Hey everyone! I've been testing out Arch Linux with Wayland and KDE for about a month, and I really love the Wayland experience, but Arch has been quite a hassle for me lately. I appreciate the learning curve, but I need a daily driver that just works without constant issues. I might keep Arch on my laptop to tinker with, but I want something more stable for my main machine.
I have a couple of applications that I installed via .deb files, so I prefer sticking to distros within the Debian/Ubuntu family. Also, I want a minimalistic setup with as little bloat as possible. I used elementary OS before, which supports Wayland in its latest version, but unfortunately, it doesn't boot on my system.
I have a Radeon GPU, so driver issues shouldn't be a problem. I know many distros allow you to set up KDE and Wayland post-install, but I'm looking for a solution that has everything ready to go right after the OS install. Any recommendations for Debian or Ubuntu-based distros that come with Wayland and KDE Plasma out of the box?
4 Answers
You could check out openSUSE Tumbleweed. I've heard good things about it, but I’d say stick with it and don’t distro hop again! It has a lot of features and updates regularly, which means you always have the latest software.
If you want to consider alternatives, Fedora KDE is another great option. They have a smooth experience with KDE and decent support for Wayland.
Kubuntu is definitely a solid choice! The upcoming 25.04 version will come with KDE Plasma 6.3, and Wayland will be the default session, so you won't have to worry about setting it up yourself.
If you're looking for something stable and user-friendly, I highly recommend trying out Kubuntu. It’s Ubuntu-based, and it comes with KDE instead of GNOME. The latest version, 24.04.2 LTS, includes KDE Plasma by default, which will save you the hassle of installing it later. I think you’ll like it because it strikes a nice balance—it's not bogged down with unnecessary bloat, but you can easily remove any packages you don’t need. Also, don't forget to set up Flatpaks for easier software management!
I'll second that! Tumbleweed is pretty great for keeping everything up to date.