[PLASMA 5] Reasons I fell in love with Kubuntu and KDE Plasma Desktop.

[Avi512]

I wrote an article on reddit and I thought about sharing it here. Link of reddit is https://www.reddit.com/r/Kubuntu/comments/gofg2r/reasons_i_fell_in_love_with_kubuntu_and_kde/ .

I have installed and used various Linux Distributions over the past 2 years and most importantly various desktop environments (XFCE, Budgie, Mate, GNOME, Cinnamon, KDE). I tried to adapt myself to the various workflows offered and I also tried to adapt the desktop environment to how I wanted to work on my laptop.
After the 20.04 Ubuntu(s) release, I decided to install Kubuntu 20.04 on my laptop and one month after installing it, I stopped distro hopping.
Here are the reasons I am loving KDE plasma desktop and Kubuntu 20.04 .
1) Rock Solid Base. Ubuntu 20.04 being LTS – I know that it has a rock solid base. I don’t have to worry about updates breaking anything.



2) Settings and more settings. I love having the unlimited settings/configurations available in plasma. I have read multiple articles/posts that KDE has too many settings – but you don’t have to use or know everything.
The defaults are sane and anyone can get up and running right after installing Kubuntu. Whenever the need to change anything on my desktop or workflow arises, I simply google it and I find the solution. That is how I am learning the various parts of KDE plasma.



3) Widgets – pieces of Lego. I love widgets – they are like my building blocks.
I am someone who thinks that the desktop is a space which we have to make full use of – and so I love to add media controller, system monitors and note taking apps on the desktop. This makes viewing important information easy and controlling my podcasts/media right from the desktop is something I like.



4) Media control on lock screen. I am someone who listens to a lot of podcasts. So most of the time, my laptop screen is locked and turned off and if I need to pause – I simply pause it from the lock screen without having to unlock my screen. That is such a great convenience.



5) Wallpapers – Unlimited options. It is easy to download any beautiful wallpaper I desire right from Discover software centre. Additionally, the integration of Bing picture of the day in desktop settings is one of my favourite feature of KDE plasma.



6) Plasma Browser Integration
I love Plasma Browser Integration. My favourites are media control (e.g Youtube) and download progress (useful for big files)

Of course, KDE plasma has tons of other features which you can check out at https://kde.org/plasma-desktop . I just wanted to highlight the reasons I love and use KDE plasma.

N.B: I know I have not mentioned KDE Connect or latte dock - but they all deserve their own article and I don't use them.


Finally, I would like to say Thank You to KDE devs and Kubuntu team.

[GreyGeek]

Nice article!

I started using KDE when it was added to SuSE 5.6 as KDE Beta, in September of 1998. I have always used KDE every since and although I did a lot of distro hopping it was always to find a better implementation of KDE. In January of 2009 I installed Kubuntu 9.04 Alpha. That's when I stopped distro hopping. I have often installed a distro as a VM just to compare it with the current version of Kubuntu that I was running, and the VM always lost. When I upgraded to 20.04 I removed qemu/kvm because I am not doing any more distro checking. Deepin 20 and UbuntuDDE were the last two distros I looked at. Deepin has serious security issues and UDDE is under powered when it comes to utilizing the FULL POWER OF The F.... err... all the power that the Qt API offers.

[Avi512]

Thank you for sharing your story. Using Kubuntu reminded me of the original Kubuntu cds which were shopped by Canonical back in the days. That is when I first heard about Linux but never got into it until the past 2 years when the calling was too powerful.

[barfly]

Avi512- I have to agree with you on the KDE plasma desktop-distro-hopping is something I have done since the early Red-Hat days in the late 1990's. The plasma desktop is just so configurable and increases my productivity. There have been a few mis-steps along the way, the introduction of activities in place of the multi-desktops was a severely retrograde step that alienated vast swathes of the KDE community, as was their ideologue-driven attempt to block root access of Dolphin.

However, these incidents are hiccups on the road to a very enjoyable desktop experience overall.

I do find 20.04 much slower than 18.04, I have posted a thread on here about that.

When migrating from 18.04 there were a few issues. I also upgraded my Mythtv from .29 to .31 and find the music app no longer works in Mythtv. I looked for an alternative but they are all so complicated! I just wanted a quick and dirty app to play my music with a visualiser.

There isn't one.

I have to learn a new app from scratch and work at it to get it justto play a track I want and create a simple playlist I can save.

Ho Hum, so be it.

Another issue was the 6205 quad tuner card drivers no longer compiled, failed with an error. I emailed TBS and they ssh'd in and sorted that for me.

I am still struggling with the auto-shutdown and wakeup for Mythtv.

Cheers, Tony.

[mr_raider]

I just went through a round of VM installs of all the 20.04 distros: LM Cinnamon, MAte XFCE, Kubuntu, PopOS, Lubuntu etc...

Tried them all, played with them. At the end of the day only KDE adapts to my workflow. WHether it's on dual display gaming PC, or a 13" laptop, I can configure it right for it's intended use. And it doesn't look like Windows XP (I'm looking at you, MATE).

That being said, Pop OS has made enourmous progress and their windows organizer is really good for multitasking. KDE comes close with it's tiling alt tab swicther. Also Lubuntu with LxQT has made enourmous strides. For a basic stripped down OS, it's a good choice for older PCs or servers that don't need a full desktop

[mr_raider]

Avi512- I have to agree with you on the KDE plasma desktop-distro-hopping is something I have done since the early Red-Hat days in the late 1990's. The plasma desktop is just so configurable and increases my productivity. There have been a few mis-steps along the way, the introduction of activities in place of the multi-desktops was a severely retrograde step that alienated vast swathes of the KDE community, as was their ideologue-driven attempt to block root access of Dolphin.

However, these incidents are hiccups on the road to a very enjoyable desktop experience overall.

I do find 20.04 much slower than 18.04, I have posted a thread on here about that.

When migrating from 18.04 there were a few issues. I also upgraded my Mythtv from .29 to .31 and find the music app no longer works in Mythtv. I looked for an alternative but they are all so complicated! I just wanted a quick and dirty app to play my music with a visualiser.

There isn't one.

I have to learn a new app from scratch and work at it to get it justto play a track I want and create a simple playlist I can save.

Ho Hum, so be it.

Another issue was the 6205 quad tuner card drivers no longer compiled, failed with an error. I emailed TBS and they ssh'd in and sorted that for me.

I am still struggling with the auto-shutdown and wakeup for Mythtv.

Cheers, Tony.

I gave on Myth for my PVR. Look into TV HEadend. I used it for years.

[dequire]

Yepp - despite the (occasional) vitriol on the internet (I'm looking @ you, Phoronix forums!) - Plasma is still the most popular DE on the planet and loved my millions o' geeks like us! I've been using it since 2009 personally. First via Kubuntu, then KDE Neon since Neon User came out. Now running Neon Testing Ed. for the last two years. On a production machine. With the latest kernel (5.7.3 as of today). No issues, no drama, just a great - and powerful - computing experience.

[GreyGeek]

And KFN is the friendliest KDE forum on the Internet! You'll get no RTFM's here, and the only dumb question is the one not asked.