Interim Install Guide: KDE Neon User Edition for a professional digital painter workstation - David Revoy

Become a patron

Table of Contents<br>1. Introduction:<br>2. Interim?<br>A. After years of broken Wayland distro for artists<br>B. A brighter future<br>3. Why KDE Neon User Edition:<br>A. Requirements<br>B. A long phase of testing<br>C. Compromises<br>4. Hardware<br>A. General recommendation:<br>PC:<br>Drawing tablet:<br>B. My hardware<br>a. PC Workstation:<br>b. Laptop:<br>5. Installation<br>A. The Live/Intall Image<br>B. My partition setup<br>6. KDE Plasma 6<br>A. Notable KDE Neon UE bugs<br>B. Notable improvements VS Plasma 5 X11<br>C. Theme and screenshot gallery<br>D. Adjustments<br>a. Don't auto upscale<br>b. Don't "edge barrier" on multi monitors<br>c. Don't darken the parent window<br>d. Disable the hot corner<br>e. Dolphin's thumbnails<br>f. Misc<br>7. Color management<br>A. Create an ICC<br>B. Load an ICC<br>C. sRGB color intensity<br>8. Drawing tablet<br>A. Drivers<br>a. Devices that works "out-of-the-box"<br>b. The Microsoft Stylus Surface standard<br>c. Udev-hid-bpf (and install guide)<br>d. User-space drivers<br>B. Keep aspect ratio<br>C. Parallax calibration and correction<br>D. Calibrate stylus pressure<br>a. A dangerous setting for your device and hand<br>b. What type of curve you need?<br>c. What type of pressure range you need?<br>D. Pad Buttons<br>F. Loading custom profiles<br>a. Compiling ktabletconfig<br>b. Troubleshooting compilation errors<br>c. ktabletconfig usage<br>d. Custom scripts for Drawing Tablet profiles<br>9. Software<br>A. A problematic fractioned landscape<br>B. The distro packages<br>a. Compensate the crude KDE Neon default<br>b. Package I use from the default repository:<br>c. Buggy package:<br>C. Flatpak<br>a. Installing/Removing them<br>b. The Krita special case<br>c. Big Software<br>d. Smaller projects<br>e. Communication and utilities<br>f. Permission management<br>g. Downgrading a Flatpak<br>D. Appimage<br>a. Instalation<br>b. System integration<br>c. Launcher<br>d. File Association<br>e. A beta-testing setup<br>f. A script if you test Appimages frequently<br>10. Misc<br>A. Mousewheel zoom in Gwenview and Inkscape<br>B. Patch for the XpPen Deco 01 V3 Pen<br>C. Localhost PHP development<br>a. Install the LAMP stack<br>b. Symlinks custom folders<br>c. Permissions<br>D. Oxipng<br>E. Inkscape PPA, for CLI usage<br>F. Increase Imagemagick memories<br>11. Conclusion<br>12. Links

My main setup, with also the best co-worker ever

Disclaimer: this article was not written, prompt or proofread using AI/LLM . If my sentences are weird, and with typos: all my apologies. Blame the fact that I'm French and I'm mostly self-taught when it comes to English.

1. Introduction:

Hey, here is my new GNU/Linux Distribution Install Guide. It’s not a step-by-step tutorial, but a central hub with all the information, tips and links to replicate my setup. Sharing this is a tradition, I do that since 15 years.

And recently with proprietary operating systems adding more ads, surveillance, and AI features, many digital artists (graphists, painters, etc.) want to switch to GNU/Linux but struggle. This guide serves as a proposition I can share when helping other professional digital artists (comic artists, digital painters, concept artists, graphic designers, game developers, illustrators, etc...) who often have:

High-end workstations (with multiple monitors)

Drawing tablets with styluses they need to customise

Colorimeters and color management requirements

Cameras, microphones, for video and streaming content

2. Interim?

A. After years of broken Wayland distro for artists

We are in the aftermath of what I called last time the largest GNU/Linux regression for artists, graphists and painter I ever see over my last 17 years of GNU/Linux daily usage. Every distros and major Desktop Environments moved to Wayland, but without porting the tools I used for my drawing tablets and color management in the process (read: the three major problems from 2024 to know more).

That's how I spent the two last years, in a strategical retreat move, on Debian 12 KDE 5, Plasma X11, the distro of my previous guide. There wasn't many options around and it wasn't really user friendly to install. During this period, I even personnaly assisted to more than three long date GNU/Linux artists and contributors who prefered to go step back ...to Ms Windows. I also don't count the emails, the comments I received, the DM of artists who wanted to migrate their process in this mess.

So, fortunately, with this Debian 12 Plasma 5 X11, I had my little corner of happy place and documented and shared it. Once setup correctly (not that easy), Debian 12 was a wonderful and peaceful operating system, based on old but robust technologies. It allowed me to use 2023's "frozen in time" technology for two more years, just before the big mess. I had a really good time and could be productive with a new long Pepper&Carrot episode, many video tutorials and reviews, and a new weekly comic series. Not bad!

Unfortunately, this distro couldn't be maintained forever, and with its end of life in june 2026, I had to move to a new distro.

B. A brighter future

But over the course of...