Community really needs a KDE distro based on Archlinux

[medin]

They are always expensive for a country where minimum wage is 330$/month.

[WilsonEPhillips]

So, Manjaro is dropping KDE and going to Gnome? If so, that is sad. They always had a good KDE distro. Very polished.

[medin]

Pamac not following system themes (Plasma)

[WilsonEPhillips]

So Pamac was always a GTK/Gnome app, but they dropped the Pamac-qt version.

I have tried and I just cannot Gnome.

[Tionisla]

hmmh, octopi never broke for me. I guess I was lucky when I was using Arch. ok, most of the times I used pacman or yay

[Tionisla]

just for the record. Discover is utilizing packagekit. If I remember it correctly, when I was using Arch, there was a packagekit/pacman bridge you could install (yeah might have been in AUR, I don’t remember).

Not sure if it still works, but you could use Discover to install stuff from the main Arch repositories this way back then… Yeah, not recommended, you better install your stuff on arch in the konsole, but there was a way

[Herzenschein]

@medin

The only distribution that is currently able to maintain latest updates for both Plasma desktop and other non KDE apps is Archlinux

openSUSE Tumbleweed, Argon and Krypton.

They did Argon way before Neon User and did Krypton way before Neon Unstable, both Argon and Krypton have existed at least since 2013 in late KDE Plasma 4 and early KDE Plasma 5 times as UpdatedApps and KDE Unstable Software Compilation.

If there’s any distro with the capability to replace KDE Neon it would be openSUSE, not Arch.

[gacuxz]

I’m using Garuda Linux KDE Dr460nized edition. It’s a rolling release distro based on Arch. Using latest KDE Plasma right now.
As for packets management, Garuda Linux additionally provides their own AUR package builds via Chaotic-AUR repository which is automatically integrated into the default packet management Octopi. However “pamac-aur” package installed through Octopi from Chaotic-AUR adds “Add/Remove Software” entry in Launcher which is a Gtk3 Pamac front-end package manager with Alpm, AUR, Flatpak and Snap support.

[medin]

I would never trust any project directly funded and controlled via its board by a private company.

[johnandmegh]

IMO openSUSE has a clearer and easier claim than almost any other distribution to being built and maintained “in the open” thanks to the Open Build Service - and it is IMO the easiest answer to your original question. I’ve done nothing to have to contort myself or my system in any way, and I’m running Plasma 5.27.7 / the latest stable releases of the other KDE apps that I use.

Realistically, there are corporate contributions layered in throughout the open source software universe - starting at the kernel, all the way to user applications like the firewalld GUI from Red Hat. KDE Neon itself is based on Ubuntu, so it is hardly free of corporate control - I think the challenge is figuring out what you are worried about the corporation doing that would be outside of community visibility and/or control, and seeing if the risk there is too high.

[white-poplar]

I think archlinux with KDE pre-installed is not a necessity for archlinux users, and it is not in line with archlinux’s philosophy (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

openSUSE Tumbleweed (which I’m using and also recommends) is also a rolling release with the latest packages. Also, getting the latest packages doesn’t depend on distribution repositories anymore, there are many ways to do this (e.g. flatpak, distrobox, docker, toolbx etc…).

[Kresimir]

@medin

If Manjaro succeeded to do it with Pamac, so why not with Discover

Yeah, succeeded to DDoS the AUR… At least twice. Even back in the day when I was using Manjaro, I removed Pamac, because it was rubbish. Every other update broke something and there was instructions on the forum to update in the terminal. Absolute disaster.

---

GUI package management is not supported on Arch. So if you use Discover and you break something (and you will), you’re on your own. To use Arch successfully, will have to learn to do package management in the terminal, so if you are unable to type yay once a week to update, Arch is not for you.

That said, KDE Plasma works wonderfully on Arch (apart from Discover, of course) and you’re always on the freshest version soon after it is released.

If you want a distro that is exactly the same as Arch, except easy to install and sanely preconfigured for the user’s convenience, use EndeavourOS. It’s a completely vanilla KDE experience, default everything, no theming. You can customise it to your liking from scratch.

KDE Plasma also works fine on Garuda Linux, which is also based on Arch, though quite opinionated. Arco Linux is also fine for KDE Plasma. There’s plenty of choice for those who want KDE on Arch.

[medin]

Yeah, succeeded to DDoS the AUR… At least twice

This stupid argument is no longer valid, it was fixed a long time

so if you are unable to type yay once a week to update, Arch is not for you

That way of thinking is gone, using terminal and typing those commands to do simple tasks can make you proud, but it’s not for everyone, for now every successful OS has a graphical interface for updating, installing and removing apps.

[jinliu]

Problem is Arch just doesn’t have these “nice GUI interfaces”. So after a GUI installer, you still have to type those commands. Pamac is not in Arch’s repo to begin with.

[Kresimir]

@medin

This stupid argument is no longer valid, it was fixed a long time

Until next time… Stay tuned

@medin

but it’s not for everyone,

Never said it was.

@medin

for now every successful OS has a graphical interface for updating, installing and removing apps.

I would say Arch and EndeavourOS are pretty successful.

[trescryptique]

Hi, I am completely new here (because it was not possible to accede to this forum with my browser…).

As a few months ago Exton from extix.se did publish 3 very interesting versions one after the next based on Arch and on Gentoo, I became very curios and tested then. Marvelous… But I did soon have to admit, I absolutely not understand how Arch and Gentoo works and have all of KDE itself forgotten! It is for me not in a position to assume the actualization of KDE or Gentoo although it was yet possible to actualize a lot after the first parution of the 3 ISO’s at extix.se as did never use Arch or Gentoo before. I would have more luck probably with the other versions of extix’s KDE’s (Exton seem to love KDE!)… And will have to wait for the next extix version based on some debian like, probably ubuntu as I know Exton!

but they are not rolling and I am sad to install, reinstall etc.

and why from Exton?

easy:

extix’s ISO’s are about all

• (extremely) fast to install
• the most compact
• one per year with androbox ready to use on top
• and, and it the decisive propriety, have mainly (not all) the refracta tools into!

especially the refractasnapshot permitting to install with the fast refractainstaller (better as the also present calamares; in the isos where the refractainstaller is present, you only need to open a konsole and start sudo refractainstaller also if the calamares would have to be the standard one). but the last KDE ISO’s did not have the refracta tools in then… Sorry! Great disappointment and reason to wait for a next KDE version derivate from debian likes…

why?

because, if I opt for KDE in the next times, it have to be with KDE applications, what else?

although I can’t enter in THIS forum with Konqueror or Falkon (I think: a bit perverse!).

I will (try to re-) use Konqueror (or Falkon) if possible without some Dolphin like 20 y ago! And I will use Calligra (all), Kdenlive, Kwave, Krita, Kturtle for the children as well as other educative stuff of KDE, Marble, Rosegarden etc.

But which distribution give me all that traditional stuff today?

[trescryptique]

The ISO’s of Exton with above 3 KDE versions are not at extix.se but also at exton.se !

A question more:
why did the KDE community abandon the real KDE applications stuff especially the most important (browser and office)?

[Nathan]

FWIW, EOS is not a KDE-based distro and never will be.

I am thrilled that this didn’t pan out.

[annet]

@medin

Well, first reason, in some countries like mine, people can’t afford to buy expensive laptops with big storage so each 1GB is really precious. And the second is the internet speed, even with that whole Manjaro stable upgrades that reach 2.5GB I found them supper heavy and takes too much time, and for people with discontinuous and limited internet it’s impossible to install those flatpaks.

I can sympathise with you here.The Internet speed/availability is often a problem for people living in parts of Australia where I live. 4G is often at best flakey, because the Telcos don’t give a rats, and Satelite connectivity is slow and limited, and expensive.

The solution we found may also prove to be overly expensive for you. But the root cause goes back to how software has, it seems gotten larger to fill the space made available by bigger, better, and faster computers that are available to the more affluent among us.

Although if you had a small group of people sharing the cost, the faster, always on Internet solution we use could be possible.

@WilsonEPhillips

take it up with the Manjaro folks and ask for a fork of Pamac that runs on KDE/QT. They are the ones that can make it happen.

I can tell you right now, there is zero interest among the developers of Pamac to support two versions of Pamac. That is why the Qt version was dropped in the first place.

[leessmin]

You can try archinstall