If you love the Plasma desktop and don’t mind a little more distro fragmentation, I have good news and I have great news. KDE is developing its own flagship Linux distribution, currently code-named “Project Banana,” with the goal of presenting it as “The KDE operating system.” And there’s already a prototype.
But what exactly is Project Banana, how will it distinguish itself from the plethora of great KDE Plasma-powered distros already in existence, and why does it need to exist at all?
Nope, It’s Not KDE Neon
If you’re confused, that confusion is warranted. KDE Neon has historically been promoted as the Linux distro to install if you want the latest and greatest Plasma desktop features and updates. They’re served up using the newest Ubuntu LTS (Long-Term Support) base, without opinionated patches or changes to default settings. In essence, the way the developers intended. KDE Neon has 4 different editions meant for a variety of use-cases, and the distro itself is targeted at “KDE enthusiasts.”
But if you’re a fan of the Plasma desktop, you also have Kubuntu, the official KDE flavor of Ubuntu. Fedora’s KDE Desktop Spin just got upgraded from an alternative to the GNOME Workstation Edition (a “Spin”) to an official offering. Then there’s SteamOS 3, Garuda, Tuxedo OS, and dozens of other solid distros shipping with Plasma.
This begs the question: why does another in-house, flagship KDE Plasma distro need to be created?
Meet KDE Linux
KDE recently shared an overview of the in-development distro, but I’d treat it as an aspirational design document rather than a roadmap that’s set in stone. Still, there’s a lot to grok from the details.
Let’s start with the project’s stated goal: “Create a bulletproof OS showcasing the best of KDE that we can proudly recommend to users and OEMs, with a coherent ‘here’s how you get it’ story.”
Someone with a background in marketing and brand identity definitely wrote that sentence. As KDE continues to gain mindshare and ramp up its fundraising efforts, it’s important to have 100% control over how its products and brand image get presented to everyday end users, developers, and hardware partners.
There’s another advantage which the team calls: “KDE can explicitly recommend it without “picking favorites” from among other distro partners.”
Free of outside influence, in control of its own narrative, and in directly in charge of its business relationships. This all makes a lot of sense.
The distro’s architecture is where KDE Linux looks to diverge from something like KDE Neon. According to the doc, it will use Arch as its base with “some degree of rolling” updates. Like SteamOS and Fedora Kinoite, that base system will be a read-only. Furthermore, images will be “Atomic” enabling easy rollbacks in case an update introduces unwanted problems.
The team is also targeting easy automatic user backups using Btrfs snapshots, with an elegant GUI inspired by Apple’s Time Machine on macOS.
Other interesting tidbits: Wayland session by default, Flatpak software by default, and the ability to switch between the 3 editions on offer.
The planned editions take a page from KDE Neon: Testing, Enthusiast, and Stable. Notably, the Stable edition of KDE Linux is intended for “everyone else,” as opposed to the Stable edition of KDE Neon being meant for enthusiasts. That’s an important distinction and I hope it forecasts a very user-friendly operating system.
But will this replace KDE Neon? I’m not sure, but there’s a pretty heavy clue in the document: “KDE neon fulfills the ‘distributed by KDE’ requirement, but fails on the reliability angle due to the Ubuntu LTS base that ironically becomes unstable because it needs to be tinkered with to get Plasma to build on it, breaking the LTS promise.”
When Will KDE Linux Get Released?
As of this writing, it’s impossible to know when KDE Linux, or “Project Banana”, will be ready for mainstream use. The design document has a Roadmap section, but it’s currently empty. It’ll be fascinating to watch this get developed out in the open, and as a fan of all things KDE I’ll keep you posted as the project reaches certain milestones.
