What distros have you been testing recently?

[wove]

For reasons I am not sure I understand KDE has a preference for Snaps over Flatpaks. While many KDE apps do have Flatpaks, they are late in arrival. For the largest range and most recent KDE apps one really does need to either use Neon which creates and uses .deb pretty soon after releases or updates, or use a system with Snap support enabled and that would for the most part be Kubuntu. Of course Arch and its deriviatives are also up to date with KDE apps. Fedora's Kinoite which just uses Snaps is lacking in many KDE apps and many apps it does have are not the latest updates.

[crosscourt]

Really hate Snaps but Im typically not an early KDE app user so its not really an issue for me.

[bin]

In the search for a replacement for MX I've been having fun revisiting an old friend - SolydXK. Not too bothered about the K side of it but the X(fce) is coming along nicely. It's been around many years, but never really hit the big time. Coming from Holland there's more than a smattering of orange on the theme colouring . However it is essentially stock Debian but with a number of small tweaks under the hood - many of which are not immediately obvious but welcome nevertheless. It offers a slightly stripped set of apps on install but a simple Welcome screen takes you off to a load more goodies.
There's no glitz, no glamour, just good solyd Xfce. Is it for newbies - possibly not. Do you need a highly active forum full of people messing up their systems - then it's not for you. However, I like it.

[wove]

Thanks for mentioning this. I do not think I had ever heard of it. I went to their site and noticed they had a 32bit version, which just might work on my new 2006 machine. It is actually a 64bit machine, however it only boots from a 32bit efi. The bulk of 64bit Linux distros only ship with 64bit efi boot loader. So you can either do lots of hacking, or you can just be content with a 32bit distro. While the machine is 64 bit it also has a RAM limit of 3GB, so there is really no need for a 64bit OS.

[crosscourt]

I finally settled down with Zorin 17 and havent been testing much nor distrohopping. Zorin suits my needs right now and is easy for even my wife to use.

[wove]

I have been using Endless OS for a long time now. I setup virtual machines in Boxes to take a look at what new might be coming along. Every now and again I will install on hardware. I have found myself in something of a retro rabbit hole, intrigued by seeing what all can still be done with old OSes on period hardware.

[crosscourt]

Mostly running Windows, Chrome OS and Zorin these days and thats it.