Installing Plasma should be as simple as “apt install kde-plasma-desktop”, then log out and select plasma from the login screen. I’ve tried other DEs but not Plasma, so I can’t say for certain it will work.

You can always try distros in a VM almost completely risk free. It won’t tell you everything, but it’s an easy way to get first impressions without losing your main OS.

Edit: This forum thread says you can install and use Plasma, but it’s not a great experience. Mint will probably not be the right option for you then.

I’ve been distro hopping for years. After each time trying a few distros, I always find myself coming back to Linux Mint (cinnamon desktop environment). It has everything I need, and just works beautifully out of the box. It might not be flashy or have the latest cutting edge features, but it’s stable.

I’m currently running the Debian edition of Mint (LMDE), and wishing I was back on standard Mint. Nothing major, but a few minor persistent issues that never happened on Mint.

I did try NixOS (immutable OS), but it didn’t seem to have support for all the apps I wanted. I gave up fairly quickly, so you’ll probably have more success.

I am using Android until I can find an alternative. I’ve turned off all optimisations I can find. I haven’t had the issue in a few weeks, but it did happen once since changing settings. I’m hoping that something random I did (like a phone restart) somehow fixed everything.

I’ve had a bug with the android app where sometimes notifications for emails just don’t happen. I’ve received a new email notification, opened the app, and found that the notification was for an email received 5 hours ago, and I didn’t get any notification for the email 3 days ago or the email 1 hour ago.

Despite this issue and several other minor issues, I still recommend Tuta. Mostly because I can’t find anything better.

Not all ideas are good, but a good idea can come from anywhere.

If you’re looking to research more on this, look for “body doubling”. It’s the only way I get anything important done.

Have you ever seen a professional marathon runner reach the finish line first and then start jumping with joy? You may see some celebration, but mostly exhaustion.

It’s the same with mental effort. If you’ve been working yourself to exhaustion, it’s really hard to feel anything positive. A short rest just isn’t enough to fix chronic exhaustion.

I was always told I was lazy when growing up. It took more than 10 years for me to realise that I was never lazy. I was hitting my limit, then working myself to exhaustion just trying to keep up with everyone else. I’ve had to learn to slow down and accept that there are some things I can’t do (without consequences). Even now I find myself occasionally making the wrong decision because of past trauma and overworking myself before I realise and have to stop myself.

Even if this advice doesn’t work for you, there is still hope. My heart goes out to you in this tough time.

You are a valid person. What you do does not define your worth. You are enough.

I wanted to install an extra hard drive in my computer, but the power supply didn’t have enough connectors. I actually had a spare power supply unit, but upon testing, the 24 pin cable was too short to reach the motherboard.

I ended up using both PSUs. Only one had a power switch on it, so that was connected to the hard drives. I had to use a paperclip in the unused 24 pin connector to make it output power. The 2 PSUs had a wire running between the ground pins of a random unused connector, and they were on the same phase circuit.

The hard drive PSU had to be turned on first at the switch. Once that was on, I could press the power button to turn on the computer. I think I used it for about a year before buying enough upgrade parts to effectively replace the entire computer.

I still see this every few months.

I think it’s happening if a key is released at the same time as a window opens or changes to full screen, but it’s too rare to properly troubleshoot. The fix is still the same.