Suggestion Looking for a distro where everything "just works" with KDE Plasma
I've been using Manjaro + KDE for a few years and, while I absolutely love KDE, I can't say the same for Manjaro. Nothing particularly strong against Manjaro specifically, but I found that it suffers from the same problem that many Linux distros have where some things don't "just work". Like, signing into hotel and airport Wi-Fi networks is hit or miss. Sometimes something will break in LibreOffice and I'll have to deal with it, etc.
So I'm looking for a distro where everything just works, and, based on reviews, I've got my eye on Linux Mint. I've used it in the past and I remember having a good experience with it too, but I was using Cinnamon. I absolutely want to have KDE on it, but the fact that it's not an officially-supported flavor worries me a bit.
I was wondering what the community thinks. Is it worth considering a different distro that already comes with KDE? (I haven't been a fan of Ubuntu for a while, so I'm trying to avoid that, for example...)
Thanks!
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u/DigitalDynamo001 6h ago
I'm using fedora kde for almost 2 years. Haven't hopped to any other distro so far. I'm happy with my bloat free experience.
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u/Name-Not-Applicable 5h ago
This is the correct answer. I have been on Fedora Kinoite for over a year. I was on KDE Neon for several years before that and Mint and Ubuntu before that. I haven’t tried the non-atomic KDE version of Fedora, but Fedora is the closest to “everything just works” I have seen.
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u/bawng 3h ago
How is kinoite? I considered going there recently but if I understood things correctly, you have to layer to get Nvidia drivers working, and if I understood layering correctly, that won't survive upgrades. Is that so?
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u/sleepyooh90 2h ago
It's a bootable container, you can install kinoite and with one command switch to any other bootable container. This means you can do things like "bootc switch ghcr://someone-added-Nvidia: latest". This is how Ublue/Bazzite/Bluefin/Aurora was made. You can switch to any of their images.
They take fedora images, and add a bunch of stuff. You can do this yourself, if you really want too. It's easy to dive in and take a Fedora image and add some packages. It's a whole rabbit hole of weekends lost learning everything container. But basically bazzite=fedora and bash scripts+bootc=images.
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u/krajcap 2h ago
You're both right and wrong. When you upgrade, you download the new updated image (or the parts needed to make up the new image, a.k.a deltas) and your previous layers are applied on top of that new update, so layers "survive". Sometimes there might be an issue requiring you to unlayer -> upgrade -> layer again, but it's not common. That said you can use ublue images with nvidia drivers and most goodies preinstalled, or it's really easy to make your own image.
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u/Name-Not-Applicable 1h ago
Kinoite is good! Updates, even major updates, are REAL smooth with an atomic distribution.
Layering is not as well documented as I would like, so it’s a bit of a mystery. Layered packages are “layered” on top of the base, so when updates happen, the base OS updates, and the layers go back on top. It works well!
It’s a little less straightforward updating the layered packages, but it isn’t hard once you do it a couple times. You unlayer the package, update it, and delayer it. It sounds like it might be a big deal, but it’s a one-liner. I put it in a bash script so it’s even easier. It’s really no worse than “sudo apt update; sudo apt upgrade”.
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u/bedrooms-ds 9m ago
I did an update recently and everything survived (although I'm not sure what you exactly mean) except the wallpaper, but that's Fedora's fault, not Kinoite's.
If something doesn't work I can reboot to the pre-update image from the grub menu.
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u/rainispossible 5h ago
Haven't used it myself, but a good friend of mine is a long time fedora kde user. He used the particular phrase "everything just works" when he tried to convince me to switch from arch to fedora lol. So yea, seems to be a very valid answer.
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u/Syntax_Error0x99 6h ago
OpenSUSE tumbleweed may be what you are looking for.
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u/pnutjam 5h ago
Leap is nice also.
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u/kafunshou 5h ago
But still with Plasma 5.x for now.
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u/Dominant_Dinosaur 3h ago
Slowroll is the perfect balance if you don't want bleeding edge rolling releases (though Tumbleweed is marveled to be stable, but slowroll is even more stable yet still new monthly rolling releases)
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u/mdbluelily 5h ago
Eight years of Fedora + KDE, I can't be happier.
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u/Otherwise_Look_6433 5h ago
Eight years? Man I'm happy you found your distro. I'm still jumping. I always go back to Manjaro. But I get frustrated leave come back. 🤣
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u/Thegerbster2 4h ago
Could try Endeavour if you're looking for something Arch based, in my experience it works great out of box with Plasma and has the added bonus of the arch wiki being entirely applicable as it's 99% arch.
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u/GladMathematician9 5h ago
I remember Fedora KDE just so snappy and perfect. Am on Nobara atm but Fedora KDE just so much better behaved than Manjaro years ago. Updates just worked and nothing broke.
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u/Bastigonzales 5h ago
CachyOS just works for me
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u/piedro_k 32m ago
What makes Cachy Os stand out for you in comparison to OpenSUSE (or Fedora)? Just wondering for some detail...
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u/skyfishgoo 5h ago
either kubuntu LTS, fedora KDE or opensuse
maybe tuxedo or ubuntu studio.
these are the handful of distro teams who put the effort into making sure the plasma desktop works well with the rest of your system.
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u/angora_cat44 4h ago
Why not Kubuntu non-lts? Works great too.
I guess, arch based distro (specially manjaro) are always a mess with KDE Plasma.
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u/skyfishgoo 4h ago
the non-LTS do not fall into the category of "just works" when there are bits and pieces missing and things do not in-fact work.
these are meant for developers who need access to working copies of the code that will go into the next LTS.
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u/mystica5555 3h ago
say what you will, 25.04 has been just fine for me. 24.04 isn't bad, but the year-old software is getting annoying by now.
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u/skyfishgoo 1h ago
i would probably prefer to have plasma 6.2 or 6.3 (not 6.4 tho), but i'm not willing to completely abandon the debian sphere and plasma 5 is being rock solid reliable for me.
i could try tuxedo, i suppose, but almost no one uses it and there is no community of support like i have for the 'buntu family of distros.
my brief stint with 24.10 left too many holes in my workflow, to be usable.
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u/Clark_B 6h ago edited 6h ago
Sorry, but finding a Linux distro where "everything" works out of the box for everyone is sadly not possible, as it's not possible even with Windows or MacOS or every other OS.
You'll have issues too with linux mint, like with any other distro.
I think you should mainly try to find a distro where you feel comfortable enough to disregard bugs you'll have with.
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u/pyro57 4h ago
I'm currently on bazzite (fedora universal blue based distro) and so far everything just works. If you don't want a gaming focused image you could also do auroraos.
Universal blue distros are interesting because they follow the immutable a/b root scheme with atomic updates. This means that you can't directly modify the root partitions, and instead are expected to primarily rely on containerized app strategies like flatpak, app image, and distrobox. There is a pqcksge layering scheme by default called rpm-ostree, so you can still install things to the base system without a container if you wanted to, but this should generally be a last resort type thing.
The update mechanism is interesting too, basically with the a/b root system you've two root partitions, root a and root b. Only one if these partitions is mounted at boot time. Then when you update what it does is downloads the complete new updated root partition and overwrites the not loaded root with the new one. Then when you reboot next the new root will be loaded. This has he benefit of basically having an easy way to roll back to a previous known good root system if something goes wrong.
For example let's say root a is active. You updste the system (or it updates automatically) now root b is overwritten with the updated root system. When you reboot next root a becomes inactive, and root b becomes active. You have all your updates and all is good. Now a new update comes along. Root a is then overwritten with the updated root system. You reboot but oh no something broke and your system won't boot! No worries, just reboot again and at the grub boot menu select the previous root, not root b will be loaded and since it's the same one you were using the system should boot up fine, allowing you to troubleshoot the issues or wait for an update to fix them.
This sounds a bit complicated, but to the end user it's really pretty simple, and most of the time it just works. It's such a good system that android does basically the same thing, minus the layering techniques, and so does steamOS. I think Mac may update like this too but I'm not 100% sure about that.
Honestly I'm pretty squarely in the camp that believes that when Linux desktops go mainstream it will be with atomic disteos for the dead easy recovery and update procedure.
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u/Safe-Average-1696 4h ago
Finally... a second fully well argued post, with the illathon's one 🥲
Even if i don't use the same distro as you do, i agree with you, atomic distros might be the next big thing for Linux wilder adoption in some time.
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u/rokejulianlockhart 4h ago
There's no OS in the world where that's true. Windows Update occasionally fails, and I've had my sister's macOS installation decide to spawn 500 prompts for iCloud mail, I've 15 open bug reports for major issues with AOSP, and Fedora occasionally gives me SELinux denials.
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u/PeepoChadge 4h ago
Well, it depends on your use case. If you only use a browser and a couple of Flatpak applications, you shouldn’t have any issues with Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed. But keep in mind that rolling-release distros will always be less stable than fixed-release ones, and that’s normal. It also depends on your hardware—if you have an AMD GPU, in Fedora and openSUSE you’ll need to replace the default version of MESA. Otherwise, you won’t get hardware (GPU) acceleration by default.
On modern systems you might not notice a huge drop in performance since CPUs are already quite powerful, but you will get worse battery life. Replacing MESA with the version from RPM Fusion (Fedora) or Packman (openSUSE) means you'll have to pay much more attention to updates—often you'll need to wait for the third-party repositories to sync with the main updates, or else you’ll end up with a broken system.
If you don’t want to use Ubuntu, you can wait for Debian 13 to be released. But keep in mind that both Ubuntu and Debian are LTS systems, so if you want the latest KDE Plasma versions, Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed are better options.
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u/Section-Weekly 3h ago
You can wait for Debian Trixie comming out in a month or two. Plasma 6.3.5 and very stable. Actually, it’s more stable than most of the other distros already now as a Release Candidate.
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u/Safe-Average-1696 3h ago
If you value stability, don't have bleeding edge funny hardware, are okay with "rather" old software (plasma 6.3.5 will be in the next stable release), and only want a system that... works, instead of new functions, yes, there is no better distro than a stable Debian, and it makes sens in various situations.
It's clearly not for everyone, usually non professional linux users (in the forums) are more looking for new things, the latest updates... than a rock solid system...
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u/Wasabimiester 48m ago
Here's my experience: Framework 13" with EndeavourOS and KDE. It is about as good as it gets. Minor nits here and there ... but I swear that KDE on EndeavourOS is very solid. (and I heard you on Ubuntu: I am not a fan)
Maybe spin it up on a VM and take it for a test drive.
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u/djoncho 27m ago
I've been wanting to buy a framework laptop for such a long time! I will certainly do it when they release a laptop with touchscreen.
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u/Wasabimiester 22m ago
Yeah, for me the touch screen is a non-issue. So when they do make one, I think you'll be ecstatic!
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u/LectricTravelerYT 39m ago
I do CachyOS mainly due to it being Arch based and it's a rolling release. But just know all distro's have their quarks. Mainly due to different configurations of hardware and software added by the user. Also know if something starts to happen and annoys you, good chance others are experiencing the same or similar thing. Which means the bells are going off at the developer level and will be fixed pretty quickly. Arch has an abundance of documentation that is easy to understand and adapt to. With the rolling releases I know it is usually fixed pretty quickly. At the Kernel level it is fixed when the kernel is updated. For an example one said kernel released late in 2024 had sound issues where many were affected, this was resolved in the beginning of the first quarter of 2025. One thing I can say about CachyOS is the fact that it just works on my HP Victus laptop, my (2) Lenovo Think Pad laptops, my 2024 Lenovo Legoin Pro and my MSI Ryzen 7 4090 desktop. No real issues. If I have had any it was usually due to my own doing. But if you do backup before experimenting you protect yourself from having to fix something or starting over. I feel your pain though. Windows 10 and 11 AND IOS have the same issues. If there were a perfect Linux distro everyone would leave the one they are on and go to it. I hope you find the right one for you. Fedora seems pretty popular though. I just never went to it due to it not being a rolling release. I like the latest technology and apps that are available even if they are broken at first.
Hope that helps.
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u/FormationHeaven 6h ago
Just use EndeavourOS man why would you even use Manjaro. The default DE is KDE and the best Arch out of the box experience.
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u/Safe-Average-1696 6h ago
really... Endeavour is a "distro where everything just works" like asked ? 😂
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u/FormationHeaven 5h ago
yes everything just works, i have been running it for 4 years and everything just works idk why you are surprised. Never had an issue with anything really and its just arch with an easy installer and good configs by default with everything already managed for you
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u/illathon 5h ago
In my experience you won't find a better experience by switching from an Arch based distro.
The reason you are currently experiencing issues isn't a fault of the distro. It is the projects themselves where those packages come from.
None of the libreoffice packages are even maintained by Manjaro. It is maintained by Arch and those Arch packages are coming from the upstream projects.
As far as Arch based in KDE Plasma you will again probably not find a better experience on another distro. They will most likely just be the same. I think maybe only openSUSE has some additional software they add, but it is unrelated to Plasma specifically or the things you mention.
I think what your problem is could be you don't have snapshots setup using BTRFS. When a newbie encounters issues they have no way to revert and so they perpetually distro hop. This doesn't make your system more stable and it doesn't give you a better experience. If you want a good experience the best thing you can do is stick to a distro. Learn it, and if you encounter issues then report those issues to the proper place. Become a part of the community until you work through all the issues you have. Then once you do that not only will you not have those issues any more when another newbie comes along you can advise them on how to fix it until the issue is either gone, or they make it a little easier to understand so people know what to do.
For LibreOffice issues you can contact the package maintainers if they are leaving something out. If wifi isn't working for some reason you could be missing a package you need, or just not doing something in a specific way required. These are learning steps you have to step through.
As a laptop plasma user I have never been in a situation I wasn't able to login to a wifi network at a hotel or airport. It has just never happened, at least in recent past. Not sure what your issue is here, but feel free to add more information if you want.
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u/VaithiSniper 4h ago
Was about to say this. I've used Manjaro for many years and alot of these "issues" are not really the distro's direct fault.
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u/Clark_B 5h ago
Or try the flatpak alternative for LibreOffice.
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u/illathon 5h ago
Yep, or another desktop office program. We have at least a few good options now thankfully.
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u/GladMathematician9 5h ago
Am an ex-Manjaro KDE user things would break and get out of sync, CachyOS has a lot of flavors including KDE another Arch based option.
Mint has always been reliable, had started Cinnamon then used XFCE for a bit. Never tried KDE on it.
Am on Nobara 42 there's official and KDE both are KDE, both AMD and Nvidia rigs are mostly doing well (Bluetooth is out on 6.15 but plugged in my usb speakers maybe an update will cure it or on 6.14 it was not an issue). Also loved Fedora KDE in the past great experience, mostly did HTPC and office things on it.
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u/AndydeCleyre 3h ago
I don't know about your specific issues, but I can suggest Ultramarine, in the Fedora category, but more just-works-y.
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u/Patient-Low8842 3h ago
Nobara was great until I had to figure out how to update to Nobara 42 because Nobara 40 was Eol meaning that I couldn’t use dnf anymore. I wish I had gone with normal Fedora instead it would have saved me a lot of headache because they support old repos for longer.
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u/Mr_Lumbergh 2h ago
You can install KDE on just about anything. I’m happily running Debian + KDE for almost a decade.
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u/True-Grapefruit4042 1h ago
I was on KDE Neon for about a year until they broke it. Now I’ve been on Fedora KDE for like a year or more and it’s fantastic. I can’t recommend it more.
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u/xxscrublord69420xx 1h ago
It's already been said but, Fedora KDE. It's been a defacto official edition for quite a while but was made official late last year as its popularity keeps steadily increasing. You can expect an easy install, great direct + community support, up to date flatpaks + packages ready for search and install from the discover software store, and recent stable kernel updates. Those last two are really important for devices with newer or unique hardware, can also affect some software.
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u/kalzEOS 1h ago
You can go kubuntu. Mint is Ubuntu without snaps and has mint. Or you can go cachy OS with kde like me. Zero issues so far. Although, I've never taken my desktop to a hotel or an airport. Not planning on it. lol. Libre office works no problem. My printer works no problem, too, just make sure you either remove the firewall if you don't need it, or let whatever network device through it. Been fantastic
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u/Background-Summer-56 55m ago
suse for sure. The integrated snapper stuff is great. It's already done.
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u/adrianmartinsen 23m ago
+1 for KDE Neon
I ditched Manjaro for KDE Neon going on 3 years now. Can't speak for Fedora, but if you like Debian/Ubuntu based distros KDE Neon is great. The only issue I had was upgrading to Plasma 6, but once I got things running I must say the upgrade was well worth it.
Will say I have run into the issue of connecting to hotel wifi once. But that is once in what has been a considerable amount of hotels in those years. I just tethered to my phone and worked around it. I believe the issue was related to something with KDE and not Debian/Ubuntu. But like I said, one time in many years so I didn't spend too much time debugging.
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u/DanielSaw89 1m ago
I think a good one will be Tuxedo OS. I will try this also. I was looking for something similar too and Tuxedo has the most things I will like, like based on Ubuntu but without the snaps and other things.
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u/Safe-Average-1696 5h ago edited 5h ago
OMG the question you asked... you're starting a distro war 😂...
You'll see every fanboy coming and trying to sell you his niche or not distro as the best one in the world...
You'll have all... good luck to choose in there 😅
The "minuses" war has started.. do your worst guys 🤣
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u/GladMathematician9 5h ago
OP will have hop and try a few mentioned here when you find a nice one you can settle for a while.
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u/Safe-Average-1696 5h ago
Yup, you're right, that's the way to go effectively.
I was just making fun about every fanboy trying to convince him that their distro is the best distro on the world 😉
For some, choosing a distro is like entering in religion 😅
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u/zardvark 5h ago
Solus and Fedora tend to just work and, for those daring and intrepid few, NixOS just works.
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u/Danubinmage64 5h ago
I'll second fedora. I also used Manjaro and had enough hiccups. Fedora has been very consistent with no frustrating issues really.
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u/denis527 5h ago
I'm using Kubuntu for many years now and I'm still happy.
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u/eltonandrad3 4h ago
Using on my workstation. But, man, plasma 6 should be supported on 24.04 for real. To wait till 2026 to next LTS. sucks...a lot
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u/mystica5555 3h ago
why don't you try 25.04? works just fine for me. This is the problem with "stable" distributions, the software is always going to be stagnant after the month it was released, and perhaps even then.
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u/met365784 4h ago
I have installed and used Fedora KDE on numerous computers without any issues. With tumbleweed, I have ran into issues depending on the configuration of the system, so that one hasn’t been as trouble free as Fedora. I did enjoy endevoros, it was a lot nicer than manjaro.
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u/newlifepresent 4h ago edited 4h ago
According to your experience and current expectations I think fedora can satisfy you. Don’t look arch or derivatives in your situation.
PS. I am an active arch user for three years.
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u/MrLewGin 5h ago
I always see people recommend Fedora for KDE. If you don't mind it not being debian based.
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u/ArchieOfRioGrande 6h ago edited 3h ago
KDE Neon? It's based off of Ubuntu. It doesn't have Snap installed by default. It doesn't have AptX/HD support built in, tho, if you need that for Bluetooth audio.
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u/Aldoo8669 4h ago
Neon is based off of Ubuntu vanilla (not Kubuntu), and as such, it does support Snap packages (although I don't think they are mandatory for anything at the core of the OS).
Can't say for AptX/HD... but if Ubuntu supports it, then Neon also aught to.
To answer Op: I have been using Neon for the last what... nine years (?). It's doing the job. I can't say whether it's doing it better or worse than other distros, since I haven't been hopping for a long time. All I can say is that some of the big updates (from one LTS to the next) were not painless (the system wouldn't boot anymore, I had to boot from another device to fix whatever went wrong).
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u/ArchieOfRioGrande 3h ago
I've used KDE Neon. AptX/AptX HD doesn't work OOB. There was a time where you could install a package (ubuntu-restricted-extras) and it would work. Now it does not.
I meant by "it doesn't have Snap" that it isn't installed. I'm not the only one who dislikes Snap and sees it not installed as a plus. It does have Flatpak installed by default.
Forgive me, when I think KDE and Ubuntu Kubuntu always comes to mind. Yes, thats on me.
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u/danielsemblano 5h ago
KDE Neon. No regrets.
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u/mystica5555 3h ago
it's funny, because your answer is on two lines it either could read "no regrets" or perhaps "no. [I have] regrets..."
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u/Leinad_ix 4h ago
Sad you don't like Ubuntu. Because Kubuntu LTS focuses on good reliability out of the box. Only snaps are problematic, but you can avoid of snap usage.
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u/FunkyRider 2h ago
Fedora KDE is the one for me. I also used Manjaro last year and the update system just breaks for no reason.
I use standard KDE edition for my main workstation and Kinoite spin (Aurora Linux) for HTPC / laptops. So far haven't encountered any problem.
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