Replacement KDE distros... Feedback here!

[Jedinovice]

If you need up to date solftware why in the flying frak are you using Mint? You continually amaze me. How many GOOD forums have you been flamed off???

?????

I grant I need my eyes checking but I think you need to read a little more carefully. I actually said that I want a stable base and only use PPA's for a couple of apps.

That's what I said. Re: Neon, I am looking at the LTS. I just so happens that Neon seems to update the KDE apps (ONLY!) which interests me.
It's my call.

[rick gen]

I'm going to stick with Mint KDE for the life of the 18.x series and will continue to use Mint for my Xfce machines and Cinnamon on another machine for familiarity once I've reinstalled this one with Mint 18.2 KDE. I'll probably clone this installation to that machine so I can carry on where I'll have left off with Cinnamon. It's such an excellent DE even if it doesn't really suit my needs and workflow 100%. It's close, though & I love experimenting.

I'll be sticking with Mint KDE myself till it's no longer updated. So there's still time to do some digging for a suitable replacement. I'm not leaving Mint Xfce/Cinnamon. (I can understand that the devs want to laser-focus on Cinnamon, which, I agree, needs some more refinement.)
I tried Kubuntu and Neon. I'm not convinced. Both have issues in my system. I would prefer Kubuntu over Neon, though.
Trust is a factor in choosing a distro for me. Most alternatives are of the one-man-band variety developed in some nerd's basement. I feel like I'm on my own when switching to other distros other than Mint.

[BG405]

I actually said that I want a stable base and only use PPA's for a couple of apps.

That is what I thought. Primarily Kdenlive, which is just what I want with any alternative to a Mint-based distro.

[Jedinovice]

I actually said that I want a stable base and only use PPA's for a couple of apps.

That is what I thought. Primarily Kdenlive, which is just what I want with any alternative to a Mint-based distro.

Bingo! When I went looking for Kdenlive in the Neon repos I was stunned to find that version in the repos was more up to date than what I had via PPA in Mint!

So, yes, if you have an eye on Kdenlive then Neon looks like a winner. It does to me right now but I really need to check on my Acer and I just haven't got the time ot fight with the BIOS right now so I can't test fully.

[Jedinovice]

Trust is a factor in choosing a distro for me. Most alternatives are of the one-man-band variety developed in some nerd's basement. I feel like I'm on my own when switching to other distros other than Mint.

Hmmm... there's danger of a degree of FUD here though I do not doubt your intentions.

I don't think that distros such as OpenSuse or Kubuntu count as one-man-band. Neon, while relatively new, I understand is very heavily and directly supported by the KDE team and, thus, is very likely to be stable. It also seems to be getting a lot of fans as well. A lot of people want a stable base but with up to date KDE but then with Neon there is a 'frozen' 5.8 edition. PCLinuxOS was supposed to be that but seems to be falling apart. It used to be good! Neon seems to be taking up PCLinuxOS's role... which I think puts that distro at risk now.

I am a little nervous about Maui for your reason of 'one man band' but distros with some history, such as Solydk, have shown some endurance and that means a reliable user base. I think the distros mentioned in this thread, maybe with the newcomer as an arguable exception, have shown either/and endurance and support.

[Retic1959]

Manjaro and Fedora certainly aren't one man bands either . I'll be heading to Manjaro after LM KDE reaches EOL , I am considering SolydK for my wife's computer though , I want a super stable distro for her machine ,

[Jedinovice]

Hmmm.... events have moved on and i have had to make a choice.

I have gone Neon and, so far, it's working out very well.
I was actually able to install Mintstick via deb download but it looks like there are other tools.

Of course, you can format a USB stick using partition manager -duh!

What was a very pleasant surprise is I was able to install Neon on my BIOS busted Acer with no need to kick the BIOS again! rEFInd keep the machine booting! I think it's because Mint and Neon are but ubuntu based but it's all good!

I will feedback longer term. I do think long term experience is worth reporting. But now running on no less than five laptops happily and no real difference to Mint KDE in terms of use. And because Neon is supported by the KDE team- it is their showcase distro after all, it's not likely to vanish.

[Royal-Mint]

After Mint drop KDE I start to known that feel quite a bit about now why Zorin avoid KDE.
Even though they target win-users with their layout but never pick KDE even once.
But choose gtk based desktop based instead.

[rick gen]

Hmmm.... events have moved on and i have had to make a choice.

I don't get the rush.
Mint 18.2 will be supported till 2021. Four more years.
I'm hoping Feren folks would fork a KDE edition.

I often wonder why only Mint team gets it.
My Mint KDE is so stable and it doesn't need any maintenance other than do the regular updates.

[mr_raider]

Hmmm.... events have moved on and i have had to make a choice.

I don't get the rush.
Mint 18.2 will be supported till 2021. Four more years.
I'm hoping Feren folks would fork a KDE edition.

I often wonder why only Mint team gets it.
My Mint KDE is so stable and it doesn't need any maintenance other than do the regular updates.

Yeah I'm sticking with mint until 19 is released next spring. By then we will get a good look at Ubuntu 18.04 which will serve as the base for all these distros.

In the meantime we can still experiment. I've been trying out various distributions in VirtualBox. While Neon looks good, mint xfce is actually looking promising too. Just hope the move to gtk3 doesn't bugger it up.

[Jedinovice]

I don't get the rush.
Mint 18.2 will be supported till 2021. Four more years.
I'm hoping Feren folks would fork a KDE edition.

I often wonder why only Mint team gets it.
My Mint KDE is so stable and it doesn't need any maintenance other than do the regular updates.

There was a need for a rush. That's all I will say.

[lmuserx4849]

...
If soon-to-be ex-MintKDE users are determined to remain in the *buntu-derivative universe for their next P5 OS, Maui is a fine choice. If said ex-users are willing to be a bit braver & leave the *buntu-derivatives, openSUSE Tumbleweed KDE provides a stunning P5 experience**, with a robust code-base beneath, current application versions, rolling-release tempered by the impressive automated openQA process, & the really nice system Rollbacks capability provided care of BtrFS + Snapper. I'd not known of any of that before i discovered oS, but now it just fits me like a glove.

**I am a heavy user of P5 aesthetics, multiple VDs, Activities, & KWin Desktop Effects [multiple]. Tumbleweed was the first P5 deployment, of the many i tested, which has never broken under my intensive usage of these features & functions. KaOS also subsequently proved solid wrt these tests. Sadly, in all *buntu-based P5 distros i tested, KWin couldn't keep up, & frequent KWin crashes or otherwise partial loss of function resulted, necessitating a plasmadesktop restart but sometimes an actual reboot. All that is in the past for me, since TW. If other P5 fans are light users of KWin & Desktop Effects, then you'll possibly experience few or none of the problems to which i alluded, in your chosen *buntu-based P5. FYI.

Martin Graesslin's blog "features the development of the KDE Plasma Compositor and Window Manager". A recent article on nvidia, wayland and kwin.

maui isn't very old. The about link didn't have much about the maui team. Interesting, both maui and opensuse originated in Germany.

[kdemeoz]

...Interesting, both maui and opensuse originated in Germany.

Yes that's correct, & when i wrote that section from which you quoted, i'd not actually recognised the quirky synchronicity ... i did German in high school centuries ago, i used to own several VWs, I used Maui, & now i use oS... yet i am not German. I suppose i just happen to admire German design.

[mr_raider]

Well KDE is very German to begin with.

https://www.kde.org/community/history/

[kdemeoz]

Ach, gott im himmel, ja, das ist sehr wahr, nicht wahr? << schlägt die Stirn >>

[xorgate]

KDS Neon or Maui?

[Jedinovice]

KDS Neon or Maui?

Hi, at this stage I do not think anyone can say with absolute certainty.

I have not had chance to look at Maui and circumstances forced my hand into making a choice to replacement for Mint sooner than I intended. So I went Neon.

It seems to be this:

Maui is, in many ways, Mint KDE. It comes as a complete OS with all the trimmings ready to go and could well be the logical successor to Mint KDE. In that sense it makes sense to go with Maui.

However, it is a rather 'Johnny come lately' distro and it's not clear how long it run for… However, with Mint KDE going under many people who want KDE are not going to be looking at Mint in the future and it looks like Maui is the logical sucessor. So I expect Maui to become a LOT more popular soon!

KDE Neon boasts that it is not a distro… though quite how it makes that claim I do not know.
It seems solid enough and quite fast, though 'discovery' is an utter load of tosh and installing Synaptic or Muon is a must!

It then requires installing much more to make it into a fully usable distro. There is no GUI partition manager installed, no office suite, no GIMP, no screen capture… it's a bare bones system. So it's more for the techie user who is willing to install and install and install and then go. Having said that, Windows is much like that as well. With Mint you get spoiled.

The upside of Neon is knowing it is supported by the KDE team directly and so likely to hang around. For those of us who really want to standardize and want an assured long running, no distro hopping scenario (I run masses of laptops in my business. Distro hopping is not the plan!) then Neon is the natural go to.

Soooo…. If you are looking for a complete OS that really mirrors Mint KDE then I would say that Maui seems the way to go. At that level, probably Maui is for you.

If you are that little bit more experienced and ready to install the missing bits – which is not a big deal really, (especially if one install 'Aptik' first!) then Neon can provide peace of mind. Once the bits are installed Neon runs virtually as Mint, though a tad faster... I think. Been unable to test.

But I am expecting Maui to become much bigger soon. Eventually I think Maui will be the KDE distro to watch.

For me, though, I need a known quantity. I am now supporting a number of Linux KDE users and I gotta standardise! I could not take a chance on Maui.

Hope that helps. In the end, each must try and see. Virtualbox can help your personal choice! Even my dual core atom machines will allow a run up of Neon or Maui for testing… at a pinch.

[kdemeoz]

KDS Neon or Maui?

..., at this stage I do not think anyone can say with absolute certainty.

I have not had chance to look at Maui .

Well, i respectfully disagree with you. My earlier posts documented this, but anyway... Unlike you, Maui was my real OS for several months, on 2 PCs, so i speak from experience not conjecture. Of all the Debian-based distros i have tried, absolutely & most certainly including the soon to be ex-parrot Mint KDE, Maui gave the best Plasma5 experience [for me Neon actually did some Plasma things worse than Maui].

However equally definitely, Maui has not given me the best Plasma5 experience overall, but to get this, one has to leave the Debian-based distros behind. KFedora is surprisingly competent with its P5 deployment. KaOS is brilliantly uncompromising, but ultimately slightly too uncompromising for my practical needs. To date for me the finest P5 experience, with underlying system robustness, has come from openSUSE Tumbleweed KDE [with honourable mention to Leap 42.3 KDE, albeit its P5 is too old for me].

KDS Neon or Maui?

...In that sense it makes sense to go with Maui.

However, it is a rather 'Johnny come lately' distro and it's not clear how long it run for…

I'm sorry but that latter statement is misleading, maybe even approaching FUD. Sure Maui per se has not been around as long as Mint, but the Dev team behind it have a strong long Linux pedigree. It's quite inappropriate IMO to warn potential users off it with [a] no personal experience of it as a user, deceptive statements directly inferring a sense of "fly by night" about it/them.


For anyone needing/wanting to remain within the Debian-based distros, looking for post-Mint-KDE P5 distros, Neon is good [if you're prepared to flesh it out given as noted already that it's rather "empty" direct from ISO], but Maui is a better overall solution. One thing however to note with Maui; its P5 releases are curated by the Devs after much internal testing, so anyone wanting the latest P5 version updates soon after they drop, might be frustrated. If that's your priority, go with Neon [or, as i said, you have even better options beyond this Debian sphere].

[Jedinovice]

It's quite inappropriate IMO to warn potential users off it with [a] no personal experience of it as a user, [ deceptive statements directly inferring a sense of "fly by night" about it/them.

Whoa, whoa! I do wish posters would not get so personal.

I am perfectly willing to be corrected on matters of fact. If someone with more knowledge can add to the case then great! I am not trying to deceive anyone and, frankly, I am annoyed that the suggestion was given. I stated the limits of my knowledge and gave a reply - given no-one else had - with the best of my knowledge at the time.

If you had come in and stated, "That's not quite right, this is how it really is," without at least implied accusations, I would have been delighted and would have happily retracted any accurate statement. As far as I am concerned, the more viable KDE options going the better! Neon requires more work than Maui and so I am keen for Maui to fly higher!

I was certainly not warning ANYONE off! On the contrary, I was effectively singing Maui's praises with only one caveat and that was based on the knowledge I had. If course if someone knows more I expect them to come in and add new data! I was clear about the limits of my knowledge and I was singing Maui's praises and stating I expected it to the de facto Mint replacement.

Indeed, I am not warning anyone off any distro! I am open to any and all data. But, in the absence of any other reply, I gave a shot! I do say that virtualbox is the user's friend. I didn't have time for distro checking - it is the height of exam season, I already working seven days a week, and I needed something working and working NOW so I jumped to Neon in the absence of time for any more experimenting. I had been waiting for a Maui user to answer and nobody came so I gave it a shot.

There is no one right fit for all. Dat's a fact. I just gave info as I understood it and matching the rest of the discussion on this thread. Let's assume the best of intentions here, ok? I am happy for Maui users to chip and give experience. In time I hope to give feedback based on longer exposure to Neon for people to read and draw their conclusions - good and bad.

But if people are going to be accused for putting best guess or not singing the praises of one's favorite distro then this thread can be closed right now. I'm not asking for that. I want this thread to be of help. But if it gets personal or absolutist; "This is the ONLY distro and if you don't use it you're an idiot!" as the OP I will call for the thread to be closed. Experience tells me it will collapse from that point onwards anyway.

As I say, I welcome any and all data from users from any and all distros. I welcome correction on matters of fact and people's experience. I mean, PCLinuxOS has not done well here in terms of people's experience and that's OK. Nobody was getting personal about it. PCLinusOS users are free to come and defend the distro and point how how we got it all wrong. All data is good here.


Now let's stick to the data on the DISTROS and not start posting about the POSTERS.

[kdemeoz]

You said:

However, it is a rather 'Johnny come lately' distro and it's not clear how long it run for…

Do you really not see a problem with that?

I pointed this out to you not to attack you but to indicate that you might inadvertently mislead other readers who don't know about Maui.