this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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I think what matters more for a beginner is the desktop environment (DE). For someone coming from Windows I recommend using KDE Plasma for a DE. Ever since Plasma 6 it has become one of the best DE out there.
I've used:
Mint : Solid, easy, but runs Cinnamon as a DE, which is OK and looks nice but lacks functionality for multiple displays. You can switch it to KDE Plasma but it is unofficially supported and can only run Plasma 5 which is was not a mature version IMO. It is glitchy and lacks the functionalities that makes Plasma 6 complete. Ultimately if you are using a single monitor Mint is a great choice, just stick to Cinnamon.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed : It runs Plasma 6 out of the box. It also allows you to easily set up BTRFS Snapshot (a solid and easy to use recovery mode should something break your install) and encryption right at the install setup. If I remember well, Mint also has that support. It was remarkably stable for a rolling release distribution but I did have to use the Snapshot rollback a few times, mostly because NVidia kept messing up its driver updates. It is also a slightly oddball distro so you might sometimes encounter something that needs a minor workaround or require slightly different commands to work, something I always found a solution to with a quick internet search. The rolling release also means there are tons of updates coming out almost every day, which gets annoying after a while. Their package manager (zypper) is also relatively slow, not supporting parallel downloads yet. They are currently testing a Slow Release version (as opposed to Tumbleweed which is the rolling release version) that would tame it down but it's not officially released yet.
I'm now running Fedora KDE and I'm happy with it. It is easy to install and it just works. It is relatively mainstream so things work better. It is also very stable. The caveat being that the installation process doesn't include any support for easily setting up BTRFS snapshots and encrypted home folder. There is however a very solid step by step instructions video on YouTube on how to set it up and explaining what and why you are doing at every step that I used to set it up for myself. It is quite the process however and the installer has changed slightly since the video was made so there was a bit of hunting around.
They all work relatively easily with their own pros and cons.
I haven't tried it personally, but I think that Kububtu could also be an option for you . It is the KDE Plasma version of the most popular Linux distribution.
IMO as long as you don't pick something like Arch and don't mind doing a few quick web searches when you have questions it should be fine.
I'm disappointed to hear that Mint doesn't have Plasma 6 yet - I use Plasma 5 daily, so I'm familiar with its issues.
I'm unfamiliar with btrfs, but I feel like I remember it being a bit controversial at some point. AFAIK ext4 is still standard. Seems like btrfs has gained some popularity though, so I'll have to give that a look.
Fedora is probably my next choice after Ubuntu in terms of mainstream non-gaming distros, so I'm happy to see a vote for it.
Thanks for your insight!
I recommend BTRFS with snapper for anyone who isn't an expert, which includes myself.
With BTRFS with Snapper, should something break your install short of breaking your bootloader, it makes recovery completely idiot proof.
It is literally a matter of scrolling through a menu that appears for 3 seconds at startup to select an option in the lines of "boot from snapshot", pick a snapshot in the list that is time stamped to a time/date when your install still worked, let it boot up, make sure your OS started up fine, go in the console and enter the command "sudo snapper rollback" (which will tell the system to make the snapshot you are currently running the default one), enter your password and then reboot. Bam, you've just rolled back your OS to a point before it got broken. You don't even need to understand what broke it to begin with.
It saved my ass a few times already. Trying to recover a broken operating system without this tool requires a whole lot more knowledge than I have.
I've just learned that the latest Trixie version of Debian runs Plasma 6 as well. Another route to explore depending how new your hardware is.
It is also to be noted that this means that Plasma 6 support will likely trickle down to Linux Mint through Linux Mint Debian Edition 7. Eventually, maybe. If that happens, it will become a solid package for users who want a very stable, approachable and easy to use distro that is compatible with KDE Plasma 6. It might not come pre-packaged with KDE Plasma, but it should be relatively simple and quick to follow a walkthrough to install it after since at its core it will be compatible with it.