KDE Linux

“KDE Linux” is a work-in-progress name of a KDE-owned general-purpose Linux distribution proposed at Akademy 2024. Not to be confused with KDE Neon.

Warning

This page serves as a design document, thus information presented here should be considered a snapshot of the ongoing discussion, not final decisions.

TODO: background, motivation

Goals

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.

It should never break, and if it does anyway, this should be detectable and roll-backable to the previous OS partition. Maybe even call home and inform about breakage so we can pull the update. Can do this with systemd-sysupdates.

Target audience and use cases

It should have multiple editions suitable for different kinds of users. Ideas:

• Developer edition: built from git master and released daily, including debugging tools and KDE dev environment. Like Neon Developer.
• Enthusiast edition: ships released software, and releases to users on upstream KDE's schedule, like Neon User. Additionally, when there are any beta releases, ships the beta.
• Stable edition: ships only released software on a delayed schedule, based on TBD quality metrics.

Requirements

These are the needs that the proposed solution has to fulfill for it to be considered acceptable:

Distributed by KDE directly.

TODO (UX, minimum hardware requirements that we have to support, maintainability, independence, etc.)

Non-requirements

Does not have to support the proprietary NVIDIA kernel driver. We can require that NVIDIA GPUs must either be new enough to use the open-source kernel modules that can be distributed in-tree, or else use Nouveau.

Architecture

Original architecture ideas for the project included the following:

• Reproducible builds, must-pass CI, automated UI testing
• Base OS is Arch-based. OS updates are some degree of rolling; snapshot based releases with relatively recent libraries
• Systemd-boot as the bootloader
• Btrfs as the filesystem
• Encryption of all mutable data (e.g. user homedir, and cache locations on /)
• Included recovery partition
• Read-only base system, like SteamOS, Kinoite, and MicroOS
• Atomic image-based A/B updates with rollback functionality
• Manual package installation happens transparently using a per-user or systemwide overlay
• Apps are from Flatpak (and maybe also Snap if it's not too hard and the UX is okay)
• Has nice GRUB (systemd-boot?) theming: https://blog.inadvisor.lt/bling-up-your-fedora-grub.
• Wayland by default
• Automatic user data backup system using Btrfs snapshots, with a nice GUI around it like Apple's Time Machine
• DConf-like configuration management UI suitable for enterprise and managed environments leveraging KConfigXT for everything
• Simple input method configuration for CJK and more
• "Troubleshooting hub" app

TODO (hardware support, file system, base disro, boot process, software separation, security model, deployment, updates and rollbacks, localization, OEM mode; proposed solution, alternatives, trade-offs for each section)

Related projects

Differences from other immutable distros

(e.g. Kinoite, MicroOS, SteamOS)

Principally, that it is distributed by KDE. This has several advantages:

• The chain of responsibility is never gated on a third party
• KDE and KDE e.V. can have a direct relationship with third parties using it, e.g. hardware OEMs
• KDE can explicitly recommend it without "picking favorites" from among other distro partners

TODO: differences on a technical level (e.g. another approach to updates / isolation? i.e. why this is not just a copy of Kinoite distributed by KDE)

Prior art

KDE Neon, KDE's first version of a self-made OS. 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.

Roadmap

TODO (milestones)

Long-term maintenance

TODO (team and infrastructure requirements for long-term sustainability after release; update cycles; testing infrastructure; architectural future-proofness)

Governance

TODO

Promotion

TODO (name and branding, public image, effect on relations with other distros and hardware partners)

Communication

• Matrix room
• Gitlab issues

Prototype

The code is currently located here. Note that it is not representative of the final product and exists solely as an experimental playground for now.

Resources

• Presentation by Harald Sitter at Akademy 2024 (slides, recording).