This week, Canonical launched Ubuntu 22.10, and the rest of the family has also made its Kinetic Kudu version available to anyone interested. Among the components of this family is Kubuntu, the official flavor that uses the KDE/Plasma desktop, but KDE also develops something that controls more, something that gives them more freedom, and that operating system is called Kde neon. Like Kubuntu, it is based on Ubuntu, but there are a few differences to note.
To begin with, KDE neon is based on LTS versions of Ubuntu, and to follow it uses special repositories that allow you to install software like Plasma or KDE Frameworks sooner than anyone else. Jammy Jellyfish arrived in April 2022, but KDE did not want to go beyond 20.04 until they had a few things clear. For example, they have been known to delay the update because they didn't know what to do with their version of Firefox. With the doubts resolved, neon is already based on Ubuntu 22.04.
KDE neon uses the DEB version of Firefox
The latest images of the operating system have been called KDE neon 5.26 for days, since the numbering they use coincides with the latest version of Plasma. Also always have the latest KDE Frameworks and KDE Gear, but at the base they are more conservative. They upload it every two years, and this time it has been delayed for a while in part because they wanted to know what the community thought about the snap version of Firefox.
KDE having almost complete control over what it adds or doesn't add to an operating system has these things. Most people don't like snap packages, and the question KDE asked them they replied that they preferred the DEB version. To be more specific, the “K team” wanted to know if their users preferred the Firefox as a snap recommended by Canonical or the old version, also known as DEB, even if they had to add the Mozilla repository. The choice is already well known.
Interested users can now download Ubuntu 5.26-based KDE neon 22.04 from the project's official website, available at this link. Updates from the operating system will be activated on monday.