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Why do people always talk about Ubuntu here instead of Kubuntu? (retrolemmy.com)
submitted 3 months ago by Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've seen people suggest Ubuntu without mentioning Kubuntu, but it seems like most people (especially gamers?) prefer KDE Plasma. I've seen people complain about Ubuntu's GUI and lack of customization, but then no one suggests them to try Kubuntu instead. It seems like people just don't know that Kubuntu exists.

Also as an aside, people often criticize how slow updates are on Ubuntu/Kubuntu/etc, but if you enable the backports ppa then it's actually pretty quick!

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
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[-] eli@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

I loathe gnome, so whenever I recommend "Ubuntu" I always specify Kubuntu for that reason.

The average joe has no idea what "desktop environment" means and will not understand how you can just swap DE's even. So starting them off with Kubuntu specifically is ideal IMO.

Ubuntu is fine for grandma, or even Mint, but someone born in the last 40 years will probably appreciate Plasma more.

If you're really wanting to use "Ubuntu" but don't want any of the standard options then PopOS is fine from my experience.

[-] highball@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

It's a homograph, dude. You pick the flavor that has the DE you like. If they mean something specific, they specify.

[-] teft@piefed.social 1 points 3 months ago

I assume when people say something like Ubuntu or Fedora then they mean the core of the distro. DE is irrelevant since it's trivial to change.

[-] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

but new users might not know this, especially since it's under a different name, they might not even think to look and just dismiss it because they don't like how the screenshots (of GNOME) look

[-] Cornflake@pawb.social 1 points 3 months ago

I think most people just say Ubuntu to indicate the Ubuntu family of distros. A help guide for vanilla Ubuntu running GNOME should work the same way for Kubuntu with very minor changes i.e. adding a repository for the GNOME software manager vs the KDE software manager.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Except if the gui mentions anything in regards to GUI. Ubuntu and Kubuntu's system settings aren't even remotely similar.

That sadly makes Kubuntu a bit of a tough sell for a beginner who wants to primarily use the GUI route, since there's a guide for Ubuntu for almost everything but not for Kubuntu.

(Which sucks, because I like KDE way more. I of course use KDE, but that makes it kinda hard to recommend Kubuntu to a total beginner.)

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I came from SuSE, which defaults to KDE, so KUbuntu is my distro of choice.

Fun fact: this week, a coworker saw my laptop screen and asked: Is that Windows 11? :-)

[-] marighost@piefed.social 0 points 3 months ago

I think Ubuntu (and consequently some of its derivatives) gets a bad rep for some of their proprietary stuff like Snap packages. I have no clue about Kubuntu though, other than that it's flavored Ubuntu.

I'd wager many users here prefer other distros, and because there are so many to choose from, Kubuntu doesn't get mentioned.

[-] paper_moon@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Ubuntu gets a bad rap on the snap stuff because its kinda hard to ignore, for example of you do an apt-get install firefox it overrides your apt install command to install the snap version instead, which has its own implications with extension access, etc.

[-] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 0 points 3 months ago

Isn't Kubuntu just the KDE UI on top of Ubuntu, I would imagine limiting conversions to operating systems made things or sysynced.

[-] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yeah but I'm thinking Kubuntu should overtake Ubuntu as the primary for discussion purposes

It's just generally the more appropriate choice over Ubuntu for most people

[-] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago

KDE is more than just a ui, its the set of preinstalled applications that plays a huge role. Kubuntu and Ubuntu feels like two different operating systems.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

*buntu are mainly beginner distros. They work fine out of the box, but many long-term users don't like them for ideological reasons.

The main advantage of Ubuntu over any other distro is that everything as an Ubuntu guide. The same is not true for Kubuntu, and if you stay in GUI, Ubuntu and Kubuntu share almost no similarities. The settings, the pre-installed default apps, all that differs greatly.

Thus the main reason for using *butnu is gone when using anything else than Ubuntu.

Which kinda sucks, because I like KDE much more.

[-] TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Except UwUbuntu. We don’t speak of that thing here, or anywhere.

Edit: that was a bad joke, but it seems something like it (UwUntu) does exist! https://uwuntuos.site/

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

*buntu are mainly beginner distros.

They aren't. Canonical enshittifies Ubuntu and the official flavors more and more. The hoops one needs to jump through (like OP's PPA command because Canonical forbids proper updates) are not user friendly.

Steam Survey shows how Ubuntu's relevance for home users continues to shrink and alternatives like Bazzite continue to grow.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

These hoops don't matter for beginners. They are usually fine with what Ubuntu provides, or more to the point, don't even know what they might be missing.

Steam Survey is quite skewed by only showing what gamers use. That's quite a hefty selection bias, and of course it shows that gamers prefer the Steam Deck and gaming distros.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

These hoops don’t matter for beginners. They are usually fine with what Ubuntu provides, or more to the point, don’t even know what they might be missing.

This is /c/linux_gaming. Recommending a distribution with outdated Mesa drivers is not in their interest, whether they know what they're missing out or not. That's among several reasons why Ubuntu in general is not a good recommendation for gamers.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

Fair point about /c/linux_gaming. OPs question wasn't really about gaming though and it was specifically about ubuntu/kubuntu.

So if anything, the OP should not have been in /c/linux_gaming, but the answers are on topic.

But even in regards to gaming, Mesa drivers are stable enough nowadays that even a bit outdated ones don't make a lot of tangible difference unless you are hunting for every last frame. In which case a beginner's distro isn't for you anyway.

The average casual gamer will have no issues with Ubuntu.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

The average casual gamer will have no issues with Ubuntu.

Average casual gamer will have even fewer than "no" issues with Bazzite. There is no reason why (K)Ubuntu is preferable these days.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

Apart from if they are going to use their PC for anything else than gaming.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

Apart from if they are going to use their PC for anything else than gaming.

Why would Bazzite be worse for everything else than gaming? It's literally just a Fedora variant with some quality of life stuff preinstalled. All the stuff that (K)Ubuntu requires jumping through hoops (most notably Flatpak) is preinstalled and the entire software repository is officially supported unlike Universe in Ubuntu (KDE software is in Universe, hence why the backports PPA is pretty much mandatory).

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago

It's immutable Fedora. Immutability is something that not even regular Fedora uses, because it causes weirdness and potential trouble if you don't just use it as a wrapper for flatpak.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

Fiddle with the Terminal to add a PPA (and also Flatpak) just screams usability.

[-] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You can add Flathub in Discover without using terminal

Backports aren't necessary, but it's nice to have the option if you later decide you want something newer

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

You can add Flathub in Discover without using terminal

Still not user friendly. Bazzite (and others) has this out of the box.

First enable Flatpak, then add the Flathub repository, and then add a few PPAs here and there just is not user friendly at all, Terminal or not. This is the Linux Gaming community. The likelihood that people here want the emulators that get published on Flathub because of Steam Deck is high.

Backports aren’t necessary, but it’s nice to have the option if you later decide you want something newer

They are necessary because of Canonical's insane demands for version number freezes. Unpaid volunteers often don't have the resources to cherry pick and backport individual bug fixes. When the Kubuntu maintainers were blogging more frequently, "add our PPA to get bugfix xyz" was a recurring line.

this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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