Custom distro, with my own Desktop Environment using KDE Plasma 5.21 source code.

aoib578

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Hi guys,

I am a bit specific about how i like my KDE to look and behave like. I love KDE Plasma 5.21 on Kubuntu. Unfortunately i cannot install it on latest debian stable, or future releases.

To be able to use my own Desktop Environment (based on Plasma 5.21 source code) with Debian, means creating and maintaining my own distro.
I am up for the "Linux From Scratch" challenge.

Or i will create my own Gentoo distro, with my own Desktop Environment using KDE Plasma 5.21 source code.

Please let me know what you think is the fastest and easiest approach? I want absolute control and customization over my Linux distro.
 


Hi guys,

I am a bit specific about how i like my KDE to look and behave like. I love KDE Plasma 5.21 on Kubuntu. Unfortunately i cannot install it on latest debian stable, or future releases.

To be able to use my own Desktop Environment (based on Plasma 5.21 source code) with Debian, means creating and maintaining my own distro.
I am up for the "Linux From Scratch" challenge.

Or i will create my own Gentoo distro, with my own Desktop Environment using KDE Plasma 5.21 source code.

Please let me know what you think is the fastest and easiest approach? I want absolute control and customization over my Linux distro.
A few observations come to mind.

"Linux From Scratch" would not appear to be the "fastest and easiest approach" if what you want, as stated, is to be able to use your own DE based on KDE Plasma 5.21. One doesn't need to create a new operating system in order to install a new DE on top of it.

It's not clear why one couldn't install a relatively recent KDE Plasma on debian, either stable, testing or unstable. If the debian repos supply a package that isn't preferred, debian supplies all the tools to create .deb packages which would be installable on any debian distribution if configured appropriately. Fedora offers the same sort of facility for .rpm packages. In any case, a user doesn't have to use the packaging systems at all to install new or original packages, which is why the filesystem provides /usr/local directories. Original tarballs are all that are necessary to begin with.

"Absolute control and customization over my Linux distro" is not such a clear proposition on reflection. On one level, it's a very high bar to achieve. Are you referring to the capacity to code from the assembly level, through C code, and then to all the other coding in numerous languages that make up the linux biosphere including all of X or wayland and the multitude of drivers? It's hard to imagine that's what you mean in the context of simply wishing to have a particular DE, moreover, a DE whose code exists and where modifications by users for preferencing are made though choosing options rather than dealing with code. On debian, for example, it's entirely possible to keep a package version that one prefers by the pinning facility. Some dependency adjustments may or may not be necessary in time if the user doesn't wish to use the latest versions as they subsequently appear, or use their own created version.

I note that the latest kde-plasma-desktop in debian is 5:131. An inspection of the changelogs between the 5.21 and this latest may be informative as to the changes that you may wish to exclude, and go from there.
 
@osprey

Thanks a lot for your through-full reply.
I am in the beginning of my linux journey, and have some data from threads and interactions with users (that i am still figuring out).
By "Absolute control and customization over my Linux distro" i am referring to finer grain control that gentoo or arch give us. Arch is not for me due to being unstable. I am considering toying with a custom debian stable based distro and check what i can do with it VS a regular debian stable. So i have concrete hands on approach experience to compare the differences.
Or moving to gentoo.
But at this point since i'm still quite new to linux, the custom debian distro makes more sense. Gentoo will be hard.
 
While I agree with osprey here. I do think going thru the "Linux from scratch" exercise is has value in showing
someone exactly what is involved in creating "your own" distro.

I will say this... there is a reason Arch/Fedora/Ubuntu/Redhat/Mint/SuSE have dozens and dozens of team members and contributors. Doing it once for "todays" version is hard enough. Keeping it up to date for the long haul.... well it's not
for the faint of heart with little time on their hands. :)
 
Yes LFS is truly the hardcore way, but it pays of in the end!
Using NetInstaller in the case of debian and selecting the software you want is already creating own distro.
Personally at this moment for me this approach is enough.
Then i might consider gentoo or LFS with time.
 
Hi guys,

I am a bit specific about how i like my KDE to look and behave like. I love KDE Plasma 5.21 on Kubuntu. Unfortunately i cannot install it on latest debian stable, or future releases.

To be able to use my own Desktop Environment (based on Plasma 5.21 source code) with Debian, means creating and maintaining my own distro.
I am up for the "Linux From Scratch" challenge.

Or i will create my own Gentoo distro, with my own Desktop Environment using KDE Plasma 5.21 source code.

Please let me know what you think is the fastest and easiest approach? I want absolute control and customization over my Linux distro.
What obstacles are preventing you from building and installing Plasma 5.21 on Debian?

It should be possible to do it. If any of its dependencies are newer versions of libraries that aren’t yet in the Debian repos, you’ll have to build and install those from source too, which might be a bit of a pain. But it usually isn’t too bad!

I haven’t looked at plasma for a long time, but I do have a number of other programs installed from source.

As I said, installing from source isn’t usually that bad. The only tricky bit is working out how to interpret warnings and errors from the build-system/compiler/linker and how to overcome them!
 
@JasKinasis

I will try getting Plasma to look how i want through widgets etc.
If that does not work i will install Plasma 5.21 on Debian from source.
 

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