I currently use Fedora Kinoite and until Plasma 6 some major bugs will simply not be fixed. “Solved in Plasma 6” is a very common phrase now and that is okay.
But maybe once that is settled, I would like to have a system with tested packages, that doesnt always break and annoy me…
I love to see new features and especially KDE is simply best on modern Distros, currently. But with Nix and Flathub I think CentOS Stream should be a good mix?
I like the security settings it has, but I never used it. How good is EPEL, do external repos for things like Brave work? How old are packages, do you know when Plasma 6 will arrive there?
I wouldn’t use CentOS for private/ desktop stuff personally.
Do you really need its features? Afaik, the “security” features you mentioned are mainly for server use. At least that’s what I have in my mind right now when I researched possible candidates for my home server some time ago.
I think sticking with a “home use” distro would suit you better.
There are a few options as suggestions:
1. Stay on Kinoite
There’s barely any configuration drift compared to the mutable Fedora. Therefore, it should be less buggy.
Fedora Atomic KDE gave me the best Plasma experience yet.
I often tested KDE (I’m a Gnome guy myself, but here and there hop to KDE for a few months) and on most installs on other distros like Suse/ Workstation/ Debian, it got more and more buggy after a few weeks due to updates and tweaks.
So, bugfixes often didn’t apply to my system, only the default one or the install from the devs.
I find Fedora’s release schedule to be the perfect sweetspot between reliable, stable and up to date.
If you’re really impatient, you can always switch to the nightly builds (on Atomic), which are more bug prone and rolling. Maybe, Plasma will be stable enough before it hits the official image. But you should keep at least one stable image in your bootloader.
2. Debian and Leap
Debian “just” got it’s new release and will be stale for the next years. BUT, many of those Plasma 6 bug fixes will be backported to 5.27. Still, many of the QOL-changes are 6-exclusive.
OpenSuse Leap also gives you a great KDE experience and is pretty similar to Debian, both in release schedule and when the last big update hit.
3. Distrobox
You can use an Arch/ Tumbleweed container on Debian/ slow release distro to get all the newest KDE stuff on the outside and keep your stable base beneath.
Why? Because, in my experience, Plasma only gets more refined each update. As long as there aren’t any new big features, there are about hundred bugs resolved weekly.
Or, you can do the opposite. Use something newer, like TW, Slowroll, Sid(uction) or Arch, to get the newest software under the hood, and use the Debian repo to get a stable DE.
Just what you prefer.
In your case, I’d settle with Fedora (mutable or Atomic, in your case the Kinoite version, as I’d prefer that one too), and just don’t upgrade to the newest version.
The older version is always supported for a year or two, and you don’t have to upgrade each release. The bug fixes always get backported if possible.
Thanks! Yes its a shame that Debian (and Leap?) Will not have Plasma6 in like 6 months where stable release would fit perfectly.
My experience is the same, on Manjaro Plasma was way better than on Kubuntu and Manjaro convinced me of Plasma. Fedora is a sweet spot and staying with F39 for a while (even though I will probably switch to F40 right away as Plasma6 has sooo many bug fixes I personally reported) could work.
You mean a rootful Distrobox with a DE in it? I have to try that out, sounds crazy. Would need a seperate home if that is possible, as I dont want to have messed up dotfiles.
I’m required to use CentOS for work and it would be an understatement to say how frustrating it is to use for me. So many packages are missing / old, and some packages just break. There have also been wild bugs which just kernel panic the whole OS. I’d steer clear.
If you’re on Kinoite, can’t you just enable Plasma 6 if you really need it?
https://tim.siosm.fr/blog/2023/11/22/kinoite-plasma-6/
Otherwise:
https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Plasma_6#How_to_use/test_it
Yes I may do that but its mainly even more unstable. Question was if stable Distros get Plasma 6 in a reasonable amount of Time.
Thanks for your experience
Keep in mind stability in terms of Enterprise Linux refers to feature stability (i.e. a static set of features), not necessarily reliability. So if you want anything quickly, it’s really the opposite place to look.
EPEL is officially part of the Fedora project, so I would be surprised if anything makes it there before mainline Fedora (unless any one knows any better).
I’ve not had much positive experience when I’ve tried KDE with RHEL/CentOS. I find the more you rely on EPEL the less of an advantage there is to using EL, and if you’re planning on using EL as a base for running Flatpak apps you’re probably better off with Silverblue/Kinoite which you already use.
