This article might help you to decide what is the best linux distribution for you

Hi all. I'm not going to discuss here what's the best kde distro, but just point a side of it which, for me, is very important: the startup time, since hitting power button until having a working desktop. I've done a little experiment/comparative with several distros and I've been very surprised by the results. I hope they might be of interest for you. My comparative is here: http://pablog.tunalkan.com/fastest-kde

I think you're mainly making a fight "systemd vs sysvinit" here. systemd boots much faster than sysvinit, and I think ubuntu/kubuntu already use it as default, while most other distros don't do just yet. Everything else is, honestly, just random fluctuations in my opinion. I use archlinux (with systemd!) and it boots in < 20s including bios. With sysvinit it was much slower.

Plus, you're just comparing default configurations, which doesn't really say much. You'd have to be careful to enable exactly the same services for each distribution, and so on. In addition to that, probably most of the time measured has absolutely nothing to do with KDE.

Greetings

You should specify what version of each distro is being tested

A better test would be 2 fold 1) time to login screen (failsafe mode) and 2) time from login screen to KDE desktop, obviously scummos's previous comments would need to be taken into account and for part 1 you'd again need to ensure the same system services were being started. Also identify which distros use systemdd and which sysvinit

Ubuntu/Kubuntu use upstart, while openSUSE uses systemd (to varying extents, depending on the version, and the application being started). Debian uses sysvinit.

bcooksley wrote:Ubuntu/Kubuntu use upstart, while openSUSE uses systemd (to varying extents, depending on the version, and the application being started). Debian uses sysvinit.

Oh, right. Sorry for the misinformation. I forgot Ubuntu has yet another technology for that.

To me it's actually Fedora's KDE spin. It is so upstream-based that it made me realize how redundant some of the other distros' configurations are. It also has a super-updated kernel thanks to Fedora, and once you disable the automatic refresh plugin, PackageKit/Apper do integrate quite nicely. It starts completely lean WRT, say, OpenSUSE, and it's not as "user friendly" as some might like, but it certainly provides the most honest KDE experience I've had.

danny0085 wrote:This article might help you to decide what is the best linux distribution for you

In that article they recommend Ubuntu Studio for music (audio) production. However, I favor KX Studio because it has KDE as the default desktop!

daedaluz wrote:Chakra hands down, no contest. It's first of all KDE-only, so that's excepted. In my experience it's clearly the fastest booting and running KDE distro out there and comes with sensible settings out-of-box. It also never fails to amaze me how little problems it has (close to none), considering its devs dub it as "alpha" and its semi-rolling nature.

However, it works both ways. Sadly four major softwares I use heavily are GTK: IBUS, Firefox, LibreOffice and GIMP. They're installable as self-containing "bundles" into users home directory, in case you wonder how they run in KDE-only distro in the first place.

I'm happy with openSUSE as well and use it as main system (for now).

For me, I think it is coming down to OpenSuse KDE or Chakra. I'm tired of Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Can anyone compare OpenSuse and Chakra to each other? I really like the elegance of OpenSuse.

As per usuall with me I'm late to the party:
I think it have all to do with what you intend to do with your computer, how comfortable you are fiddling with it and how technically adept you are.

Take me (not a pickup line) for example:
Personally I use my laptop for graphics work (to which I need Krita, Gimp, Inkscape (maybe Karbon instead but probably Inkscape) etc. The rest is mostly fluff for me. If I have the chance to pick, I'd like Steam going and Spotify available.
But as I'm also rather specific about wanting the latest Krita, thats what I want. I prefer the underlying distro to be somewhat lean, not stray on the boot time and feel snappy and nice (don't we all?).
My laptop being a finicky beast of a thing I need a rather up-to-date kernel for it to be fine with everything and it has allot of FN-buttons that I prefer to have working OOTB. It also have the great downside that its quiet. That means that if the fans kick in its sort of discomforting, so I prefer something that lets it smoothly and nicely trip along without heating it up.

Lately I've become obsessive about wanting a KDE desktop environment (I am one of those rare beasts that enjoyed many of the design choices in Unity, I liked Gnome allot and I have a fond spot in my heart for Openbox since using Crunchbang) but when a distro slaps KDE onto it often they seem to assume that anything goes. "Oh sure just click in aaaall desktop effects by default - let it look like a carnival ground on fire with lazer rainbows exploding out of the Haunted House".
There is also that uncomfortable truth that KDE needs design love. It needs and wants input on a level that simply isn't there for Gnome. Gnome has a set design and the design-people tend to flock to Gnome. Its like money or gravity - the more you have, the more you get and I like being a part of something where change is seen as something fun, where ideas are welcomed (although not necesserily implemented but welcomed). KDE and Crunchbang have that in common I think.

In my case I tend to fall in between distros - ignoring the FN buttons (that never really work well on KDE for some reason, at least one of them will refuse blankly to play along) - this has made me longing for the "Just install and go" of Kubuntu which tend to be fairly swift in the updates (six months is no time for a grown person as I always say) but loving Chakras light touch (honestly its like listening to a new born breath sometimes, you keep double checking to see everything is ok - its that quiet).
Opensuse have always been too mch for my needs - its probably seven layers of awesome but not for my needs. For me its just another layer of complexity on an already complex thing and a complexity I have no need to use. Debian is so far behind with most software that I always feel as if I just gotten into the room, everyones laughing and I'm trying to get someone to explain the joke for me. Arch-proper is simply out. Lets be honest here, I'm not very technically adept. This is as good as it gets and I simply lack the shear willpower and for that matter time, that it would take for me to learn how to even install it.

My point is: My "KDE-needs" is vastly different from someone elses based on not only what I intend to use it for - but also what I am comfortable doing, the level of complexity I am willng to step into and one of the things I think KDE Plasma could improve immensly is that - a tiered approach to complexity, weight and base settings (combined of course with the distros choices). A sort of sliding scale from "Me like very little effects - plenty speed! No need for menu!" to [all the settings options]. Chakra has a rather elegant method of handling this in their intro where you simply click in your preferred "look" and then done and then you can fiddle with it afterwards.