Like most people here I am a computer enthusiast. I love the latest, greatest hardware and software. I like keeping older but still nice hardware useful and running well too. A couple of days ago grabbed a 15 year old HP 7800 SFF PC out of the closet to see if I could make it usable again.

The computer had Windows 10 installed but it's AMD graphics card was no longer supported... The first thought that came to mind was that Linux had open source drivers that would most likely take care of the problem. I downloaded KDE NEON user edition because I am using public WiFi and the download was not as huge as some are.

Now, I have Windows 10 on my new HP 15 laptop and I like it! I wanted the same kind of polished look and feel on the old machine, KDE NEON delivered! I did do some minor tweaking, installed icons only task manager, removed the default to give it a better look and feel.

After installing a few apps like, ktorrent, Calligra Office, etc, the system was very useful, quick and polished looking. I also tweaked settings just like i would in Windows. My 11 year old son wanted the computer as soon as he saw it. He has ran games in Linux since he was 4 or 5. I told him he could have it.

I liked how it turned out too so I did another install on a little newer HP with a second generation I5, both machines are using SSD's by the way. The one thing that always bugged me about Linux distros was they tend to look like they are from the 90's... The KDE Developer's finally get it! They made a DE that looks modern and is still feature rich and is even light on system resources!

My son has more experience with gaming on Linux, he uses Steam and knows all the online games. I am more into getting things done and tinkering with the system itself. I have used Windows and Linux since the mid 90's. The thing that always bugged me about Linux distro's was the dated out of the box experience.

I used to make GDM's in the past, custom icons, even going so far as to take a package apart and create new icons and splash screens. Windows and Mac OS have generally had a nice out of the box experience and set the pace for what a modern look is. Of course, they have professional artists and teams that do that.

KDE NEON, at least the newest release has the polish right down to the default wallpaper that gave me a good impression! Sure, I changed a couple of things but for the most part it looked appealing with it's defaults. Just a good experience I wanted to share. What are your thoughts on Linux distos these days?