubbaBlues reported, but I'll share some observations for anyone interested in looking at it.

I'm testing it on an old USB external hard drive, so that limits speed a little. I've used the same drive to test many other distros. Neptune claims to be fast, and operation once booted is comparable to other distros, but startup is the slowest I've ever encountered with any distro (many minutes).

I haven't experienced any bugs or glitches. Being based on a stable distro, it's the advantage I would expect.

Neptune is a clever mix of new and stable. The problem with using Debian Stable (Neptune's base), is that Debian Stable's repository can be ancient enough to require carbon dating. When I used that years ago, I had to manually load some of my applications, like browsers, because the offered ones were too old to properly handle evolving web site standards. Debian's repository was also missing some applications I wanted, and others were old enough to lack important recent features. The more of manually installing stuff you do, the more you risk creating "FrankenDebian" as they call it; you end up defeating the value of using a stable distro.

Neptune's developers do the work of integrating and testing current versions of the key applications. At least at the time you install it, Neptune has recent stable versions of the common applications, so you start off way more current than loading Debian Stable. However, their philosophy is not to maintain a bleeding edge distro. They periodically release a new distro with updated stuff, but don't try to keep everything in Neptune the latest version via the routine updates. It's a stable distro, just starting with newer stuff.

Their philosophy, which they're moving to as the offerings evolve, is to keep Debian as "pure" as possible, and use Snap or Flatpak packages to safely add applications to it and keep them current (none of what comes bundled is a Snap or Flatpak application, that's just the recommended way to expand the distro).

Neptune's "fit and finish" is polished and attractive, with a lot of attention to detail. It contains a number of nice supplemental utilities. Their default Excalibur Menu is my favorite main menu. Most of the features of the Plasma desktop come enabled, which isn't the case with a number of "big name" distro KDE offerings. The only items I've run into so far that weren't enabled were a couple of desktop effects (possibly a library that Neptune doesn't bundle by default?).

All in all, Neptune seems like a worthy distro to try. My main concern is that it is the product of a three-person team, which is always risky. My all-time favorite distro was Kwheezy, a marriage of KDE and Debian Stable Wheezy. It was just a rock-solid joy to use. It was one maintainer's labor of love. When Wheezy went oldstable, he dropped the effort and moved on. With Neptune, there isn't much risk during Debian stable's (Stretch) service life. Even without the development team, Debian can be kept current. The apps that aren't in Debian's repository would continue to work (Neptune doesn't routinely update those, anyway, with the possible exception of bug fixes or security issues). The Neptune custom apps wouldn't receive further development or bug fixes, but there is little risk of them becoming problematic. The main risk is that when Stretch eventually goes oldstable, you might need to start over with another distro if the team has gone inactive (but that wouldn't be the end of the world).

[banjo]

Update to my look at Mageia.

I am running Mageia 7 Beta 1 to test it out. Considering that it is a beta release, it is fairly stable. I get literally hundreds of updates each day, but it is still running.

@sediat, you might want to take a look at Mageia (not the Beta, of course). Mageia grew out of Mandriva, which had a goal of ease of installation and maintenance for novice users. It is strongly based on KDE. Other DE's are included in the distro, but it fully supports KDE (Plasma).

Mageia does not have the huge core of users like Mint or Ubuntu, but it is still a very viable distro.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

[catweazel]

There will probably be no consensus solution, but perhaps this thread can generate enough quality information that each person can make a better decision for his/her future.

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