A distro which doesn't replace KDE application with other ones like firefox, open office, thunderbird etc etc.
A distro that comes with complete KDE(default applications)

Any suggestions?

Keep an eye on Chakra - it sounds like what you're asking for. It's still in alpha, however.

Previously Chakra was a Live-CD dist based on Arch Linux with their own KDE packages (KDEMod), but they split to make a KDE centered distro.
http://chakra-project.org/news/index.ph ... oject.html
http://chakra-project.org/wiki/index.ph ... out_KDEmod

Hans wrote:Keep an eye on Chakra - it sounds like what you're asking for. It's still in alpha, however.

Previously Chakra was a Live-CD dist based on Arch Linux with their own KDE packages (KDEMod), but they split to make a KDE centered distro.
http://chakra-project.org/news/index.ph ... oject.html
http://chakra-project.org/wiki/index.ph ... out_KDEmod

can you tell me how difficult Arch+KDE would be to use, for a person who has only used ubuntu?

maybe http://home.kde.org/~kdelive/ "KDE Four Live" are installable Live-CD and USB images based on openSUSE 11.3 containing KDE 4.5.0

ayush wrote:can you tell me how difficult Arch+KDE would be to use, for a person who has only used ubuntu?

It depends on what you mean with "difficult". Is it possible? Definitely. Will everything be automatic and not require you to lift a finger? No.

To generalize a bit - I think the part many people who come from Ubuntu etc. find hard is to set everything up in Arch. The installer is text based, and when everything is installed you only get a base system. From there, you install the packages you need - e.g. KDE Applications.

After that it's not much different from other distros, except that it's a rolling release distro. Before you update the system you should check the Arch site to see if there are any important announcements. Sometimes Pacman (the package manager) will show a warning that a config file has been saved as *.pacnew - it is your job to merge you current config with this new file. And rarely something will break, but the answer is often provided in the Arch wiki and/or forum.

Does this sound complicated? Luckily Arch has excellent documentation and an active community. If you like to tinker and learn new things and aren't afraid of the command line, Arch is great. However, if you want something that 'just works', I would recommend you to try another distro.

It would be nice if you had an old/extra computer where you can play around with Arch first. (This is how I got started.) Then you still have your regular computer, which you can use if you need to ask for help in the Arch forums etc.
To get an idea of how to start with Arch, I recommend the Beginners' Guide. Massive wall of text, yes, but you don't have to read it all.

To summarize, how difficult it is depends on you - the help is there, but are you willing to spend the time and effort?

I use Arch+KDE, and it really isn't hard to configure if you take a little time to know what you are doing and read up. I would recommend having another computer with you with the Beginner's Guide open and follow it for the first few installs. Arch also has a large community to help you in the beginning, as long as you show them that you are trying to find a solution yourself as well. Also, in the package manager included with Arch, pacman, there are multiple KDE-based packages, such as the requested KDE package (downloaded with "pacman -S kde"), which includes all KDE applications, with the exception of KOffice (downloaded separately with "pacman -S koffice"), and possibly KDevelop ("pacman -S kdevelop").

What about http://home.kde.org/~kdelive/ ?

ayush wrote:can you tell me how difficult Arch+KDE would be to use, for a person who has only used ubuntu?

I'd only ever used Kubuntu and fired up Chakra. After hearing from so many people how hard Arch is, I was surprised at how easy it was. Then I realised... Chakra is not Arch (even the version based on Arch). Chakra has an installer (Tribe) just like Kubuntu, while Arch makes you build everything yourself.

Really I found that Chakra (the version based on Arch) was no harder than Kubuntu at all. I just made sure that when I upgraded (pacman -Syu) that I checked the Arch / Chakra notices for any known problems first, and read the warning messages pacman output to the terminal. Everything else was normal KDE, just like Kubuntu.

Now, I haven't tried the new Chakra-Linux that's not based on Arch, so things may have changed some, but I suspect not. That said I'm looking forward to trying it, even if the decision to completely excise all Gnome apps from even being installable by the package manager, strikes me as a little fanatical. Still, the Chakra dev's did a magnificent job before. Until I see otherwise, I'll just trust that they have their reasons and can likely do a great job again.

Kubuntiac wrote:

ayush wrote:can you tell me how difficult Arch+KDE would be to use, for a person who has only used ubuntu?

I'd only ever used Kubuntu and fired up Chakra. After hearing from so many people how hard Arch is, I was surprised at how easy it was. Then I realised... Chakra is not Arch (even the version based on Arch). Chakra has an installer (Tribe) just like Kubuntu, while Arch makes you build everything yourself.

Really I found that Chakra (the version based on Arch) was no harder than Kubuntu at all. I just made sure that when I upgraded (pacman -Syu) that I checked the Arch / Chakra notices for any known problems first, and read the warning messages pacman output to the terminal. Everything else was normal KDE, just like Kubuntu.

Now, I haven't tried the new Chakra-Linux that's not based on Arch, so things may have changed some, but I suspect not. That said I'm looking forward to trying it, even if the decision to completely excise all Gnome apps from even being installable by the package manager, strikes me as a little fanatical. Still, the Chakra dev's did a magnificent job before. Until I see otherwise, I'll just trust that they have their reasons and can likely do a great job again.

Actually the Gnome or should I say GTK applications are available, just instead of normal packages they come in bundles with everything already in them, so you don't actually need to install GTK2 or similar things.
It's an interesting way of doing things, to say the least.

Also Arch isn't that hard as some might think, we Archers just don't want silly "noobish" questions hogging up the forum when there's the Beginner's guide in ArchWiki which covers all the things.

Primoz wrote:GTK applications are available, just instead of normal packages they come in bundles with everything already in them

True. That's why I phrased it that GTK apps aren't available to install from the package manager (or are the GTK-bundles going to be available there, too?) Thanks for adding that though, as I can see it wouldn't have been clear from my post alone.

Arch Linux + KDE is very nice combination.
It's nice to have always up to date system with current KDE release.

With Beginner's Guide it's not that hard to get started, but if you don't like doing things by yourself, then it might not be the right distro to use.

ayush wrote:After that it's not much different from other distros, except that it's a rolling release distro. Before you update the system you should check the Arch site to see if there are any important announcements. Sometimes Pacman (the package manager) will show a warning that a config file has been saved as *.pacnew - it is your job to merge you current config with this new file. And rarely something will break, but the answer is often provided in the Arch wiki and/or forum.

I have used Arch Linux now over a year and I have not yet seen single config file warning. But mergin some configs ain't so hard at all after all.

However, if you want something that 'just works', I would recommend you to try another distro.

Arch Linux has been so far the only one what "just works" for me on multiple computer (different places) and my friends and family (totally about 15 computers).

The _only_ non-technical difficulty really is to actually install Arch Linux. And that demands two things to get actually easily done. a) Patience b) Reading skills.

The biggest real show stopper comes if user does not have a broadband connection. Downloading a KDE SC takes 500MB easily and the whole software system installation as wanted takes usually 1-2GB. And it takes littlebit time to actually get all wanted software installed. But with 1Mbits connection it is not difficult at all to wait minute or two to get wanted software installed first time and then just enjoy.

The other big problem then comes if user does not want to learn how to use AUR to compile and package itself software what is not on core repositories etc. And even senior users finds Arch Linux better than Ubuntu when someone has already set up the software system for them and all what they need to do is run now and then the pacman -syu command to upgrade whole system.

Arch Linux really just works, but it does need maintaining, exactly the same thing as every driver needs to fill their cars gasoline tanks, check oil, check windshield water and so on. But everything just works without such problems as what comes with non-rolling release distributions like Ubuntu.

It really is just a wonder why but it is big thanks to Arch Linux community who really gets software working very nicely while staying upstream friendly.

i'm a chakra user for sometime now and it is already very stable for a alpha. There are much changes going on but it is still very stable if you using the "stable" chakra and not the testing.

If you know how to use apt-get then you can use pacman it isn't much different. The gui version is still work in progress, so if you need a gui to install packages expect some bumps.

arch is rolling and chakra is Half-Rolling, the base is stable and will be updated if it is been thoroughly tested. Applications are rolling, and generally available immediately upon their release.

And your getting quick response from te dev people, and thats a big plus

they also have a kde 4.6 beta 1 live iso to test atm so if you like quick kde updates chakra is a distro to try. http://chakra-project.org/news/index.ph ... eased.html

Chakra for sure!! I've been using Chakra-Testing for about a month now and I totally love it. Like you said, it's totally KDE-centric. GTK apps are available, but through special click and run packages called "bundles", that don't affect your filesystem, and run just as well. Installing it is a breeze and the community is helpful. Performance is the way it should be. The devs are very active, for example, the kernel I'm using now is pre-patched by the devs with the 200 lines patch (i think they use liquorix). Its still a baby, but a beautiful baby at that! Watch it grow and you'll be fascinated!!