I've been having a lot of issues with KDE Plasma across different distributions like Ubuntu, Arch, and Fedora. Even though I've installed all the necessary drivers for my Nvidia graphics card, I experience annoying bugs, such as windows getting stuck during closing animations, the hover menu over applications cropping or stretching, and many other quirks. I previously used Gnome on Ubuntu without issues, and I really don't understand why KDE is misbehaving on my relatively new PC, especially since I've heard it should be lighter than Gnome.
5 Answers
Have you checked your hardware? Knowing your specs could help diagnose the problem. Sometimes specific combinations can create compatibility issues, especially with graphics drivers. What are your specs?
It might be a driver issue with your Nvidia card. My experience with Plasma on Wayland was terrible, but moving to X11 worked a lot better. If you're using Wayland, you might want to switch to X11 and see if that resolves your issues.
I had a similar experience with Kubuntu after an update broke my video output. Switching to Arch with KDE has been perfect for me, but that was after some trial and error. Maybe consider giving Arch another go if you haven’t already; just be prepared for potential setup headaches.
I just tried Arch too, but I encountered some minor UI flaws and issues with a game that ran fine on Ubuntu.
Honestly, I’d suggest exploring other desktop environments too like Cinnamon or XFCE. With your specs, those should run smoothly. It's not always about finding the ‘lightest’ option; sometimes you just need to find what works best for you.
If you installed KDE on top of Gnome, that might cause weird issues. Best to try a clean installation of a KDE-focused distro like Kubuntu instead. That way you can avoid some of the conflicts that come from mixed environments.
Actually, I did a clean install of Kubuntu after wiping Ubuntu, but I'm still running into these problems.
Here’s what I have: GPU: Nvidia 2060, CPU: Intel i5, 32GB RAM, ASRock B450 Pro 4 motherboard, and SSDs (500GB and 120GB).