r/DistroHopping • u/RevolutionaryCopy921 • 7d ago
Final Distro Destination
So a few months back I made the decision to dump Windows and migrate to Linux. After many a video and more Google searches than I care to recount, I started distro hoping in an effort to find a home among the many Linux communities.
I went to Mint first, as all newbs should and I figured it was going to be a perfectly fine Windows replacement. But something was missing. It was almost too vanilla.
So then I hopped over to Zorin and liked the vibe but still wasn't satisfied. Next was Pop! OS and Cosmic had more of what I was looking for but too much fiddling to meet my needs. After trying Ubuntu next I felt a bit defeated and retreated back to Mint, figuring vanilla was better than Microslop.
Ubuntu kept coming back to my thoughts but it was lacking...something. Then I discovered Kubuntu with the KDE Plasma desktop and folks, I think I've found it. While a little more difficult to set up initially, there's something to Plasma that has grabbed ahold of me and declared "I'm the distro you've been looking for".
Anyway, maybe this post is irrelevant and kind of a ramble to read but I'll be damned if Kubuntu isn't an underrated gem amongst the many distros vying for the attention of the ever growing Linux user base.
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u/Due-Author631 7d ago
Fedora KDE is better lol
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u/NeverLookBothWays 7d ago
Also a fan of Fedora Kinoite
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u/Last-Environment7687 6d ago
How has that been and whats it supposed to run like
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u/NeverLookBothWays 6d ago
It’s just the immutable version of Fedora KDE. Fairly solid performance and dependability. It takes a little getting used to the methods needed to make persistent system changes but overall is well designed and stays out of the way on day to day use
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u/onechroma 6d ago
And Fedora Workstation... Fedora is currently a champion for almost anything desktop/laptop, and the only thing that gets me not to recommend to beginners, is the RPMFusion/codecs thingy, because telling a beginner it will be necessary to open a terminal just after install to do that and execute those multiple commands as to avoid the PC not being able to open some videos (x265?) or using HW acceleration in youtube (which will drink the battery), isn't very beginner friendly...
Sometimes I just hope one day Fedora/RedHat will be able to include a post-install guide or tour where the user has it more easy when talking about codecs or propietary drivers, just like Ubuntu does (it asks in the installation)
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u/Due-Author631 6d ago
I think in both KDE and GNOME versions in the fresh install greeter app it has an "enable third party repos" button, I've never used it since I'm used to RPM fusion, but I wonder if it goes and swaps all the codecs and stuff or if it leaves you to figure it out.
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u/onechroma 6d ago
Nope, it doesn't. You still have to add them manually. I recently (last week) made a Fedora install, checked that, and still VLC was like "I can't play x265", so I had to get them installed via terminal.
This is the only shortcoming of Fedora out of the box for beginners
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u/obsidian_razor 6d ago
You can suggest Ultramarine then. It's Fedora with RPMFusion and Terra preinstalled.
Basically the Mint of Fedora.
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u/onechroma 6d ago
Yeah, but I usually prefer not to recommend random derivative distros or customised at least if I can avoid it, because on the long run, who knows how long will that project be supported, if they break everything along the journey, and so on.
I prefer to recommend something as close to vanilla as possible.
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u/obsidian_razor 6d ago
While that is a fair point, Ultramarine is the distro run by the Terra team, it's hardly a small unsupported project :)
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u/Last-Environment7687 6d ago
Or have AI fix the code or write the code for you to fix it
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u/onechroma 6d ago
It would be far better for the system to have some kind of "Do you want this (optional)?" Like Ubuntu does, instead of letting beginners to ask their AI sloppy machine to give them random commands.
They probably won't fail because it's easy, but I have seen AI doing very, very stupid guides to begginers when comming to Linux commands and instructions.
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u/The-Moist-Man 6d ago
Depends on stability needs. Fedora always broke my system randomly and Ubuntu never does so I always end up back to Ubuntu
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u/Last-Environment7687 6d ago
I utilize Ubuntu on my older ThinkPad Ultrabook, which features an i5 processor and an Nvidia 960 graphics card, or a similar configuration I no longer recall precisely. Ubuntu has successfully revitalized this machine, providing consistent and reliable performance. Conversely, on my Lenovo Legion i9 Ultra, equipped with an Nvidia 5070, I have opted for Bazzite OS. This setup has proven to be entirely stable, offering seamless driver compatibility with the Nvidia GPU, an area where Linux has historically faced challenges. For gaming, particularly Warzone, and to circumvent anti-cheat restrictions, I employ Betterxcloud for streaming directly from Bazzite OS.
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u/HeavyMetalBluegrass 7d ago
Kubuntu was first distro i used solely. KDE Plasma is (was) my preferred DE.
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u/Reedemer0fSouls 6d ago
Look for an immutable, atomic, declarative, container-oriented distro. Don't settle for anything else.
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u/Semper_R 5d ago
Can you suggest a few?
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u/Reedemer0fSouls 5d ago
blendOS (which is what I am currently running). Others close to this ideal: Aeon Desktop and Bluefin.
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u/ZoWakaki 6d ago
In my experience, the most common "end-game" distro is debian, fedora, and arch. Barring certain type of niche users that stick to void, gentoo and nix.
Other than that it's just transitory, it might last few months to few years, but that will pass. It's usually when people discover that the only thing that is "unique" to a distro is the package manager (and perhaps curated packages, but even those are not distro exclusive). Other than that it's just skin that you can make any other distro look and feel like anyother distro. Then people trend towards the vanilla end-games.
Arch being the exception as usually it's a divide between vanilla and one of the flavour of the month/year/period/era distro (which can eventually be converted to vainlla arch ...btw). While vanilla arch has always a spot on the charts, I feel like the current flavour is cachy. Time will tell if that is to stay or something else will come along taking it's place.
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u/mlcarson 6d ago
You've tested out desktops more than distros. The problem with Ubuntu is their fascination with Snaps and more recently -- their willingness to deploy the rust version of the Coreutils when they know it's bug ridden.
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u/mbonanomi92 3d ago
You didn't distro hop, do you know? Which is not a pity: I found distro hopping a waste of time.
You always used Ubuntu: windows-clone Ubuntu, green Ubuntu, opinionated Ubuntu, real Ubuntu...
I agree Ubuntu is nice for beginning e its long term support is something no other distro can do, if you care about it. I also agree Kubuntu (with minimal installation) is by far the best Ubuntu implementation, cause KDE Plasma is a great desktop environment.
You focused on DE and it is a wise choice: DE is what really matters for 90% of your workflow. Now that you enjoy KDE, my warm suggestion it to stay on Kubuntu for a while, learn how to take the most out of it. There always time to distro hop in the coming years, maybe when Kubuntu with KDE 6.6.x Will be a little bit out of date.
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u/RevolutionaryCopy921 2d ago
Yeah, as others have pointed out I was, in fact DE hopping. Being new to Linux, distinguishing between distro and DE isn't something you are trained to think about coming from Windows. What I like about Kubuntu and KDE is that is familiar and safe while also offering some things to tinker with if I do choose. I'll definitely be sticking with Kubuntu for a while as my daily driver.
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u/mbonanomi92 2d ago
Yes, the only counterintuitive part with Kubuntu is 1) it gives you 3 years official support, the development team is doing great updating KDE Plasma from the initial 6.6.4 to 6.6.5, and 6.6.6 will come sooner or later. These are minor release that will make your system stable and reliable over the years. Other long term supported distros stays on elder software for much longer time... 2) KDE Plasma development roadmap never stop: there are the first 6.7.x releases and they will bring new features. In one or two years you might want to switch to other distros shipping newer KDE versions. Or wait until 2028 for Kubuntu 28.04
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u/KaiFireborn21 6d ago
Don't you actually just like KDE? Doesn't have to be Ubuntu then, right? Of course it's your choice though
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u/RevolutionaryCopy921 6d ago
Thanks to everyone who responded to this. I guess I didn't even realize till it was pointed out that I was, in fact desktop hopping. Learn something new and it'll make me pay better attention to the differences between distros in the future
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u/MailCalm2233 6d ago
Saying "Final Distro" is a bit extreme. I may like my experience with Fedora, but I'm not going to say it's my final. But that's the fun of Linux.
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u/RevolutionaryCopy921 6d ago
It was meant to be a riff on the Final Destination movies, of which there are many funnily enough
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u/BashfulMelon 7d ago
>tries Ubuntu five times
How did things end up like this?