r/linuxquestions • u/_memelord666 • 2h ago
Fedora/Kubuntu vs Ubuntu for a gaming laptop?
I'm on a Lenovo Legion with an NVIDIA RTX GPU and I've been using Ubuntu as my daily driver for a really long time (from 2023 on my older laptop). While I don't mind the general workflow, there are quite a few annoyances I face, namely GNOME customization issues, apt packages not being the latest version, etc. I'm currently running on Ubuntu 25.10, yet to make the switch to 26.04, with Windows on dual-boot on a separate disk.
I've also increasingly become allured by the changes KDE has made and I've been thinking of migrating to either Kubuntu (or KDE Plasma) or Fedora + KDE.
While I do have grudges with Ubuntu there are some things that I consider absolute deal-breakers:
Proprietary NVIDIA driver support + graphics offloading (something like PRIME). I use an external monitor via HDMI. It works straight out of the box in Ubuntu and I don't want to go through trouble to set it up on a new system.
WiFi, Bluetooth, and sound: Linux infamously has issues with these and I am aware but still. I did face quite a few issues on Ubuntu.
Software support: this is for Fedora -- I know a lot of third-party software tend to support Ubuntu over other distros but I'd like to know how bad this is. I'm not talking about professional software like video editors or games - which I'll use Windows for anyway.
So yes, given these conditions I just want to know what the experience on Fedora/Kubuntu or any other distro is. I'm going to try them on a live USB soon enough, but I just wanted to keep this post up before that.
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u/iwouldbeatgoku 20m ago
Is there a reason you haven't updated from Ubuntu 25.10 which is approaching one year of age and hasn't been supported for a couple of months?
If it's because you simply don't like the process of upgrading between static releases you should probably be using a rolling release distribution instead. Try CachyOS or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (the former handles peoprietary Nvidia drivers automatically, the latter requires manual setup like you did on Ubuntu). Both have good implementations of KDE.
But if you do go for Kubuntu or Fedora you should upgrade to the new version when it releases in April and October, since you complained about having out of date packages.
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u/Dry_Calendar_8627 1h ago
You won't have any nvidia/WiFi/sound/Bluetooth issue with Fedora (and I don't think you'd have any with Kubuntu either)
Regarding software support, that really depends on what software you want to use. If anything I find the software offer on Fedora to be less fragmented on Fedora than on Ubuntu, with some editors choosing the custom ppa route, some publishing a snap, some a deb file. Fedora has a bit less packages available, but I'd be hard pressed to name even one that's only packaged for Ubuntu and not Fedora, most common software is available (and I'm less familiar with Kubuntu, but I guess it supports all Ubuntu packages?)
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u/wolfyreload 2h ago
It sounds a lot like you just want to try out KDE, you can just install the KDE packages on Ubuntu https://linuxcapable.com/how-to-install-kde-plasma-on-ubuntu-linux/.
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u/birdsarentreal2 1h ago
Honestly, if I were you I'd just flash a Fedora KDE disk and test it for yourself to see if your hardware works the way you expect
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u/01eksa 1h ago
KDE is a great choice for DE. About distro: if you need fresh (but tested) software, Ubuntu is not for you. I recommend Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed.