Looking for the Best KDE Distro – Fast, Stable, and Feature-Rich
Looking for the Best KDE Distro – Fast, Stable, and Feature-Rich
Hey folks,
I’ve been using Linux on and off for over a year now—not a total newbie, but still learning. I know the basics and usually rely on GPT or forums when I hit a wall. I’ve tried a bunch of distros so far: Kali, Debian, Pop!_OS, KDE Neon, Kubuntu… and currently running Fedora KDE.
Fedora is solid, but I keep finding myself tempted to try something new. Maybe I get bored easily—or maybe I just haven’t found the one yet. That’s why I’m asking for your help.
Here’s what I’m really looking for:
🔹 Large and fast app repository – I want access to a wide range of apps, updated quickly, without weird dependency issues.
🔹 Great UI/UX – KDE is my current favorite. I love how modern and smooth it feels, and I want something that builds on that experience.
🔹 Stability without being outdated – I don’t mind rolling release if it’s reliable. Crashes and breakages are a dealbreaker.
🔹 Good extras – Whether it’s unique tools, deep customization options, or just thoughtful polish, I love a distro with a “complete” feel.
🔹 Active community/support – Docs, forums, or anything that helps when things go wrong.
I’d love your suggestions—especially if you’ve been in the same place: bouncing between distros, loving KDE, and still chasing that “perfect” setup.
What would you recommend and why? Any underrated KDE-based distro I should check out? Or maybe something mainstream but deeply customizable and stable?
Appreciate your thoughts!
Also, if you can, please share some of the best (and free) resources to really learn and master Linux. I’m still learning and only know some basics, but I want to go deeper and really understand how things work under the hood. Even if I don’t feel super advanced yet 😅, I’m curious and willing to grow.
Thanks a ton in advance!
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I'd personally stick to fedora?
This may be at odds with stability somewhat being rolling release, but you may want to check out SUSE tumbleweed or EndeavourOS. You already have a solid pick based on your established requirements.
Couldn't hurt to poke around other offerings in a VM, though
I'll +1 tumbleweed. Rolling and stable, it's been great
I concur. It is also relatively unmolested in terms of fucking up KDE programs.
suse is neat 🥰
i will also +1 tumbleweed. i was playing around with linux for 1-2 years occasionally, and installed tumbleweed almost 2 years ago. perfomance is great, rolling updates are stable (i only had to use snapper once when i manually bricked my internet connectivity because i was being an idiot that had no idea what he was doing)
Can you compare manjaro and tumbleweed for me . I hope it'll be helpful 🤞
Sure, Manjaro is known to break on updates. OpenSuse TW is stable AF. Manjaro is a joke compared to most distros though.
And one more thing, are most of the softwares are available on tumbleweed? Like i mostly use FDM, vs code and some other tools because fedora dont have some including FDM but everything else in fedora is pretty good and decent.
Some of the installs can be a little weird, but I've never had anything that I couldn't get running. Vscode has an install for tumbleweed https://code.visualstudio.com/Download
The major "issue" is the package names are different between Debian and tumbleweed, so if you're installing software from github that isn't directly provided by suse/appimage/flatpak then a lot of times you'll need to install the dependencies manually by finding the corresponding packages (since most github repositories have directions for Debian/Ubuntu and not suse)
Or you could just use distrobox
habibi I'm afraid I've not had good experiences with manjaro, I may need to defer to someone else in this thread. tumbleweed is cool as heck though.