I'm quite happy with Fedora. It has kde support, many apps (especially with rpmfusion), and is quite stable because it is still a 6 month ish major release schedule. Wobbly windows, kde connect, and krunnuer will definitely work. Good customization is subjective, and honestly I consider c/unixporn to be weird but cool wizardry, but I'm happy with it. One thing to consider is if you have a newer amd CPU with an iGPU being used it will get slow and crash every now and then (few months). It's a bug in the linux kernel starting around 6.10.
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Good customization is subjective
Yes, but I mean you can customize a lot in settings, themes, icons, etc
I have a 5800x and a 6950 so it should be okay
Yeah, that's a kde thing, so I doubt it would be very different than neon.
If it doesn't crash for no reason I'm happy with that
Nothing crashes for no reason. Until you identify the reason, you’re employing stochastic problem solving.
the Bazzite KDE flavor sounds like what you need
OpenSuSE with default filesystem configuration
or kubuntu
Try Aurora DX (it means the developer edition). It's KDE but with a Fedora base and immutability. It means that even if an update breaks something (unlikely but still) you will always have a working system available to fall back to. It does mean that development is meant to be done via containers, but I find this solution to be way cleaner and easier to work with than traditional package conflicts madness. Give it a go.
It also means updates are just full system images, so no way for a package manager or differential update to mess anything up. It also means no way of downloading tiny differential updates (if I understand everything correctly).
If you don't need DX or would like to switch off of KDE, there are other fedora atomic desktop based distributions available.
Oh right, a distribution is just an image, so switching distributions is as simple as switching the base OS image and rebooting.
Fedora KDE spin might be suitable for you.
why not arch? it's a fun distro to try if you haven't yet
Because I'm used to Debian and the features listed? Krunner, Wobbly windows (useless but heh), full KDE connect support
Krunner, wobbly windows and KDE connect are features of KDE Plasma, not Debian. You can install KDE plasma on arch and use all of the things you listed. Arch also has good app support through the AUR. Plus the wiki is called the Linux bible for a reason
Atomic distros were created to solve exactly that problem. I like Bazzite because it also has seamless background updates (among other reasons).
I'm looking for good apps support so Debian?
Any Debian fork will run .deb packages. But plain Debian is just very vanilla and will be missing a lot of stuff you'll probably want.
Wobbly windows (yes useless but cool lol) Good customization KDE connect support (a must) Krunner or equivalent (MacOS like search)
These are all going to be features of the DE, and you can install any DE on any distro (AFAIK).
I tried Bazzite as my first try with Linux for a while and liked it; it was super easy. I didn't like that the immutability went so far as to lock me out of some parts of the OS that I thought should be open, like lock screen customization.
Now I am on Garuda Arch and it has been really easy too.
I (after a lot of prior distro hopping) went from neon to tuxedo OS and have had very few issues, and only one that was major (was my own fault).
I'll install it tomorrow! I want to try it
cool, lmk what you think after you try it. also, there's no posts yet but on one of my Lemmy accounts I made a community for it.
you should take a look at TuxedoOS it's KDE with quality control
Do I really want KDE again? Not sure. The "recent" (a few months old) update broke my previous install and I had to format and now it freezes my whole PC out of nowhere. I'm tired of restarting it at least twice a week for this
That's the quality control piece, since tuxedo uses it on their computers and wants the customers to have a seamless experience they test all updates
I wish people at KDE neon did the same. Broke mine and others installs
Out of curiosity, can I have /home/ in a separate disk? So if I have to reinstall I don't lose everything nor I have to back up everything
That's a thing with Neon. It's the "testing ground" for new KDE releases so they won't guarantee stability. It literally is just Ubuntu LTS with a KDE repo thrown on top, and the Neon devs themselves only maintain that repo, with just a short delay after the new Ubuntu LTS release comes out. In Neon, the users are the quality control for KDE releases. I was using it for a little over a year until the rebase to Ubintu 24.04 broke my install. I went to Nobara, a gaming focused distro based on Fedora that uses a custom version of KDE as the default. I just upgraded to the newest version not realizing it wasn't official yet, and it must have been the smoothest major version upgrade I've ever had in a non-rolling distro. It's maintained by GloriousEggroll, who also builds/maintains the customized GE versions of Proton on Steam. I'm finding it's not just a good gaming distro but a solid and stable distro overall. GloriousEggroll puts a lot of work into ensuring that on top of the Proton work he does. If you don't want the gaming performance customizations he makes, try Fedora KDE spin, it's likely to be pretty similar and I rarely ever hear someone have a problem with Fedora.
On your other question, next time you reinstall you can create a separate Home partition on your drive that should allow you to do what you're looking for. So you have your boot and swap partitions and the one you install your distro to, and then your home partition, so you just install the new distro over the old distro and it should leave your home partition alone.
i know and I wish there was an update to address the problems/revert them but after months of freezes, I have Christmas vacations to change OS.
I went to Nobara, a gaming focused distro based on Fedora
What do you use? Official? What does "gaming focused" means here?
The official looks tempting but not sure if has any of my "requirements" but I could try the KDE version
I don't remember if I went with the official or the pure KDE version. Either one should work. You can always try both out in a live USB before installing. The gaming focus refers to some modifications made to some drivers/software for the purpose of improving gaming performance. When you update your software you have to use Nobara's update program in order to ensure that those mods are applied and preserved.
Nixos, never have that break happen again
For what you call 'MacOS like search' I'd recommand Recoll, working on any OS (and perfectly on my Debian install, for years on) : really can find ANY text string inside any document, from almost any app (e. g. Joplin, that I'd bet nobody heard of here), also including e. g. words within attachments within zipped backup email databases, pictures located on unpermanent backup volumes etc.
Regularly updated, that the one thing that definitely had me 'finally forgetting' MacOSX.
I didn't know how to exactly tell people how the search is but if I can also search inside files, it's even better! I'll try it for sure
Everyone is recommending KDE, but forgive me if I'm missing something, I don't see it needing to be KDE support as a requirement on your list?
Any mainstream GNOME distro, eg Fedora, will have all the features you need through extensions (compiz window effect, gconnect for KDE Konnect, GNOME has the search you want by default and supports lots of customisation via shell themes, GTK themes, icon packs and extensions.
Edit: )
Why cripple Gnome to something Knomeish when OP is already familiar with KDE and there are gazzillions of KDE distros?
it sounds like you're looking for kubuntu since it checks off every one of those bullet points.
I'll see if someone suggests me anything else and I'll try it. Not sure if it has the apps menu at full screen (macOS style) or not, not a big deal though
Not a fan of Macbooks but Idk how to explain it otherwise
i used to use the baghira kde theme and it mimics the unified system/apps menu that osx uses.
it's a bit dated so you'll have to look for something newer and i would be surprised if it doesn't already exist somewhere
If you like KDE your night find endeavouros with KDE pretty good. It is an arch derivative so it is rolling release, if that is acceptable then I would say give it a try.
I don't like the recent update and all the problems it has but I like KDE as OS yeah
KDE is a desktop environment, you can install it on almost all distributions and it will look and behave same (yes can use wobly windows and krunner). I do not recommend KDE on Debian12 as its outdated enough that you can't install themes from kde's settings anymore.
Personally I recommend Fedora's KDE Spin, I believe its a distribution that you can install and forget and occasionally check for updates on kde's software center.
There's also arch based distros like cachyos or endeavouros with calamares installer that let you choose desktop environment before install.
I can highly recommend Bazzite for your needs. It has a KDE version which is clearly your favorite Desktop Environment (DE), it's extremely safe/stable due to being an Atomic distro (you can always boot into the previous image if a system update broke something), has incredible documentation, supports almost any traditional app through Distrobox (VPN requires rpm-ostree for now), has a scripted easy install of Waydroid for native android emulation, and has a few tweaks preconfigured to ensure the desktop gaming experience is a little more seamless out of the box than a stock distro. It really seems to tick all the boxes for what you're looking for.
If you want more focus on development and less on gaming, the Universal Blue team also makes Aurora for more developer-focused workloads, but Steam not being included in the image does introduce some usability regressions - Steam running via Flatpak or Distrobox is just plain less capable than a native install, though work is ongoing to make native installs Just Work even on Atomic systems.
My only problem is I'm used to Debian and I find arch/fedora/etc very confusing, do you have any tips/guide to help transitioning?