Garuda

[GreyGeek]

Found an interesting Arch based rolling release distro using KDE and BTRFS.
It appears to be well made and is very beautiful, on par with Deepin and similar distros.
It is designed to be fast. I've only run it as a LiveUSB but it is very fast in that situation.
Tyler Tech gives a review of it here:

[chimak111]

Another review of the KDE version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSU-4Jy7rk0

[GreyGeek]

I saw DT's video too.

I think Garuda is a beautiful and well built distro, being Arch based. However, my personal preference is for "vanilla" KDE Plasma 5, which I think is beautiful in its own right. I can configure my Kubuntu to look like Garuda if I wanted to, but underneath Garuda's makeup is plain KDE Plasma 5. Running the LiveUSB I changed Garuda to look like the vanilla KDE Plasma 5 just to see if I could. It was easy enough. Using the zen kernel as a means of gaining distro speed wouldn't benefit my 8 year old Acer V3-771G, which is already running an i7 CPU with 16GB of RAM and an Nvidia gpu driven by the 390 driver and an SSD with BTRFS on top. It's faster than I can think already and if it doesn't die before I do it will be the last computer I'll own, and ditto for Kubuntu.

It is, however, another arrow in the quiver of a Linux user.

[oldgeek]

I tried it out too on virt-manager and thought it looked nice too. But I don't particularly like rolling releases as they update too frequently for my taste and needs. I was made aware of this distro through a Youtube review--I didn't finish the review but decided to try it out myself. So far Kubuntu remains my favorite distro, but I like trying out the others.

[GreyGeek]

I test distros frequently. My inspiration comes from Tyler's Tech. He is a straight shooter and shows beauty moles and warts as well.

[oldgeek]

Yeah, I watch him from time to time as well. By the way, he uses Arch.

[Eggnog]

I've just discovered Tyler's Tech, but I like what I see. And, by the way, Garuda is pretty nice but I'm not a big fan of the dr46onized version. Way too busy for me. And my rolling distro days are probably about over.

[Minna]

I installed it a couple of days ago because of the amazingly beautiful Dr4Ginized version.

However, I really start to like it. It might not be as intuitive and mature as Kubuntu but the responsiveness and performance is amazing.
This is the first distribution I ever tried which I might consider switching to after many years on Kubuntu.

[GreyGeek]

...
This is the first distribution I ever tried which I might consider switching to after many years on Kubuntu.

If Ubuntu (hence Kubuntu) forces an adoption of snap and Chromium by making it un-removable then my goto distro will feature KDE Plasma 5 or higher, with BTRFS as the root file system and sans snap or flatpak. Garuda matches those requirements and will definitely be the first distro I will consider switching to.

[TWPonKubuntu]

@GG +1 on changing from Ubuntu/Kubuntu if they force us to install any of snap, flatpak or Chromium. We're not there yet, but I see the trend...

[Minna]

If Ubuntu (hence Kubuntu) forces an adoption of snap and Chromium by making it un-removable then my goto distro will feature KDE Plasma 5 or higher, with BTRFS as the root file system and sans snap or flatpak.

I totally agree, these are decisions, I wouldn't tolerate by no means.

[GreyGeek]

@GG +1 on changing from Ubuntu/Kubuntu if they force us to install any of snap, flatpak or Chromium. We're not there yet, but I see the trend...

I see it too...

When the BDFL decided to monetize Ubuntu using snapd and the snap store, and I don't blame him for trying to recoup some of his costs or even turn a profit, if I want to continue to use Kubuntu I'd have to tag along IF he makes snapd unremovable. We both have choices and my choice for two decades has been FOSS under the GPL sans proprietary lock-ins, My choice depends on his choice. Perhaps he may remove the "B" from BDFL.

[brianinnes]

I must admit I'm intrigued with Rolling Release Distros, e.g. Manjaro KDE, but my biggest concern is how much maintenance is required with the regular full updates. At least with an LTS based distro, e.g Kubuntu 20.04 , I know my system is stable for 2 years, until the next LTS release. Although the "new car smell" which a rolling distro offers is tempting with brand new versions of everything!

[GreyGeek]

I must admit I'm intrigued with Rolling Release Distros, e.g. Manjaro KDE, but my biggest concern is how much maintenance is required with the regular full updates. At least with an LTS based distro, e.g Kubuntu 20.04 , I know my system is stable for 2 years, until the next LTS release. Although the "new car smell" which a rolling distro offers is tempting with brand new versions of everything!

I do all my new distro testing through qemu/kvm so that I don't have to mess with my K20.04 base install. I've tested a lot of them in the last year, but I haven't yet decided what my target distro would be. The basic requirements would be: KDE Plasma 5 and BTRFS, and a repository with more than a couple thousand entries. I've run rolling releases in the past and they aren't much different than doing a 100+ file update on an LTS. With a FS like BTRFS it would be child's play to create a snapshot and backup to another drive before a rolling release update in case things go south. I do that anyway for an ordinary update because snapshots and archival copies take seconds to a minute or two.

I'm currently sticking with Kubuntu's LTS because it means several years before I have to do a re-install. Who knows? I'm 79 and I might expire before the 20.04 LTS does!

What I'm really looking for right now is an icon set that looks like the one in Kubuntu 2009.04. The image below compares the two. I took the upper half of the image from a screen capture made in April, 2009, and the lower half from a capture made today. I've searched the icon repository for a plasma 5 compatible icon set that looks like the 2009 set but so far no joy. (IF anyone knows where such an icon set can be found let me know!).

I love that Apple bubble look!