I installed Kubuntu on my Desktop yesterday. As I feared, I lost some data in the process, but nothing critical.

As usual, the installation did not go as smoothly as planned. I originally wanted to install Kubuntu 25.10, but the installer continued erroring out at around 90%, with the error “could not close encrypted partitions on the target system”. I tried with and without system encryption for the partition during installation, but the error persisted. Eventually I opted for Kubuntu 24.04 LTS, utilizing a different USB port, and that worked (encryption enabled).

Since I opted for minimal installation, I had to download a couple of basic tools (like a browser), but I’m happy I chose that route. I don’t need Libre Office and a bunch of other tools that usually come with the regular version, and it’s been easy enough to install whatever’s missing.

I disabled Snap as the default package installer in Discover, Kubuntu’s “app store,” and chose Flatpak instead. I still prefer using the terminal and interacting with Flatpak directly, however. Flatpak was a good choice for almost all the tools I needed, besides a select few: Syncthing, Mullvad VPN, and Signal. Microsoft Edge, which I need for work, does not work well when installing from Flatpak (the Sync did not initialize). As it turns out, the preferred way to install Edge is with the deb package) ( (it’s toward the bottom, in a line that says “Microsoft Edge is now available on Linux. Download for Linux (.deb)”.

Even after a few hours, Kubuntu and Plasma already surpassed my former PopOS setup. My biggest concern was the games, but the two I tested so far are working fine. Nvidia driver support is well documented and easy to set up with ubuntu-drivers install. No issues so far, but we’ll see when I run something more demanding (I enjoyed a game of [Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2](Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2), and it ran beautifully). KDE Plasma seemed to have “borrowed” design ideas from both Windows and macOS, and of course, I can take whatever I want and leave what I don’t for my own setup.

The panel (what would be the dock in macOS or the Start Menu in Windows) in KDE Plasma 5 is somewhat similar to Windows 10, with the application launcher at the bottom left, followed by open apps. To the far right, different apps and system icons, such as volume, Bluetooth, network connections, etc. Meanwhile, the windows of the different open applications are now rounded, with yellow, green, and red buttons - mimicking macOS’s setup, as this is what I’m used to.

But that’s just the start of what Plasma has to offer. As I’m re-learning all the tricks, I hope to keep tabs on what I’m discovering.