Kubuntu 25.10 — The False Hope

After Ubuntu 25.10 blinded me one too many times, I pivoted to the obvious next step: Kubuntu. Same Ubuntu base, same kernel, but with KDE Plasma — the desktop environment that gives you knobs, dials, sliders, toggles, and enough configuration options to make a mechanical keyboard enthusiast blush.

If GNOME was too rigid to help me fight the Flashbang Bug, KDE would surely give me the tools I needed.

Right?

The Setup: KDE to the Rescue

KDE Plasma has a reputation for being the “power user’s desktop,” and honestly, that reputation is well‑earned. Within minutes of logging in, I could see exactly how the system handled brightness, power management, suspend behavior, and ACPI events.

It felt like switching from a sealed‑up ultralight tent to a full expedition shelter with guy lines, vents, and adjustable poles. Everything was exposed. Everything was tweakable.

And for a moment, I felt hopeful.

The Flashbang Bug: Still There, Still Blinding

Let’s get this out of the way:
KDE did not fix the brightness reset.

Of course it didn’t — it’s a kernel bug, not a desktop bug. But KDE at least showed me what was happening. I could see the brightness value jump to 100% the moment the system resumed. I could watch the ACPI event fire. I could confirm that Plasma wasn’t the culprit.

It was oddly comforting to have visibility, even if the problem remained.

But then came the real deal‑breaker.

The Big Freeze: A New Failure Mode Appears

One afternoon, I stepped away from my laptop for ten minutes. It attempted to suspend. When I returned, the screen was dimmed but still faintly visible — frozen mid‑transition.

• The trackpad was dead
• The keyboard was dead
• The system was locked in a half‑sleep limbo
• The fans were still spinning

It had failed to enter s2idle, the low‑power sleep mode used by modern AMD laptops.

This wasn’t a one‑off glitch.
It happened again.
And again.

The only way out was a hard power‑off.

And that’s when the reality hit me:

A laptop that blinds me is annoying.
A laptop that crashes when I close the lid is unusable.

I can’t teach a class on a machine that might freeze if I walk away to help a student. I can’t grade papers on a laptop that might lock up if I grab a cup of coffee. And I definitely can’t trust it on a hike, where sleep/wake reliability is non‑negotiable.

Why This Was Worse Than Ubuntu

Ubuntu’s problem was frustrating.
Kubuntu’s problem was fatal.

Brightness resets are irritating.
Suspend freezes are workflow destroying.

KDE gave me more control, more visibility, and more tools but none of that mattered when the kernel itself couldn’t reliably suspend the hardware.

Verdict: The False Hope

Kubuntu 25.10 felt like the distro that should have worked.
It gave me everything GNOME refused to expose.
It let me see the problem clearly.
It made me feel like I could fix it.

But in the end, the kernel won.

The Flashbang Bug remained.
The Big Freeze appeared.
And Kubuntu joined Ubuntu on the “nope” pile.

Next Up: Part 4 — Fedora 43 KDE, The Last Hope

With Ubuntu and Kubuntu both failing on the same kernel, I was left with one  option: Fedora.

The distro that I want to love but always gives me headaches.
The distro known for bleeding edge updates.
The distro that might ironically be the only path to stability on this ThinkBook.

Part 4 is where things get interesting.