KDE-Linux is finally working perfectly - even though it's not quite in beta yet

 That's right.  KDE-Linux (that might not be its final name though) is still technically in Alpha development, but I've now done most of the testing I need to get it working for me.  I didn't have to 'fix' anything.  Just had to add a couple of things and learn a few others.  Little differences but they make life much more pleasant for me.

I'll start with a list of the things I really 'wanted' that I already have in KDE-neon.

Colourful stuff in the Terminal.  I've recently migrated from Neofetch in KDE-neon and I use lolcat to make it colourful.  Neither of those were in KDE-Linux, so I had to add them as well as a couple of other command line tools.  I read somewhere that Homebrew (used on Apple Mac systems) could run on Linux, and I found the command to add that to KDE-Linux:

I also wanted to find out why Samba didn't seem to be working for me.  I tried installing Samba from Flatpack, but that made no difference.

SO I did some digging and the command to add Hopmebrew seemed to be simple enopough.  I ran a few commands one after the other that were supposed to install; Homebrew then make sure it 'was' installed and check that it worked.  Looking back through my Terminalk history (Konsole) using the up and down Arrow navigation keys on my keyboard I got the following (as close as I can see):

nux@kde-linux:~] $ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

nux@kde-linux:~] $     echo >> /home/ross-KDElinux/.zshrc

nux@kde-linux:~] $     echo 'eval "$(/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"' >> /home/ross-KDElinux/.zshrc

nux:~] $     eval "$(/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"

nux@kde-linux:~] $ brew install hello

nux@kde-linux:~] $ brew install hello

Warning: hello 2.12.3 is already installed and up-to-date.

To reinstall 2.12.3, run:

  brew reinstall hello

nux@kde-linux:~] $ brew install imagemagick-full

nux@kde-linux:~] $ brew link imagemagick-full

nux:~] $ brew install samba

nux@kde-linux:~] [1] $ brew install fastfetch

nux@kde-linux:~] [1] $ brew install lolcat

The next thing I did was try:

nux@kde-linux:~] $ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

nux@kde-linux:~] $     echo >> /home/ross-KDElinux/.zshrc

nux@kde-linux:~] $     echo 'eval "$(/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"' >> /home/ross-KDElinux/.zshrc

nux:~] $     eval "$(/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"

nux@kde-linux:~] $ brew install hello

nux@kde-linux:~] $ brew install hello

Warning: hello 2.12.3 is already installed and up-to-date.

To reinstall 2.12.3, run:

  brew reinstall hello

nux@kde-linux:~] $ brew install imagemagick-full

nux@kde-linux:~] $ brew link imagemagick-full

nux:~] $ brew install samba

nux@kde-linux:~] [1] $ brew install fastfetch

nux@kde-linux:~] [1] $ brew install lolcat

The next thing I did was:
fastfetch | lolcat

in the Terminal (Konsole) and I got:

Which pleased me.then I opened my ~/Home directory and found a file called .zshrc
Now, .bashrc controls a lot of little variables you can change in how the various Terminals running bash work in Ubuntu derviatives of Linux that run the bash shell.
KDE-Linux runs the zsh shell and that works a bit differently.

So I made a couple of changes to .zshrc so it now looks like this:

"
# This file sets up some sane defaults and a nicer prompt for ZSH.

# Comment out the lines below to reset ZSH to its default settings.

if [[ -f '/usr/share/zsh/plugins/kde-linux-default/kde-linux-default-zshrc.zsh' ]]; then

    source '/usr/share/zsh/plugins/kde-linux-default/kde-linux-default-zshrc.zsh'

fi

eval "$(/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"

fastfetch | lolcat

"

That last line means that every time I start the Terminal it comes up and runs fastfetch in those fancy colours.

I also discovered that there's a Toggle in the KDE-Liinux Settings > Remote Desktop that lets you turn on an RDP Server.
RDP is Remote Desktop Protocol, and that means if you know what to use, you can access a Desktop of a machine that has the RDP Server running, and control its mouse, keyboard and other stuff just as if you are sitting at it.

I've always used something called NoMachine to do remote control of my other computers, but it has reverted back to a subscription model.   Luckily KDE has something called KRDC that lets you Control a Remote Desktop using KDE.
It's not as slick and video is not as seamless as it is in NoMachine, but of all the VNC Apps I tested it is the simplest to use and the one I recommend.

If I want to watch a Video in High Resolution that is living in a folder on another machine while I'm running the KDE-Linux system, I'm lucky because I have options.  My day to day computer monitor is a 55 inch LDE TV about 2 metres from my desk and it connects to a machine running KDE-neon, and to the machine running KDE-Linux.  I can simply use KRDC to remote by Virtual Network Computing into the machine running neon (or vice versa) and the choice is to just click the file I want to watch and view it in a window on a virtual Desktop on my KDE-Linux computer.  Or I can grab the Remote for the TV and switch HDMI ports.  At the moment, switching HDMI ports is the best way if I want Voice and Lips to run in sync.

However, being able to run my other computers from a single desk and use one mouse and keyboard to control however many are connected was a definite requirement.

I'm sure KDE-Linux is going to improve even more as it enters Beta release then eventually the Full Release.  It takes a while to get used to the 'Immutable' Operating system, but it has its strong points.  I'm always going to miss a few things like huge software repositories.  But Homebrew helped me found stuff like Imagemagick, which was no available in Flatpack or Appimage.  And there are thousands of bits of software like neofetch, fastfetch and lolcat that are easy enough to find.
Appimage Hub anf FlatHub work fine and I think Snap does, but I can't vouch for that yet as I haven't tried to install a snap package.

Here's my m93p running KDE-Neon inside aVirtual Desktop window on KDE-Linux:

August 2026 and another new App for my Linux Desktops.

 I've had another long break from posting, partly because of serious health problems here.  However, the Linux world hasn't stood still.  Since I switched away from Linux Mint, and back to KDE neon, I've had a much smoother ride.  While KDE - Plasma doesn;t suit everyone, it is one of the nicest and most configurable Desktops for an Operating System in the computer world.  
While KDE's new KDE-Linux already runs plasma 6.8, KDE neon is only up to Plasma 6.7.5 (at 8th August 2026).  There's not a lot of difference though and much of it is just fine tuning.  

One of the nice things about Plasma Desktop is that things just 'work'.  Hmm, I've said that before.  Another is that I can configure it to look just the way I want it to.  This week I fired up an App I'd played with some time ago and not found a use for.  I have a 42KB file that I use for a Wallpaper sometimes, showing me sailing my old yacht 'Shepherd Moons' up the coast here in Queensland.  The image was cropped out of a photo someone on a yacht about half a kilometre away took.  I have almost no photos of my boat actually sailing, so I was glad to take even the pixellated low res crop.

Upscayl surprised me.  It can be slow, but the result is amazing.

The original image:

Processed with one of Upscayl's AI Models:

And a little saturation using GIMP:

The result is an image that can be printed at a decent size without a heap of blocky pixel artifacts.

My KDE Desktop now looks like this:

the Upscayl website is here:
https://upscayl.org/

There are text based Tutorials online and video tutes in YouTube.

 We've jumped from November 2025 to the end of May 2026 and a lot has happened.  I've pulled out of most of my servers and also out of much of my online presence since the serious health problems I've been learning to deal with.
At the same time, The computer world has been steadily evolving.  My last post was still about Plasma 5 and the wonderful experience I was having after 1) moving my OS back to KDE neon, and 2) discovering just how useful a couple of old Surface Pro 3 tablets with i5 processors could be when running Plasma.

Unfortunately, a major update that happened when I updated Plasma 5 to Plasma 5 without realising I was doing it (because the Surface Pro had been sitting unused for a long time) killed the system.  Fortunately, all that was needed was the 10 minutes it took to download and reinstall KDE neon.

I'm currently running Plasma 6 and as usual I am running the Testing release.  That means at the end of May 2026 I am running Plasma 6.6.90 and soon I should see that tick over to Plasma 6.7.

KDE's Plasma Desktop is still doing all the beautiful things that make it a dream to work with and have kept me returning to KDE for most of the last 26 years or so.  Everything just 'works, but it goes so much further.  I can get the desktop to look and feel exactly how I like it simply by switching in some settings, or in the case of some of my more playful tweaks, by downloading a few pieces of software.

Wayland has matured and I have even found a useable workaround for the lack of a function to Shade the Title Bar by scrolling it with the mouse wheel.  I would still prefer the mousewheel roll-up, roll-down Shading, but because Wayland simply cannot do that, I can live with the alternative.

Even XWinWrap which I use for runnig a lot of video stuff, and have written numerous scripts that use it to run videos in various ways, can still be used to run any video and many other media files, as Video Wallpaper for my Desktops.
Sincce XWinWrap was designed to use X11, I was sure it would eventually not work in Wayland.  Even now I am not sure if it is working 'uunder wayland' or if it is using Xwayland, but whichever it is, I still have a powerful little toolI can use thanks to Shantanu Goel.

Everything else about Plasma just keeps getting better.  Not in leaps and bounds, but as steady improvements from one point release to the next.  Some people complain that Plasma has 'Too many options or choices' and can be confusing for new users.

The reality is that if you don;t use all the options and choices, any Linux distribution that uses KDE Plasma for its Desktop is just as easy to use and navigate as any other Desktop.  Just don;t use all the options!  
However, if you settle in to just using it as it was first installed, or only change things that are already familiar to you from using Windows, or another Linux distro, and if you want to change the look and feel of your Plasma Desktop or adjust the way things are done - do a search on YouTube to see 'How' if it isn't immediately obvious in the Settings Menu.

A whole new world opens up once you play around in there.