I like to use Neon’s live environment as a medium for trying out new Plasma features, since I’m still on Debian.
The naming of the editions imply that Unstable is the most recent version, the User edition is the most “outdated” and Testing is the middleground. But when downloading all ISO images, the names of the files would suggest otherwise. For instance, according to the current filenames, the latest User and Testing editions were published on the 27th, whereas Unstable was only updated on the 23rd.
So my question is: If I want to test the most up-to-date version of KDE Plasma using KDE Neon, which version should I choose? The one whose ISO image was most recently updated on the website, or always Unstable/Testing? Or is it only really up-to-date if I install the distribution and update everything from there?
The ISO builds are probably on different schedules, and any packaging issues from the “wild” code in Unstable could prevent a new one from being built sometimes. But the ISO date has little to do with what is on it, or rather what packages it will update to, since there will be more current stuff in the actual repos.
The naming is not at all akin to Debian’s here.
User has the most current officially released versions of KDE software.
Testing has alpha-ish to beta pre-release and release-candidate code for KDE and Plasma pulled from git branches that will become the next official releases. Final iterations of new changes and the like to be tested and bug-fixed before the next official release.
Unstable has pre-alpha to alpha quality code pulled from git branches that are much more raw ands rough. New features added and tried out.
So, unless you are looking specifically for the raw and less tested pre-release and unreleased code, User Edition has the most current official versions.
As @claydoh mentioned , builds breaking translates to ISOs not being built - as unstable breaks the most, it’s ISOs are often the oldest. Both testing and “stable” are quite frequently getting updates and therefore are both rebuilt regularly.
The “User Edition” both gets security patches but also you have to remember that KDE does not have a single release cycle - Plasma has one release plan, Frameworks another, KDE Gear has a different one and there are different release cycles for large standalone apps like Kdenlive and Krita - whenever any does a drop, you get a User Edition build.
