Hi,
after watching the Video from Nick from The Linux Experiment about Tumbleweed
I had the idea to ask which KDE-Distro “You” use and why.
PS: Sure, I use Tumbleweed since the beginning 
Ulf
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I’ll cast my vote for
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Not a rolling release but a good middle ground between debian type of stable and arch rolling is Fedora KDE spin.
EDIT: I forgot to add in kde spin the new applicaton are frequently released via updates so it doesn’t necessarily stop at 6 months cycle
I take back everything i said here. Fedora will ditch you in the name of pushing cutting edge software. It is not good for production. Use something else.
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EndeavourOS is based on Arch Linux and uses Calamares to make installation straightforward. The base selection of packages is minimal, but it’s easy to add more (or even remove some) packages during installation and end up with exactly the KDE system you want. There are elements of Arch that have a learning curve, but the EndeavourOS forum is friendly and helpful.
You get KDE updates either on or near the date of official release, and any bug fixes very quickly too.
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Endeavour and Manjaro seem pretty similar, I looked at Endeavour seriously, but was unable to get it running properly in a VM, while Manjaro worked fine and I was able to get a good feel for it in the VM. That’s what made my decision.
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If you want fresh KDE, you can’t go wrong with either Arch or Fedora, with Arch being much fresher.
Keep in mind that with any Arch-based system, you will not be able to use Discover to its full potential (because it will break your install). On Arch, KDE Plasma comes without Discover (but you can install it manually). I’m not sure how well it works on Fedora, I haven’t used it in ages.
They are quite different. While they are both based on Arch Linux, all similarities end there. I’ve been using both for several years and my experience has been very different.
EndeavourOS is basically a pre-configured Arch Linux with a GUI installer. It uses vanilla Arch repositories for all of its software (except for a tiny additional repo for utilities and theming). On Arch (and thus on EndeavourOS) KDE Plasma comes completely vanilla out of the box, without any custom theming or customisation.
Manjaro uses its own repositories which are delayed compared to the Arch ones, so you don’t get the bleeding edge releases. In theory this is supposed to make Manjaro less prone to breaking, since all new updates get to be used by the Arch users before begin pushed to Manjaro users. However, in practice, and in my experience, Manjaro tends to break more than pure Arch or EndeavourOS, especially if you are using software from the AUR, which expects fresh dependencies. A lot of software in Manjaro repositories is themed and heavily customised, KDE Plasma included. Manjaro is also quite bloated out of the box, with snaps, custom kernels, a bunch of desktop software (potentially including some sponsored proprietary stuff, like FreeOffice), a bunch of custom theming (that looks pretty nice, actually), and a pretty awful GUI package manager (that unwillingly DDoS’ed the Arch User Repository several times and was even blocked by Arch for a short time).
EndeavourOS has the best community forum out of all Linux distros. People there are friendly, joke around and have fun all day, and are willing to help anyone. I think this is its greatest selling point. And also the fact it doesn’t bring too much beyond a nicely pre-configured and easy to install Arch Linux system, with almost no bloat, which depending on whether you want a heavily themed desktop or a more bare-bones experience, may or may not be a plus.
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Not True.
The AUR, Snaps and Flatpak are optional, they are not enabled by default, the user may enable them at their own risk.
DDOSing the AUR was a ONE TIME ONLY thing, due to a bug, it was fixed quickly. This rubbish keeps on getting trotted out as a reason not to use Manjaro… do the Devs of other Distros NEVER make mistakes? Not in my experience.
I have not seen any Proprietary software offered, or installed by default, and I have installed Manjaro on Multiple computers, and there was certainly no proprietary software when I tested Manjaro in the VM.
Fortunately I don’t bother with the SO CALLED experts that blog on youtube, so I was never influenced by any of this rubbish (I would prefer stronger language where these idiots are concerned, but well, filters, shrug)
ALL of my Manjaro install on different hardware have been stable through every upgrade.
In my time as a Linux User since 2000 Manjaro is the best Distro I’ve used (and there have been a lot) since Mandrake KDE, which had user oriented functionality Ubuntu dreamed of when Ubuntu was released.
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Was it really necessary to create a separate thread for this? 
I remember at least two times. I remember it clearly, because I am using Arch and AUR just stopped working for everyone. The second time all my friends who use Arch were like: “did Manjaro DDoS the AUR, AGAIN?” And yes, it did… 
Not true. Clean install of Manjaro comes with snapd installed. And the AUR does not need any “enabling” it’s enabled on any Arch-based distro. What is probably confusing you is the checkbox in Pamac that says “enable AUR”, but that is only for Pamac. There is nothing to enable. This can be proven by the fact that you have the makepkg available out of the box.
Try it out yourself in the terminal, on a clean Manjaro install:
pacman -Si snapd
and
which makepkg
I could be wrong, but I think the inclusion of snapd was due to some deal with Cannonical. I know there were many such deals, but I don’t remember what they were about. I’m not in the loop with Manjaro, so take this with a grain of salt.
There’s plenty of it, even in vanilla Arch, let alone Manjaro. You can measure your “Stallman Freedom Index” using the absolutely-proprietary tool from the AUR.
Manjaro used to come with FreeOffice preinstalled (which, despite the name, is certainly not Free Software, it’s not even Open Source), and you couldn’t opt out of it. I’m not sure whether they changed that – my guess would be they have, because I remember there being a big backlash from the community.
I’m glad it worked out for you! I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t use Manjaro. If you are happy with it, I’m happy that you’re happy. I certainly wouldn’t call your experience a load of rubbish (thank goodness for the language filter! 
).
My experience with Manjaro was slightly different, but nothing I couldn’t fix (ultimately, by not using Manjaro any more ).
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No that was an accident. The Dog ‘literally’ ate my homework… Seriously the dog jostled me because it was “Patrol” the property time, and he kept on Barking and somehow I lost my original post, and when I thought I was replying I was creating a new post.
Then before I could delete it, you started answering.
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Cool story! But it’s just so absurd, I actually believe you.
Anyway, no hard feelings…
unfortunately it’s actually true
I note this post is flagged by the community, I’ rather it was moved to the original thread.
It wasn’t me who flagged it, I swear… The proof is in the fact I don’t have the “First Flag” badge yet (though I could have probably used a sock account to flag it, but I haven’t).
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I had no reason to believe it was you, I assumed it was the moderator who took exception to my calling those so called expert bloggers what they are. They continue to trot out rubbish as click bait, then talk it up as if it is actually, or even still, true.
BTW, I checked, snapd is NOT installed on my computer, it never was… I don’t use snaps, actually I don’t use Flatpaks either, I dislike both.
I have no idea if makepkg was installed by default. because I do use a couple of apps that are only available from the AUR, and not the Manjaro Repositories.
I happy for you using Endeavour, in most cases with Linux, or any operating System, it’s YMMV. I can’t understand it, but there are people who LOVE Windows.
I moved it back in this thread.
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I’ve start using Manjaro (something around 2017) because it had real-time kernel in repository, and nice community on forum.
A bit off-topic:
I’ve taken a long road from i3 through openbox, Budgie, Mate, Xfce to finally settle on Plasma. Can’t say it was wasted time, because I learned a bit, even I don’t need most of this stuff using Plasma.
My favorite feature is Activities, very useful while audio recording. Having a different set of apps in task manager is a nice and handy thing, but the possibility to have different settings in power management for each activity is awesome!
Manjaro things (my to cents on @Kresimir and @tracyanne replies):
AUR - I’m not sure AUR was blown away two times (by Pamac). There was a bit of tweaking on both sides. Pamac is using search API from AUR website and after first time, sending queries was tweaked a bit, but it turned out that’s not enough even AUR server was patched. Don’t remember correctly, but it was something needs to be done before anyway. You can read about it in PR.
Now the list of packages is cashed.
Snapp - Philip was on meetup or something and talk with devs from Ubuntu. It was time when Ubuntu started to promote snapps on desktop heavily. The idea was something like “check out this technology, we help you to implement it”. I remember Philip wrote a bit about this on the forum, but it drowned in a sea of “Canonica/proprietary bad” posts.
FreeOffice - Suite was preinstalled only on testing branch for testing purposes. Before, it wasn’t supported on Linux. Philip convinced people from Softmaker to do so.
Bloat - There is minimal version to download. Full is for newcomers.
Using software from AUR - There are two more branches – testing and unstable. If someone needs packages which requires newer libraries etc that is always an option. Reading replies under announcement posts is also helpful. No one harsh anybody to update immediately when update is available. There is also Timeshift. If after update there are some issues, just restore snapshot. By the way, Unstable branch isn’t the same as stable on Arch, but is near.
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There is no “best” obviously, but 2 really good ones I personally use: Arch and Opensuse Tumbleweed.
I like Arch the best, basically no downsides if you do it the Arch way. Contrary to popular believe it doesn’t mean you need experience or will be an advanced Linux user once you use it.
But you will need to read a lot and do the occasional system maintenance (like dealing with pacnew files etc…)
If you don’t mind reading wikis and manuals, can use a search engine and at least try to fix your own issues before posting, Arch is a very good Distro. Odds are you can fix most/all your issues without asking for help because of the excellent wiki.
I am currently trying Tumbleweed on my Laptop. So far no issues, seems also very good. The one thing I noticed is that the package manager seems much slower. Also it doesn’t feels as comfortable as Arch, but that’s probably because I’m just used to Arch and not other systems.
Possible a good beginner Distro if you don’t want to care about your system and just use it?
As for Manjaro I heard a lot of good things and a lot of bad things about it, but since I never used it I can’t give judgement.
The one Advice I would give is to use one of the bigger Distros. You are much more likely to get help / find search results for issues for the big Distros like Kubuntu, Arch, (Manjaro?), Fedora, Opensuse etc…
I’m curious about your preferences and experiences.
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Currently I’m running two (rolling) systems: (a somewhat CachyOS bastardized version of) EndeavourOS and Nixos Unstable.
People already praised EndeavourOS, and I support the voiced impressions: An easy to install Arch with a small layer of quality of life choices and additions, and a great community. It’s fun to use, easy to tweak and offers you all KDE plasma and Gear very early.
Nixos Unstable is a different beast, the learning curve is steep. It is more conservative than “Arch”, still rolling but imho also breaks a little more easily. But it doesn’t matter if something breaks, since you can easily boot and work with an earlier, known, good revision. What makes Nixos interesting to me is that the installation is defined by configuration files you can easily sync. Sharing these configuration files between e.g. laptop and desktop keeps devices in a synced state, which is great for productivity work where you expect a known environment.
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Thanks for all this contribution to my question.
Interesting is the missing Debian, *Buntu based systems, anyhow Siduction and Debian Testing are running release distros.
To give some more details, why I use openSUSE Tumbleweed.
I use SUSE since about the year 2000 (version 6.4) with KDE (1.1.2). Later I switched from openSUSE to Tumbleweed in the first weeks after availability.
I tested nearly all Desktops and Distros, but always my Server and my main PC was stable running with SUSE. For sure from time to time I install the system new (mainly after HW changes) . The Manjaro I used on my Laptop was crashing 3 times in the last 3 years of testing. Where SUSE only one time over the 23 years make trouble (the NFS mounted home was not properly mounted during boot time → this was fixed with shifting the mount to systemctl).
Also with a Debian system I had a lot of trouble after an version upgrade.
Benefit for KDE/Plasma users on Tumbleweed is quite default system, which have only the openSUSE Breeze Theme and Background picture changed.
Yeah Minimal is great, I install that on all the installs I’ve done, then add some default Apps, like LibreOffice, then give it to the user.
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Just poking my head in here to make sure everyone knows that there is no factual best, only best for a user’s specific use case.
I prefer Fedora KDE for my use but it’s not rolling. If I were to jump on a rolling distro right now it’d likely be openSUSE as it’s always interested me but I’ve never tried it out fully.
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