I've been somewhat of a KDE fan for several years now. I used GNOME before, like most people, but Ubuntu 19.04 was a turning point for me. The graphical environment matured significantly and offered everything I needed and much more. Recently, the project has presented KDE Linux, an immutable distribution designed for production, and it's already available for testing. So I've given it a try to see if I'll take another leap in my development in the future. dystrohopping.
Before I begin to explain my impressions, it is necessary to clarify, even if only superficially, what a immutable distribution. There's no access to everything like in traditional Linux. Important things are read-only, making the system harder to break. Software is obtained and installed differently, and this has its advantages and disadvantages.
KDE Linux gets its software from Flathub…
KDE Linux, like most immutable distributions, gets its software from Flathub. After the clean install and now that it's in alpha, it has added several more repositories, but only for updating applications like Gwenview or Haruna to their Nightly release. Other repositories for Flatpak packages, such as the Flathub beta, can be added, but this is unnecessary.
As an AceStream user, the first thing I did, just to find out more, was to see if it was possible to install Flatpak packages from outside of Flathub. The answer is simply yes. If a developer creates an app and uploads it to GitHub, it can be installed (flatpak install app.name), as long as everything is compatible.
Another question I had was whether I had installed software like FFmpeg, and that too. I like to perform some conversions with that software, and it works from the terminal like a traditional Linux distro.
The next thing I did was try another basic command for me: yt-dlp. It's not included by default, but it can be easily set up for the average user:
- First I download the file from on GitHub.
- I give it execution permissions with the right click (you can also do it with chmod -x yt-dlp).
- I move it to the ~/.local/bin/ folder, which I had to create.
- Finally, I add that folder to the PATH with export PATH=»$HOME/.local/bin/:$PATH».
And yt-dlp to work.
…and Snapcraft
It was something I'd read about, but I wasn't sure. It was while searching the PATH (echo $PATH) that I found the snapd folder. It doesn't appear in Discover, at least at the time of writing this article, but you can search for it on the official website and install it with the command provided there.
Therefore, KDE Linux supports flatpak, snap, and appimage packages after a clean install, which covers most software. In fact, Flathub also offers application extensions, such as G'MIC or BIMP for GIMP.
Now, G'MIC doesn't work, not the one in Discover. But if you go to their website, they tell you the command to use, and there they allow you to install version 3, which does work.
Distrobox included by default
And for anything that might cause problems, KDE Linux also has Distrobox installed by default. This allows us to install containerized distributions to install any program. If we want something from the Ubuntu repositories, we install Ubuntu. What we want is from Fedora? A Fedora container. This should allow us to add DEB, RPM, and everything else to the installable list.
But not everything works in KDE Linux
Not everything works perfectly in KDE Linux. For example, you can't install PHP because there are no official repositories to access. If we want to use something like LAMP, we have to try it in a container, otherwise it will be impossible. In fact, I think it will be impossible for a user who doesn't have a medium.
It's also worth noting that software in Flatpak and Snap packages isn't as powerful and versatile as software from official repositories. For example, if you want Visual Studio Code to work at its best, you have to install it on a Distrobox distribution. While I haven't noticed any issues, you might encounter some obstacles if you want to use it for advanced purposes.
Will I stay on KDE Linux?
I doubt it. Manjaro hasn't let me down in nearly five years, and I don't need an immutable distribution. For now, I'm sticking with Manjaro, as much as I love KDE...
…although I might change my mind if I see a glaring bug in Manjaro in the future + I don't need anything special from a developer. KDE Linux looks good, but it's still in its infancy.