Where have all the good Debian based KDE distros gone?

**Jvaldezjr** · March 3rd, 2008

I have been using Linux off and on starting in 2000. At my college we were forced to use Mandrake 7. I was baptised by fire with understanding dependency hell and learning to install from source. It was then that I learned about Unix (I also worked on some Sun Sparc machines, and Solaris), and tried Red Hat for the first time. That's when I learned about the epic "desktop" war between GNOME and KDE. During my first years with Linux, I learned to lovve the KDE environment, and hate the GNOME one. Asthetics were what did it for me- I hated the flat color schemes of GNOME, and back then some KDE programs I liked, the GNOME equivalent seemed to fall short. I was a matter of personal taste for me, because I never really thoough of either as more superior than the other. Then I left linux for about 5 years.

I picked it up again with Ubuntu. It offered everything I struggled with when introduced to Red Hat and Mandrake. I had package managing that actually worked, and handled dependencies well, and I had the same great kernel and my choice of either GNOME or KDE. I started with Warty (using Gnome) which was painful, and then Hoary was release, and I switched to KDE.

Anyway, long story short- now with KDE4 out and being fixed, where will the good KDE distros come from? Kubuntu has it's dev issues and it's status as a "Community Edition", Linux Mint KDE is not much more than Kubuntu+ with some extras, and less user intervention (i.e. installing codecs, etc). OpenSUSE which I've never used, and what else...Mepis, PClinuxOS, Debian Sid?

I'm a Kubuntu fan- I've stuck with it since the beginning but I guess I just get real burned out with all the chatter about why this distro is better than this one, and why this project is a derivative of another older project because of x y and z, yet it is also unique....I like Kubuntu because I believe in the 6 month release cycle- if one release doesnt work as well as the previous one, I can go back, because it'll be supported long enough to see 2-3 more releases, and by then, there should be inprovement. I think the Ubuntu community is the best for any linux distro I've seen- which sold me on using K/X/Ubuntu. So that's why I think Kubuntu is really the only good KDE distro for me.

What do you all think?

**deepclutch** · March 3rd, 2008

why oh why!
Sidux,simply mepis all works well!

**uberlube** · March 3rd, 2008

+1 for the KDE love! And I also would like to see some KDE4 distros start to pop up all over the place.

**xeth_delta** · March 3rd, 2008

Jvaldezjr, I feel for you. Years ago when I started using linux, one of the reasons I absolutely preferred KDE over Gnome was, to be honest, the feel and look. I did not loke either those flat color schemes. I know it is a matter of preference.

Later I came to appreciate the possibilities for configuration and personalization KDE offered and I also liked many applications that are in this desktop environment. For programming, for example I use Kate and the command line. I am currently using Kate 4 on KDE 3.5. Nevertheless, a gtk programming IDE I enjoyed a lot was Anjuta, it is a pity it does not handle Fortran syntax.

Anyway, I am very happy with Kubuntu, haven't really had any issues. I hope in time it will get more attention from developers and get only better.

Now, I am just waiting for KDE4 to get the same functionality and configuration options KDE3 currently has.

**Jvaldezjr** · March 3rd, 2008

Yea...KDE 4 looks amazing. I can't wait. I would be using Gusty now, except I updated to Feisty a few months before Gusty came out because I was impatient, and there weren't a lot of Dapper updates toward that time last year.

**xeth_delta** · March 3rd, 2008

Originally Posted by Jvaldezjr

Yea...KDE 4 looks amazing. I can't wait. I would be using Gusty now, except I updated to Feisty a few months before Gusty came out because I was impatient, and there weren't a lot of Dapper updates toward that time last year.

Agree, I like how KDE4 looks, but I cannot use it until it has the same personalization level version 3 has. I hope that this will be achieved by the release of the Heron. There is not much time left, but the hope is alive.

**SomeGuyDude** · March 3rd, 2008

I dunno about Debian based, but if KDE is your thing I can't think of a single reason not to use OpenSUSE.

**smartboyathome** · March 3rd, 2008

I have generally liked using GNOME and E17, but when I tried Pendrivelinux 2008 (which is really Mandrivia Spring on a flash drive), I was amazed by the KDE interface. I would recommend Mandrivia if you want a good KDE distro.