Alternative to KDE

[TWPonKubuntu]

I've posted about my serious problems installing Kubuntu, after using it mostly problem free for over three years.

Yes, I tried reinstalling Kubuntu 12.04, 14.04, 16.04 all LTS versions, all 32 bit. They no longer will run after installation. So I started trying other 32 bit distros, with some success and some failures.

For those whose situation is similar to mine, ie, an older 32 bit system (Dell Latitude D820), I'm suggesting what has worked for me:

1) Mageia 5 KDE worked for a while, but failed after about a month of serious daily use. It will no longer run, even on fresh install.

2) Debian 8 KDE will not run, with serious video hash.

3) Linux Mint 18 KDE worked, kinda, but the desktop goes blank and restarts about every 3-10 minutes. I could work with this, but it does get tiresome after a while.

4) I'm running Linux Mint 18 XFCE now and it seems (knocking on wood, crossing fingers, etc.) to be stable. I like the desktop look and feel, which is very similar to KDE and I can run many KDE apps (Kate, Dolphin, Synaptic Package Manager for example).

Yes, I'm facing the problem of 32 bit systems being phased out and (probably) breaking as the KDE interface gets tweaked over time.

Yes, I'm aware that the only real hope is to move to a 64 bit system... Someday.

For those who face this same fate, I hope my suggestions for other Linux distros will keep you running a little longer.

Bottom line is that I really do like the KDE interface and Ubuntu was very good about being stable and updating frequently. I'm sorry to have to move away from Kubuntu, Really.

[dequire]

I'm sorry to hear about your problems. Certainly, over time your options become somewhat limited if you must stay on i386 32-bit architecture. Have you, b y chance, checked out Q5OS? They use the Trinity Desktop, which is based on KDE 3. It is built for older hardware but can do everything a newer distro can do for day-to-day stuff. Best of all, the current (1.8.1) release is supported until 2020. It's based on Debian stable so you won't run into any surprises there. Might be worth checking into. Whether you find the perfect distro or not, we hope you hang around Kubuntu Forums!

https://q4os.org/index.html

[TWPonKubuntu]

dequire, thanks for the tip on Q5OS (Q4OS?), I'll look at it.

and yes, I still log into KF because this is a very friendly forum and not limited to just Kubuntu.

[NickStone]

There are quite a few alternatives to Kubuntu. Q4OS as mentioned above is a good alternative but there is also Exe GNU Linux. Just like Q4OS it uses the Trinity DE based upon Debian but without Systemd. Then there are the distro's that ship LXQT DE. This DE uses the QT framework and the Openbox window manager (just like LXDE).

[TWPonKubuntu]

Nick, Thanks for the suggestions, I'll add them to my list of possibles and work through them as time allows.

This is why I like this forum!

[Rod J]

I'm running Linux Mint 18 Xfce 32 bit quite well on my ancient (2007) NEC laptop with 2Gb memory. It can even handle compositing ... just. It runs pretty well actually and I've been able to use it without problems for some time now. I'm sure KDE would bog it down too much though, so I never really considered trying Kubuntu on it.

[TWPonKubuntu]

Rod J,

And it was my fat fingers which misspelled Xfce as LXFC ... Need more sleep now.

[BlueAlchemy17]

You should probably check out the search function on distrowatch.net you can search for a distro specifically for older systems and i386 as well. There are a lot of lightweight distros out there. But if you really want to stay with an Ubuntu flavor, Xubuntu is the XFCE flavor. But I think you should look into Lubuntu which uses LXDE which is super lightweight. Or UbuntuMATE, which uses Mate which is based on Classic Gnome. Just an aside, Synaptic isn't a KDE native app, it's Gnome (uses GTK as opposed to Qt), the KDE equivalent is Muon, which I have found that I personally like more than Synaptic.

Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk

[TWPonKubuntu]

BlueAlchemy17

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm not getting satisfaction with the Ubuntu distros, they seem to fail frequently. I think this is the result of the move away from 32 bit architecture.

What I like is the KDE interface.

Yes, I do use distrowatch.net but I'm overwhelmed by the number of choices I find (no time to try them all).

At this time, Linux Mint XFCE is working well and I want to give it some time to test. If it flakes on me, then I'll reinstall with something else.

To the whole KF group, you guys are just excellent, Thanks.

[Cosmicbrat]

I found that the older computers that can't run the newer distros will fail seriously with some of the newer state of the art updates and addons..
For the old obsolete machines, I install Ubuntu Studio 12.04, get it working, and never update it.. I give these towers free to poor families and MS kids..
Some families are still running those free towers and systems for ten years now.. They never update the OS's.. The kids love them..
I recently dumped all my older machines Scientific Linux 6.5 OS's because the media codes 'RPMforge' was taken off the Net.. Now it doesn't play music nor videos.. It's time to toss those old CD's and DVD's into the incinerator..
I love FocusWriter, but it kills an old OS in an old machine, as do a lot of addons these days.. Seems you are doomed to buy a newer used machine.. Check-out 'computer libraries, and computer recycler stores.. The recycler store here has six retired hospital Toshiba notebooks for $20 each, still in very good condition, with a fresh Linux Mint in them.. and are still new enough to take Kubuntu 16..
I tried the newest Scientific Linux three times this past week..

That OS seriously fights the user.. Hi Ho Hi Ho into the incinerator it will go...
Then I made my first Kubuntu-16 ISO yesterday.. Into all my machines it goes...

[wizard10000]

Old hardware? My first choice would be Bunsenlabs.

BTW, I have an old Atom 270 netbook with 2GB RAM - I had Trinity DE on it until I ran into some touchpad issues and replaced it with fluxbox. Right now with some eye candy (compositing and conky) with chromium open with *this* page the machine is using 258M of RAM. It uses about 95mb at idle.

Bunsenlabs is what became of Crunchbang after corenominal decided to move on to other things and IMO it's probably the most polished lightweight distribution out there.

Have fun

edit: I figured out the touchpad thing after removing Trinity and have one other observation - the metapackage didn't' come off clean. There were problems with four uninstall scripts - I can't remember all four, but konqueror and kwin were two of them. Since I run Debian Unstable it's possible the problem was on my end, but it did cause me to decide not to reinstall it

[sithlord48]

arch + lxqt and some kde parts should do nicely on just about any machine

[NickStone]

arch + lxqt and some kde parts should do nicely on just about any machine

KDE parts, what KDE parts do you think you need? LXQT does not need any KDE parts.

[sithlord48]

KDE parts, what KDE parts do you think you need? LXQT does not need any KDE parts.

any of the kde parts that you feel you need . for me dolphin and kate at the very least.