Ideal distribution paired with KDE Plasma offers a seamless and customizable experience.
Ideal distribution paired with KDE Plasma offers a seamless and customizable experience.
I spent around six months using KDE Neon and found it generally pleasant. Sometimes certain optional Ubuntu packages would malfunction because they relied on outdated KDE or Qt versions, though most of these issues seem resolved now. If you're familiar with Ubuntu, the transition will likely feel similar but with a KDE twist. Eventually, I switched to openSUSE Tumbleweed because it supports newer software beyond what Ubuntu 16.04 offered (KDE Neon is built on Ubuntu LTS). My mother currently runs KDE Neon on her laptop for basic tasks like word processing, spreadsheets, web browsing, and streaming (Netflix, Amazon Prime). I’m now using openSUSE Tumbleweed for about six months and am generally satisfied. The system is known for stability, though it can be a bit unusual. For example, unless you remove every Pattern that could trigger reinstalls of other Patterns, a distro upgrade will restore everything by default. You can also turn off automatic package installation by setting `solver.onlyRequires = true` in `/etc/zypp/zypp.conf` (or use the `--recommends` flag). Setting up printers usually requires entering your root password. Installing Packman is needed for certain patented codecs, and getting software outside the main repository feels much like Ubuntu. With Ubuntu, you add a PPA via launchpad.net; with openSUSE, you can search https://software.opensuse.org/search or use a one-click installer. I haven’t used Kubuntu much, but it seems to have improved significantly after the 16.04 release. It now runs Plasma 5.10.5, the latest stable version of that release.
Have you encountered any software designed for Ubuntu that isn’t available on OpenSUSE? Up until now, I’ve relied on apt-get and .deb files, as well as .rpm packages, which are typical for most applications. Does it offer a comparable alternative to apt-get? As you may notice, my Linux journey has mostly followed Ubuntu (Debian) lines, and I’ve only begun exploring OpenSUSE recently.
Generally, software options are plentiful. Unless it exists in the primary Tumbleweed collection, you can usually locate it on the package search page. Many well-known emulators for games aren’t part of the main repository, yet they remain current there, whereas Ubuntu receives updates only every six months (two years for the long-term supported version). The performance gap between DeSmuMe and Dolphin-emu is clear in KDE Neon and openSUSE Tumbleweed. RPMs are typically built for Fedora, not openSUSE, but they often function as well. RPMs aren’t as widespread as DEBs, though they’re still used. In exceptional cases, such as with Oracle JDK, vendors may offer only an RPM. `zypper` behaves much like `apt`, making it straightforward to use (no complex commands). In several respects, it surpasses APT, though a direct equivalent to `apt autoremove` isn’t available yet. For example, the "vendor stickiness" feature prevents APT from automatically upgrading to the newest version in any enabled repositories. Sometimes you prefer not to, as the latest version might be unstable. With ZYpper, it selects only the currently active version in the repository. If you add a testing repo for a single program, `zypper dup` won’t attempt to upgrade all other packages. You can also assign priorities to different repositories. I prefer installing packages from the main repo by default, as those are verified by openSUSE’s automated QA (openQA), so I give the main repo a higher priority.