Kubuntu versus KDE neon Often times when I'm browsing open source forums I run into variations of the query "Why do we need KDE neon when we have Kubuntu?" Or, possibly the inverse: "What is the benefit to running Kubuntu when we have KDE neon?" Sometimes the question is more neutral: "What is the difference between running Kubuntu with backports and running KDE neon?"



These are fair questions. While Kubuntu tends to be seen as being more geared toward end users and KDE neon tends to be regarded as being a way for curious testers to try out the latest KDE technology, there is a lot of overlap between the two projects. Both are based on Ubuntu, both feature recent releases of the KDE Plasma desktop, and both stick pretty close to a vanilla KDE experience. This got me wondering if there is much of a difference between the two projects from the end-user's point of view. Are they basically the same experience with slightly different configurations, or are there practical differences in play that would make a users choose one over the other?



I decided to find out. I downloaded a snapshot of the User edition of KDE neon and a copy of Kubuntu. Since KDE neon is based on Ubuntu long-term support (LTS) releases, specifically Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, I opted to download Kubuntu 18.04.2 in order to make sure the base operating systems were as close to the same as I could get. Then I started comparing the two side-by-side.



Getting started Before installing these two distributions, there are a couple of noteworthy differences. The first is that Kubuntu runs on 32-bit and 64-bit x86 machines and its ISO is 1.8GB in size. KDE neon has a slightly smaller ISO at 1.4GB, and also supports 64-bit x86 machines. However, KDE neon does not offer a 32-bit build, instead providing an aarch64 build for Pinebook computers.



While both versions of the distributions I downloaded were based on Ubuntu LTS (specifically Ubuntu 18.04 LTS in this case) with five years of security updates, the Kubuntu project publishes new releases every six months with the non-LTS versions offering nine months of support.



Installing



Booting from the KDE neon live disc presents us with the Plasma desktop. On the desktop is a single icon which launches the Ubiquity installer. There is a panel at the bottom of the desktop that holds the application menu launcher and system tray.





KDE neon 20190215 -- The KDE neon desktop and application menu

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Starting the graphical Ubiquity installer brings up a screen which asks us to select our preferred language and offers a link we can click to update to the latest version of the installer. Clicking the update link did nothing on my system. The next page offers to download new packages and/or third-party software such as media codecs and wireless card support. The installer then walks us through partitioning the hard drive, selecting our time zone and creating a user account. The install process is pleasantly quick and easy.



Kubuntu boots off the live media and presents us with a welcome screen where we are asked if we would like to try the live desktop or jump straight into the installer. On this page we can click a link to open a web browser which will show us a list of past Kubuntu releases and, optionally, release notes for each version. Proceeding with the installation will bring up a prompt asking if we want to perform a Normal install (with a full suite of desktop software) or a Minimal install, which basically just sets up a bare Plasma desktop with a web browser. I opted to do the Normal install as it was the default. The rest of the install process was the same as it was with KDE neon, where we are asked if we want to download third-party packages, how we want to partition the hard drive, and what we want to name our user account.



Both installers worked well and, though there were sometimes delays while packages were downloaded over the network, both distributions installed without any problems.



Early impressions



KDE neon boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign into either a Plasma on X.Org session or a Plasma on Wayland session. Signing into our account presents us with an empty desktop with a red and star-covered wallpaper. A modern, single-pane application menu enables us to launch programs. I am not a fan of this style of application menu as it takes more clicks and mouse movement to get around, though this can be offset by using the menu's search bar to look up programs. The Plasma desktop uses a grey theme combined with fairly colourful icons.



Kubuntu boots to a similar graphical login screen and offers a Plasma on X.Org session only. Kubuntu features purple & brown wallpaper and there are two icons on the desktop for launching the Dolphin file manager. Kubuntu uses the same application menu as KDE neon does, though the panel and menu have a darker, charcoal background. I liked the darker theme used by Kubuntu as I found it made the text and icons stand out more.



With both distributions there are virtually no distractions or notifications. When software updates were available, an icon in the system tray would light up. Otherwise Plasma pleasantly stayed out of my way.





Kubuntu 18.04.2 -- Running the Plasma desktop

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Hardware



It should not be any surprise that, since the two projects share a common base, they perform almost identically in the same test environments. Both distributions integrate nicely with VirtualBox and can make use of the host machine's full screen resolution. Both projects detected all of my workstation's hardware, allowing them to play audio, detect my wireless card, connect to the Internet and stream videos. I found both distributions were a little sluggish to start and respond when run in VirtualBox. Both were still usable, but there were slight delays to input in the virtual machines. When run on physical hardware both systems were responsive.



There were some small differences in relation to hardware and performance. KDE neon used 370MB of RAM (memory usage was approximately the same whether I signed into the X.Org or Wayland sessions) and the distribution used 4.8GB of disk space. Kubuntu used 380MB of RAM (almost an identical amount), but was smaller on the disk, using 3.6GB of my disk's storage capacity. I found this interesting as Kubuntu ships with a good deal more applications. Which brings me to...



Applications



Kubuntu, at least when it is installed with its Normal software set, ships with more application out of the box than KDE neon. Kubuntu offers users KDE Plasma 5.12 with the Qt 5.9.5 library. The Firefox web browser, KMail, the KDRC remote desktop client and LibreOffice are all installed for us. The KTorrent bittorrent client, the Akregator feed reader and Kontact address book are included. Digging further through the menu we find the Okular document viewer, the Gwenview image viewer and the Skanlite scanner program. The Cantata music player, VLC multimedia player and K3b disc burning software are also offered. Kubuntu can be installed with codecs for playing most audio and video files.





Kubuntu 18.04.2 -- Running Firefox and LibreOffice

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There are a number of other small programs too, including an archive manager, the Kate text editor, Kleopatra for managing security certificates and the Dolphin file manager. There are also common applications such as a task monitor and log viewer. Kubuntu ships with version 4.18 of the Linux kernel and uses systemd for its init software. (I believe Kubuntu 18.04 originally shipped with version 4.15 of the kernel and it was updated for media refreshes, bringing it to 4.18 when Kubuntu 18.04.2 was made available.)



KDE neon offers users KDE Plasma 5.15 and version 5.12 of the Qt libraries. Like its cousin, it ships with Firefox, VLC, Okular and Gwenview. The same task monitor, Dolphin file manager and Konsole virtual terminal are present. KDE neon ships with the same Ark archive manager, but uses KWrite instead of Kate for text editing. KDE neon also makes it easy to find the KDE Help documentation. In the background we again find systemd being used for init and version 4.15 of the Linux kernel.





KDE neon 20190215 -- Adjusting settings and checking for updates

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Both distributions feature the KDE System Settings panel and, by default, the panel is presented in a two-pane mode. Categories of settings are displayed down the left and specific settings are shown on the right.





Kubuntu 18.04.2 -- Adjusting the look of the desktop

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When running both projects, I found they played multimedia files smoothly and without problem on my workstation, but VLC would crash when asked to play video files when I ran either distribution in VirtualBox. Audio files would play on both distributions in either test environment.



Software management



Both Kubuntu and KDE neon notify the user of software updates by highlighting an icon in the system tray. Clicking this icon pops up a widget which lets us know new packages are available and we can click a button to open the Discover software manager. Discover will then display a list of available updates and let us select which ones we want to download. The process is smooth and gives us flexibility in what we want to install.





KDE neon 20190215 -- Installing software using Discover

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Discover is used for installing and removing desktop software too. Discover's overview of settings and available categories of applications can be found in a sidebar to the left. A list of available software in a selected category is shown on the right. Programs are listed with their name and icon and we can click a single button to queue a package to be installed or removed.





Kubuntu 18.04.2 -- Browsing available applications

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I found Discover worked fairly well. Sometimes the software manager would lock up for a few seconds when switching between pages, but otherwise it functioned as expected. Discover offered the same experience on both distributions for all practical purposes. My one complaint with Discover is that it prompts us before performing any install or removal action. We can queue up as many new packages as we want to be downloaded, but then we need to sit and babysit Discover, putting in our password for each item in the action queue.



Kubuntu also ships with the Muon package manager. Muon looks a lot like Debian's Synaptic and deals with lower level packages rather than just desktop programs. Muon has a nice look to it and I found its interface easy to navigate. This was appreciated as Muon offers a good deal of software categories, information and software management options. I do not think KDE neon has a similar GUI tool for managing non-desktop packages, but both projects can make use of the APT command line tools for low-level package management.



X.Org and Wayland



I briefly tried the KDE neon session option that runs the Plasma desktop on Wayland. While it was functional, I kept finding little problems that made the experience less enjoyable than the default X.Org session. Most of these involved the inconsistent handling of the mouse pointer. I also found some application windows would open partially off screen. These issues were not really serious in the big picture, but they did convince me to focus on using the X.Org session for most of my trial.



Kubuntu with backport PPA



I wanted to try running Kubuntu with the latest available Plasma desktop available. There is a page on the KDE website which explains how to enable a repository of backports which provides newer versions of packages. I followed its instructions and, while many packages were updated, when the process was done (and I had rebooted) I was still running Plasma 5.12. The 5.12 release appears to be almost identical, functionally speaking, to the newer 5.15 release on KDE neon.



Conclusions



At first, I saw very little difference between the two projects. Kubuntu and KDE neon support different secondary CPU architectures (32-bit x86 and aarch64, respectively), and the live media boots to a slightly different initial screen, but otherwise the two projects offer very similar first impressions. Kubuntu gives us the option of installing more software with its Normal package set, so it is probably a better choice for less experienced users, however, like the default colour themes, it's a small difference.



Once I got started using the two distributions I still did not notice much difference. KDE neon had a Wayland session available by default while I would need to install Wayland separately on Kubuntu, but otherwise the two projects offered nearly identical experiences in applications, hardware support, settings and software management.



For the first couple of days I did not run into any key features that separated the two, even though the two desktops were running different versions of Plasma. Eventually, I did start to spot a few minor details that set the two projects apart, and I suspect they could all be explained by Kubuntu running a slightly older version of Plasma. The software manager, Discover, had a more polished layout on KDE neon; its elements line up better on the screen. The Spectacle screenshot tool has fewer save options and better defaults on KDE neon too. After a while I started to notice KDE neon offered a slightly more responsive desktop than Kubuntu, though I'm not sure if this resulted from which default services are run or improvements in Plasma's code.



In the end, I came away feeling that both projects, for most people, effectively offer the same experience. Kubuntu's theme looks a little nicer and is a little less bleeding edge. KDE neon offers the very latest KDE software, in stable or cutting-edge editions. Unless a person absolutely needs less common hardware support, or wants to test a brand new KDE feature, I think most users will be equally happy with either distribution. * * * * * Hardware used in this review



My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications: Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU

Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive

Memory: 6GB of RAM

Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card

Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card