[cosmic_cheese]

KDE has its own problems, though they’ve been improving in recent years. Out of the box defaults still need some work for example, and settings can still be confusing and difficult to navigate for less technical individuals. It also still has some behaviors that aren’t found on other desktops that can put off switchers.

The best DE for switchers would be one that brings as few surprises as possible and has defaults good enough that the overwhelming majority feel no need to change them. Basically, there needs to be near-perfect clones of the two big commercial desktops that don’t try to be clever or shake things up in any way so the switch is close to seamless.

Debian Testing packages may also still be too old, depending on the user. Anybody having to work cross platform or collaborate with people using other platforms is going to wind up dealing with version mismatch issues, since commercial OS users have most of their apps auto-updated to latest without Testing’a lag.

[righthand]

Debian Testing packages are not too old. They are mostly very nearly bleeding edge, if not they’re a month or so behind. Ridiculous you would blindly say Debian Testing is outdated.

Debian Testing KDE Plasma version: 6.3.5-1 [0]

Arch Stable KDE Plasma version: 6.4.3-1 [1]

[0] https://packages.debian.org/trixie/plasma-desktop

[1] https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/plasma-desktop/

[cosmic_cheese]

Based on what I’ve found it varies greatly between packages. Some are just a few weeks behind, others months or years.