Arch because it gives you many choices... vanilla kde, vanilla svn, kdemod, kdemod unstable or build your own vanilla split kde, hell you can even run kde with tiling windows link.

I just cant find anything bad about archlinux. Some people say bleeding edge is bad, but noone is forcing you to update every day, and if you do and eventually get burned you'll probably fix it in no time because you've learned a bunch about your computer/linux from installing/using arch... how many people restart ubuntu thinking its windows in hopes to fix something stupid or reinstall ubuntu when they dont know how to fix it?. I cant sit here with a straight face and call arch 'unstable' because its been rock stable here thanks to its kiss philosophy only rebooting for kernel updates unlike other 'stable' and 'easy' distros who introduse more problems then they fix by staying 6 months behind.

The only real con imo is that you have to edit config files by hand verses clicking check boxes with some gui. I dont expect my parents to ever get the hang of it. It requires some reading, but if you maned up to ubuntu, with some reading i expect you will figure this out too and realize how much power you get over your system this way. Everything is neatly organized in /etc with comments in most files thanks to BSD style init system most of which you configure only once or not at all.

All the above, the very well written and complete arch website/wiki, the power of pacman/makepkg/abs, kdemod (split kde with unique buildsystem), kiss philosophy make archlinux head and shoulders above everything else that i know of. But thats just my opinion and one vote.

I agree with the first bloke who shouted "GENTOO FTW" in this thread

Mix and Match, extreme configuration.

Arch or Debian? I am trying to decide between Chakra and Mepis. I head Kubuntu is just terrible this time around.

Voted for Arch, since it is the best KDE4 implementation so far for me. However, I am still having doubts.

Arch is the best distro when it comes to a combination of bleeding edge and stability. However, you can get burned every now and then. So far it has been mostly details, but even they can be important. Some examples:

1. Arch introduced KDE4 and did away with KDE3 when KDE4 still missed a lot of features.
Yes, I know you can run KDE3 apps, but it just does not always work right. Running Quanta with KDE3 libs in KDE4 gives poor performance and plugins do not work. Kvpnc is half functional. Smb4k has quirks. Gwenview has no kipi-plugins, service menus (e.g. Kim) no longer work or need to be tweaked. So all in all, the KDE4 environment still lacks many features that may be important for many users. That is no criticism towards the KDE4 developers, but a result of the open source development model and the KDE ecosphere. BTW: I am aware of KDE3mod. But I am talking about the official distro policy, which in my opinion was a bit too early in forcing a major upgrade on users. I think KDE4 should have been offered via KDE4mod and KDE3 should have been maintained as the official KDE version until KDE 4.2 was officially released.

2. Some packages are buggy and do not get fixed
I used guidance-power-manager until one day it was updated and now errors out on a python dependency. This was 3 weeks ago and it still has not been fixed. This does not happen much, but be prepared to be creative when using Arch.

I am not complaining. Arch is fast and transparent, but for a solid, stable work environment it is tricky. An update _may_ cause small problems, and if that happens at 23.00 when the following day you have a business presentation, that is not so nice.

I have always used MEPIS on a number of machines, and its KDE3 implementation is rock solid. If you truly want a hassle free KDE desktop, nothing beats MEPIS. If you want to be ahead of the crowd on a well constructed and relatively easy to maintain system, Arch is a very good option.

Kubuntu! Kubuntu!! Kubuntu!!!

One word — Gentoo.

Fedora. There's been issues over the last couple of releases but
10 is still an improvement over 9.

The thing that I love about Fedora is that my family know how to use
it no trouble (my mum learnt computing on it) but it has no objections
to me messing with it the way the *untus do.

In one word; kubuntu. I have tried others, but at the minute I am happily running kubuntu 8.04 and KDE 3.5. No doubt I will move up to KDE 4.1 and kubuntu 8.10 one day, but not yet!

I tried to switch from Debian to Kubuntu a while ago (the benefit of calling the system /stable/ while having the newest packages), but found each new version to be worse than the one before. As I once had the opportunity to tell Mr Shuttleworth in person, I considered the Kubuntu far better than Ubuntu because it got less attention, so it was closer to Debian.

Well, that stopped to be true, so I decided to switch back to Debian (testing/unstable/experimental mix) and I haven't had any complaints since.

BTW, I compile my own KDE

openSuSE since 2006 (SUSE before). :thumbs_up:

ivan wrote:I tried to switch from Debian to Kubuntu a while ago (the benefit of calling the system /stable/ while having the newest packages), but found each new version to be worse than the one before.

I've had the same experience. I was tempted to run Kubuntu a while ago, but after installing it there were huge problems with graphics display. Debian Lenny just ran without major problems. It might be that I was just lucky with Debian supporting my hardware better than Ubuntu in that particular case, but I have had similar experiences when I tried Ubuntu before on other machines.

It's not a unique Kubuntu problem of course, but a problem of Ubuntu in general with its short release iterations. It's just not for me. The only problem I have is that I want the fancy hot new stuff and Debian is a little bit on the slow side of providing packages for bleeding edge stuff. Maybe I just need to compile KDE 4.2 myself as well.

Moved to Discussions & Opinions

It's a tough decision for me:
The distro which I use the most is Kubuntu, but it has some problems... At least to some extent.
And when this porblems became too big I went and changed the distros:
So this were the other distros I tried, most of them stayed on my computer for less than a day:
PCLinuxOS - don't know what I didn't liked (probably the fact it used KDE3 when I updated my Kubuntu to KDE4.0)
OpenSuSE - After upgrade I couldn't install the upgrades
PC-BSD - encountered page error (I think this is similar to kernel panic)
Fedora - I just installed it in VirtualBox and during update it crashed (But I do have an one-core computer, so that might be the case)
Arch - didn't tried on my computer but on some old computer I had "lying around". Worked quite well given the old and outdated software.
So no real negative experience with Arch...
And off course:
Kubuntu: The Gutsy gibbon (my "gateway" version) was very buggy, but it was more or less up from there...
I did have some problems which made me consider other options..
But I always came back.
And I also have Windows with KDE installed, but plasma is not working properly yet...
Waiting that it gets so stable I could change the explorer shell with plasma

Kubuntu I use both KDE 3.5.10 and KDE 4.1.3 but every time on Kubuntu.

sidux, of course!