This update covers a whole bunch of milestones, including finally testing + getting a working LiveUSB Linux distro running on one of my desktop machines, and a whole bunch of new learnings about not only distro choices, but also the impact of different KDE Plasma versions, and also configurations that I like and/or install steps needed to get various distros ready to use. All in all - lots of interesting learnings since the last update!
1) The Live USB "Bare Metal" Tests
Spurred by Windows finally forcing a restart to apply what is presumably one of the last updates it will ever likely apply, a few weeks ago, I decided to take the opportunity to finally try booting into a Live USB to try to run Linux "bare metal" on my hardware, to check how well all my stuff will work when I make a permanent switch later. I'm not quite at the point where I can throw caution to the wind and just do a full hard swap-over. BUT, doing a baremetal test (vs running in a VM) was always going to be a crucial hurdle to have to pass.
1.1) BIOS Wrangling - Getting my machine to boot from a USB drive
The very first hurdle was figuring out which set of keys I needed to frantically mash on reboot to get into the BIOS for this machine. (It seems I don't have this in my notes now, but apparently I probably used the "DEL" key)
Then I needed to try to disable Secure Boot just in case (i.e. by switching that to "Other OS"), and switch the boot order so my USB Drive would get picked up... Unlike on other machines I've tried this exercise on, this machine's BIOS (ASUS / TUF Gaming) made all this a bit of a hassle.
Then I finally tried to get it to boot...
1.2) Manjaro Unbootable
Oh crap! It very quickly spewed a *VERY* scary looking red TUI warning from the early 90's, then booted straight into Windows again! (Tried a few more times, and had to reset the BIOS settings each time to allow that again to try again... but each time, nope, no go!)
From this exercise, I've concluded that apparently Manjaro (+ Arch) distros don't have secure boot keys, so are gonna be practically unusable on this machine... (Their recommendations to configure things after installing are kindof stupid if you can't even boot at all to install!) Oh well, good to know this up front!
1.3) Back to KUbuntu (24.x LTS)
At this point, I realised that I needed to go back to one of the "corporate-supported" distros (i.e. Ubuntu, Fedora / RH, or OpenSuse) for this machine. Hence, I decided to give good ol' Kubuntu another shot (as OpenSuse has proven too weird + quirky + bugged to be a viable option in 2025 (i.e. the Python packaging mess on that distro is untenable!); meanwhile, Fedora wouldn't even boot in my VM's, so I didn't want to have to reflash that USB 3 times in quick succession!).
So the Kubuntu 24.x LTS ISO it was!
Why? Well, that was the version I had at hand, thinking that I'd really prefer a "stable" version of the OS + all utilities instead of things breaking constantly + needing a full OS reinstall every 6 months (which I really don't have time + energy for). This is after all a big reason for getting away from Window's constant updates + breakages!
Result: Well, that generally works!
I subsequently spent the next day using it exclusively, logging in/out, putting into sleep and waking it hours later (with / without switching away to another machine), and connecting up my various peripherals + checking they were all usable. (Well, except for my webcam, which I forgot about!) Everything passed well in general.
Dicey Moments:
* On initial startup, I had a small nervous moment between the first bootloader screen and the second one thinking it was about to reboot into Windows! (Granted, even in the VM, Kubuntu seems way slower than all the other distros, and would jump about between several different stages)
* Sleep works, as does locking with Win-L. BUT, locking is a bit scary as it goes into a terminal with error text about nouveau drivers... then sits there with a blinking cursor
Downsides:
There were only really 3 downsides to this setup:
1) The single biggest downer was that the taskbar configuration options on Kubuntu 24 LTS are way too pathetically limited! Including a whole bunch of tweaks I want to do to it to make it less annoying (though still miles better than Windows or the Gnome Dash-to-Panel with default settings)
2) Hardware wise, the only quirk was graphics performance. On the whole, everything worked pretty darn well - except when using WebGL's Aquarium demo on the "heavy" settings, which sent everything from 60fps down to < 10fps. (I later confirmed that on Windows, the real graphics card shouldn't break a sweat dealing with that, as I expect)
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to test yet if the "ubuntu-drivers" fix works or not
3) Not sure if it's because it's a live session, but resuming from sleep after using other machine is a bit rough! It initially showed the desktop signed in, then it flicked to that "nouveau errors" screen, before getting stuck on the blinking cursor. Found by trial and error that I needed to use Ctrl Alt F3 to get back into the Login Screen... hmm...
2) KDE Plasma Versions + Rethinking Distro Choices
After a lot more digging, I finally understood why I found the KDE Taskbar's adjustment options so crippled / pathetic on this Kubuntu (vs when I tried Manjaro): Yeah... I chose the LTS version here, which means it's an ancient Plasma 5 version, and all the stuff that I really liked was from 6.4!!! Argh!
But staying on Plasma 5 isn't really an option either, hence, I started looking into maybe using the shorter-lived 6 month releases with a need to then switch to the next LTS that has newer packages...
Hence, the Kubuntu 25.10 VM setup, after also weighing up whether "KDE Neon" may be a better fit... Hmm, I might still try KDE Neon too for good measure, as the neat new stuff in KDE Plasma 6.5 does mean that we still seem to be in a period of relative flux (i.e. each new KDE version does tend to bring a lot of stuff I want, whereas I'd usually prefer a more fixed / stable experience for most other things)
And just for the hell of it, I checked Rocky Linux in a VM (KDE version), since we'll be moving to that at work from next year, and I might as well just buckle down on one or two ecosystems that I get to know very well... (In general, I like this a lot more than Kubuntu TBH, though the install steps for the Nvidia drivers seem a bit troublesome)
2.1) VM Sound Issues
It turns out that the issues seen in Manjaro trying when trying to play back any audio (e.g. Firefox videos, but also simply OS notification sounds too) are now endemic across the Linux ecosystem for the current generation of pipewire libraries, as I've now run into the same problems when running in VM's with my hardware on both "Kubuntu 25.10" AND "Rocky Linux KDE 10" (in addition to Manjaro).
Fortunately, the fix from the Arch wiki for these apparent VM issues works across all:
NOTE: I'm including the instructions below so that I can just copy-paste all this next time I need it, since that wiki is a Gitlab one behind an Anubis delay-screen.
Add the following settings to a config file at: ~/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/50-alsa-config.conf
```
monitor.alsa.rules = [
{
matches = [
# This matches the value of the 'node.name' property of the node.
{
node.name = "~alsa_output.*"
}
]
actions = {
# Apply all the desired node specific settings here.
update-props = {
api.alsa.period-size = 1024
api.alsa.headroom = 8192
}
}
}
]
```
...
2.2) KDE Plasma 6.5
From the release notes + what I've seen on Manjaro (after it finally gave me a big bunch of updates the other day), once again, there's a whole bunch of stuff I really like in the new update and wish would be available on the other distros.
Things I really like:
* I love that the desktop wallpaper has now got an extra settings widget (+ popup window) which allows configuring it to switch between the "Day" and "Night" versions of a wallpaper set (which works particularly nicely with that nice Lighthouse theme they have by default), and that this works out of the box now.
This is a feature I first saw from the RHEL 7.9 Gnome desktop background (albeit that's a much simpler setup) that I wished KDE Plasma had as soon as I saw that quite a few of those wallpapers have Light + Dark versions. So yeah, it's very cool!
2.3) Outstanding KDE Annoyances (6.4)
Finally in this section, I'll be covering a bit some of the annoyances I've run into during testing, and/or my progress on resolving these (hoping that a version 6.6 may do something about them ;)
1) Themeing Settings for "Login" vs "Lock" Screens
Only after a lot of failed attempts, and reading lots of different blog posts and discussion threads, I finally stumbled across the answer I was looking for!
Apparently, the "Login" / SDDM and "Lock" screens, though they look similar, are handled via two separate sets of settings (as they are actually different applications)!!!
* The Login / SDDM one is actually the one you're less likely to encounter, but will more easily be able to find settings for configuring the layout and so forth (including being able to install custom ones, and to then configure the appearance settings for those per plugin)
* The "Lock" screen however is the one you're gonna keep running into everytime you leave your machine alone for a while. For that one, you need to search for "Lock" (in the left-hand category pane), and then use the "Appearance" button in the top-right toolbar to set/change the wallpaper it uses.
No wonder I kept thinking this thing was buggered! I'd been changing settings on the Login (i.e. never see it in practice) settings, whereas I should've used the other settings areas instead! Doh!
2) Icon Settings for Dolphin back/forward buttons
One thing I haven't been able to fix yet though is that the back/forward buttons on Dolphin's main toolbar are always configured to use annoyingly thin monochrome icons, and trying to search for alternative icons doesn't show any viable alternatives.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there are many / any themes out there that replace those "action" icons, as most only bother theming the big glossy folder-view ones.
3) Corresponding GTK Theme
While it looks like I have some control over the scrollbars to make them less sucky (i.e. not as thin, as definitely not auto-hiding), we seem to still lack a good GTK theme that allows making similar tweaks to match what you can done via KDEs Appearance settings
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