ArkSys is an amazing Arch Linux K Desktop Environment System that helps you to install Arch with KDE.
If you want an Arch-based distro with basic KDE preconfigured and a graphical installer, I highly recommend: If you're looking for a fresh new Linux experience, check out CachyOS, EndeavourOS, Garuda Linux KDE-lite or Manjaro.
After installing multiple Linux distros with different desktop environments (DE) and window managers (WM), I always end up with a similar configuration and visual design. So this is the type of OS that I wholeheartedly recommend for use in a daily drive for most computers! Windows and macOS are proprietary and paid, but the FOSS alternatives like FreeBSD have less software and hardware compatibility, which is great because it means you can choose the OS that's right for you!
Linux is the biggest open-source operating system for servers and workstations. It's private, secure, very customisable and there's a big community ready to help you. Also, it is the only one that can compete against the proprietary systems such as Windows and macOS, and has more software and hardware compatibility than the FOSS alternatives like FreeBSD or others.
Linux is the kernel of the OS that communicates with the computer hardware, and the rest of the software is integrated on top of that. However, "Linux" is normally used to refer to the family of Linux distros.
Arch Linux as base Linux distribution
The Linux distribution or "Linux distro" is the concept of customized Linux OS with Linux Kernel + basic libraries + package manager + Desktop Environemt (Graphical User Interface)
I choose Arch Linux by these reasons:
- Mantained by a group of developers and community, not corpo side.
- Very lightway ISO (around 300 packages preinstalled and 800 MiB of size)
- Big community on internet: forums, Reddit, YouTube.
- Perfect distro to learn and configure your system.
- Big repository of packages, arch repository (14k official build scripts) and Arch User Repository (87k build scripts)
- Distributed mirror servers with Arch repository packages.
- Useful package manager, pacman that deals with PKGBUILD as build scritps close to the upstream.
- Great documentation in the ArchWiki.
- Rolling-release model, you always run the last version.
There are other good base distros like Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, NixOS, Void; but I'm comfortable with Arch.
Desktop Environment as KDE
Most of us are familiar with Windows or perhaps macOS before using Linux, and these operating systems are great in terms of usability, but not for privacy. To achieve a similar interface very customizable and with a good workflow, the best option is to use a desktop environment such as KDE (K Desktop Environment) or something more simple like GNOME or XFCE.
For me, KDE is the best! It's so elegant, customisable and flexible, and it's maintained by a great group of volunteers and developers.