PCLinuxOS KDE Darkstar 10-14-2020

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Really nice minimalist KDE distro that provides only a basic number of apps. It allows you to add what you want and has a very unique theme and icon set The iso is only 1.5gb and it runs faster than the standard KDE version and uses less resources. 383mb at GUI is very good for a KDE distro.
It still detected my gpu/wifi and printer with no issues. The computer control center is a nice feature for new users in particular.
Kernel is 5.9 and KDE is 5.20.4. Chrome is available in the repos but all the apps like Libreoffice, Firefox and Thunderbird are recent versions.

There are other minimalist KDE distros like Kubuntu(has alternative minimalist install) and KDE Neon. PCLinuxOS offers a very user friendly experience that utilizes Synaptic to handle their RPM offerings. If the mor custom nature of PCLinuxOS doesnt put you off, you should give it a try.

I just installed it on my Dell E6400 which is an older laptop and the experience was great, even with 4gb of ram.
PCLinuxOS installs Nvidia drivers by default so be aware and has no issues with older Broadcom wifi.

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Make sure before you do any updating or adding of apps, to change the repo from the default to the closest one to where you live in Synaptic. I use the Indiana based repo which has excellent speed here in America.

Outside of that quirk I had no issues with the install and speed continues to be excellent with my older laptop that has a Core 2 Duo cpu.

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PCLinuxOS uses Net Applet which requires clicking on the icon then going in and clicking again on wifi to gain access to available networks. Most KDE distros use the Network Manager where you click on the icon and immediately get a list of networks and can pick and choose what you want. It also tries to keep the best connections at the top of the list.

For those of you using PCLOS for the first time just be aware that its not quite as easy and Ive had occasional issues with it after using a wired ethernet connection, forcing me to reconnect. Most of my distros remember my wifi connection and automatically turn on the wifi if Ive logged into it previously.