Yours sounds like the perfect use case for Wayland. With that level of graphics, media development using gpgpu compute would not be in its strengths anyway. For basic desktop tasks that are not compute intensive, Wayland is quite nice. Smooth and tidy. But, once you ask it to do some heavy lifting, it falls apart badly.
Iāve used Neon as a daily driver for quite a while now. I donāt remember exactly, but itās been a few years. I have a procedure where I install Ubuntu Server minimal (because I need custom encryption configuration), and then add Neon sources and install. It has worked GREAT for me, and Iāve been very happy with it.
If you care for the procedure:
Remove cloud init
https://gist.github.com/zoilomora/f862f76335f5f53644a1b8e55fe98320
wget -qO- https://archive.neon.kde.org/public.key | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/neon.asc
apt-add-repository https://archive.neon.kde.org/user/
apt-get update
apt-get install -y neon-desktop
For GUI boot
https://wiki.debian.org/plymouth
Set the theme:
apt install plymouth plymouth-themes
apt install plymouth-theme-breeze kde-config-plymouth
sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
Firefox
sudo snap remove firefox
sudo apt-get remove firefox
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
echo '
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001
' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla-firefox
sudo apt install firefox
System76 stuff
cat <<EOF > /etc/apt/preferences.d/system76-apt-preferences
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-system76-dev-stable
Pin-Priority: 1001
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-system76-dev-pre-stable
Pin-Priority: 1001
EOF
sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:system76-dev/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install system76-driver
$ cat /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf
[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=*,except:type:wifi,except:type:gsm,except:type:cdma,except:type:wireguard,except:type:ethernet
$ cat /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf
[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=*,except:type:wifi,except:type:gsm,except:type:cdma,except:type:wireguard,except:type:ethernet
Remove /etc/netplan/*
Iāve been using Neon as my daily driver for years and Iāve been watching it with a close eye as to whether I would have my non-technical friends use it instead of Kubuntu.
The answer is no, because Iāve experienced relatively minor but annoying productivity glitches as different parts of the KDE stack have gone through refactorings. Things in Dolphin, for example. Or Plasma. Or System Settings.
Me being me, Iām totally okay with that, because I love KDE and I know that in the next minor point release itāll get fixed. But my friends? No way. Theyād think that āLinux is buggyā and I donāt want that.
1 Like
Iāve been using Neon for years on my daily workstation I use for my job. The upgrade to 6 had a few minor issues but nothing too bad.
Would I recommended it to new users?
Yes, three so far, none had used Linux before and they all really like it. They do have access to me to ask questions though, Iām not sure I would recommend it to someone and then leave them to struggle.
Iām using Neon both in my work and home PCs since linux mint dropped the KDE flavor.
TBH: Iām looking for an opportunity to switch to kubuntu in my work.
I am, pretty much since the release of KDE 6, and was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked, compared to my previous experience of upgrading from KDE 3.5 to KDE 4 on FreeBSD back in the day.
Today Iāve upgraded to 6.1 and now frantically scrambling to build a repo with 6.0 in order to downgrade. (Shouldāve known better and actually made ZFS snapshots of the whole system before upgrading)
Iāve been using KDE Neon for 3+ years now. Thereās been the odd glitch here and there, but other than not being to get SMPlayer to work itās been a dream OS.
You might also want to try Kubuntu Focus Suite if stability is that important. Itās Kubuntu 24.04 and Plasma 5.27 along with quality of life tools, hardware integration, and guidance. Thereās additional curation on kernels and drivers to help prevent regressions, as shown here.
Kubuntu will move to 6.x in 24.10, and this may be backported to 24.04 after extensive testing. In the mean time, 5.27 runs quite nicely.
Oh, the system has a btrfs auto snapshot manager ready to use immediately after install. So that can provide additional safety.
I do not think I have gotten SMPlayer to work anywhere ever. 
I use Debian 12 (Bookworm) with Plasma 5 and EndeavourOS with Plasma 6.
- Both work pretty well, but I built my system after checking parts as much as I could for Linux usability.
- I have relatively new hardware (~ 4 years) and Debian tends to be slower to respond, while Endeavour OS is snappy. But then again, I have not tried tweaking the scheduler. (also, Debian is installed on a slower HDD, so maybe thatās making a difference)
- Endeavour OS worked pretty well even with Plasma 5.
- For work, I would prefer Debian for the stability. I originally installed it to use the Xilinx ISE, among other stuff.
I use KDE Neon since KDE 6 starts. Itās my everyday work laptop. Without essential problems, except last few day many plasma crashes.
I was one of the first wave of Endeavour OS users on their forum. It was not very stable, then the team worked on it, delaying Arch updates, sometimes for over 24 hours, the stability improved. To make a long story short, as former Arch user, the original Arch with the very rude forum 
, The AUR has too many problems to be anything other than a hobby OS. There is no way Iām doing any serious work for clients on an Arch based OS. The extra work of being vigilant all the time, having multiple back up sources and reinstalls is just not worth it.
Iāve been daily driving Neon on my laptop (Ideapad 5 w/ AMD 7840HS) since January and KDE/Plasma is more stable than ever! The issues Iām having are more hardware related to my display and/or iGPU (which Iām bugging the amdgpu devs about) but the shell has improved leaps and bounds since 5.25.
5->6 was a crappy upgrade experience for sure, but I think next time Iāll just refuse to update the core packages for a week or so if Iām really concerned. Having them managed through the Discover app makes it easy to deny any particular component the ability to update at a critical time.
Otherwise though, Iād argue that KDE Neon is the best KDE experience in a distro. I get the stability and compatibility of the Ubuntu base but the cutting edge UI/UX in Plasma - Which is pretty much my ideal Linux setup.
Just as an aside to this topic. I installed SMPlayer (first time for ages) on my Neon system and it works fine.
Have two main computers - using Neon on one and Opensuse Tumbleweed on the other. I have been using Neon for several years on a daily basis and never really had any major problems. Currently using the āunstableā verson as a test for 24.04 and this works fine.
Iād like to but maliit isā¦ rough. I shouldnāt complain but the lack of function keys is really frustrating.