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> KDE Linux is an immutable distribution that uses Arch Linux packages as its base, but Graham notes that it is ""definitely not an 'Arch-based distro!'"" Pacman is not included, and Arch is used only for the base operating system.

So it's basically a SteamOS sibling, just without Steam?

Honestly find Debian Testing good enough for latest KDE Plasma. I have never understood the need for a specific distro for your desktop software and have never found Neon useful.

The only pain point I really found even developing for KDE on Debian was the the switch from qt 5 to 6 but that is always a risk and you can just compile qt from src.

Another pain point is their dev package manager doesn’t have a way to conveniently target library/package branches. So you can spend a fair amount of time waiting for builds to fail and passing in the library or package version to the config file. Very tedious and no doubt cost me lots of time when trying to build on top of Akonadi for example.

this bit is a no-go for me. they've decided what goes in the immutable base os and allowed a set of kde apps citing subpar experience flatpak versions. I'm guessing they haven't tested all flatpak apps as they tested their apps.

"Well, we’re kind of cheating a bit here. A couple KDE apps are shipped as Flatpaks, and the rest you download using Discover will be Flatpack’d as well, but we do ship Dolphin, Konsole, Ark, Spectacle, Discover, Info Center, System Settings, and some other System-level apps on the base image, rather than as Flatpaks.

The truth is, Flatpak is currently a pretty poor technology for system-level apps that want deep integration with the base system. We tried Dolphin and Konsole as Flatpaks for a while, but the user experience was just terrible."

https://pointieststick.com/2025/09/06/announcing-the-alpha-r...

The best KDE implementation that I have seen is on Arch based distros (Arch, SteamOS, CachyOS, etc.).

Nothing else compares. Why reinvent the wheel?

If I'm able to do everything I can in my regular arch Linux installation, it would be nice to try an arch derivation that is immutable by design.

What I'm affraid is to start experimenting and finding more and more that my workflow is hindered either by some software not working because the architecture of the OS is incompatible, or by KDE UX design choices in the user interface.

That's not to say that it wouldn't be interesting, and it would say nothing about the quality of the software if I'd hit such walls, only that I'm not its target audience.

> Unlike Fedora's image-based Atomic Desktops, KDE Linux does not supply a way for users to add packages to the base system. So, for example, users have no way to add packages with additional kernel modules.

But then, since / is rw and only /usr is read-only, it should be possible to install additional kernel modules, just not ones that live in /usr - unless /lib is symlinked to /usr/lib, as happens in a lot of distros these days.

Well, as long as they're either updating frequently or you're not using nvidia drivers (which are notoriously unpleasant with Wayland) I guess it's fine for a lot of people.

I don’t understand the differences between each distribution. Is there a real difference?

Without being too negative, I'd like to point out that Neon, ElementaryOS etc tried the same thing. A project thinks we need our own distro but ends up pulling resources away from improving the desktop environment itself.

GNOME doesn’t maintain Ubuntu or Fedora, but it still dominates the Linux desktop experience.

So this replaces Neon (Ubuntu based) with Arch based distro.

Hey the reason behind my username!

To add something useful, OSes are the one area where reinventing the wheel leads to a lot of innovation.

It's a complete strip down and an opportunity to change or do things that previously had a lot of friction due to the amount of change that would occur.

Their distro seems somewhat confused.

According to kde.org/linux it comes with Flatpak and Snap. Distrobox and Toolbox. They don't seem to just pick a lane to be consistent, it's all kind of random.

> KDE Linux is an immutable distribution that uses Arch Linux packages as its base, but Graham notes that it is "definitely not an 'Arch-based distro!'" Pacman is not included, and Arch is used only for the base operating system. Everything else, he said, is either compiled from source using KDE Builder or installed using Flatpak.

Funny; sounds more like a BSD (a prebuilt single-artifact Arch "base system" + KDE Builder-based "ports collection") than a Linux.

I love using KDE Plasma. All the best to the team!

> [everything is] installed using Flatpak.

How's Flatpak doing in terms of health of the tech and the project maintenance?

Merely 4 months ago things didn't look too bright... [1]

> work on the Flatpak project itself had stagnated, and that there were too few developers able to review and merge code beyond basic maintenance.

> "you will notice that it's not being actively developed anymore". There are people who maintain the code base and fix security issues, for example, but "bigger changes are not really happening anymore".

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44068400

KDE made me fall in love with Linux. The familiar UI to Windows, the insane customizability, the snappiness - each and every one of their contributors are legendary.

I wish them the best of luck. I never used Neon since it was a rolling release distro. This one I also won't be using because it immutable and relies on Flatpaks which are very buggy. Standalone binaries or AppImages are fine with me but Flatpaks and Snaps are garbage.

After decades of development and billions of dollars in investments can we have just 1 distro that works as smooth as MacOS and then we can get back to having 2000 others for that one time we need to run it on a coffee maker

KDE seems to reinvent the wheel here and I wonder where they are going with that. There are pretty mature "immutable" distributions out there that could serve as a foundation and offer a lot of the same features that KDE Linux is supposed to support. For example, Aeon (of openSUSE MicroOS vintage) looks like all KDE Linux is aiming for, just with Gnome as DE.

But hey, more power to them.

I love using KDE and use it on all my desktop machines. I even have a source compiled version ready to test / hack on if I need - utterly fun and easy to build using kde-builder and works on most distros including Ubuntu/Debian, Arch and Fedora.

That said, I don't think having yet another immutable distro is a great idea if they are only going to punt and use Flatpaks. They can run flatpaks on any distro out there. So not really understanding the idea behind this. Nothing really stands out from the article - they still need to make KDE work great with most other modern versions of the distros so it isn't like Flatpaks based KDE is going to give them an edge in having the best KDE on their own distro.

What am I missing?

> KDE Linux is Wayland-only; there is no X.org session and no plan to add one.

Does this mean they're testing that all the Wayland bugs are fixed? I haven't updated to the new Debian stable quite yet but all the previous times I've switch to Wayland under promises of "it's working now" I've been burned; hopefully dogfood helps.

A well maintained KDE Arch distribution sounds very nice. I love KDE and tolerate Kubuntu.

There really is no such thing as a "new distro" these days. Everyone with the itch to roll their own is Debian or arch, with a tiny handful of cool kids hacking on nix instead. Scanning down:

> KDE Linux is an immutable distribution that uses Arch Linux packages as its base, but Graham notes that it is "definitely not an 'Arch-based distro!'"

Definitely not, indeed.