Hi, first post.

I've been a loyal user of Ubuntu Studio since... I think maybe 14.04? Generally 
a first-rate experience -- the fact that in, oh, 7-8 years I never needed to 
sign onto the mailing list tells you how little trouble I had with it.

Last November, I got a new computer and installed Ubuntu Studio 22.04 on it. 
Initially, the problems were only very minor, the sorts of things I expect from 
an Ubuntu upgrade.

So let's fast forward to 3 weeks ago, when I had my first lecture class of the 
semester, and my first time plugging this machine into the classroom projector 
(end of the previous semester here was all online). At first it wasn't quite 
syncing up, so I tried a few different screen resolutions, and then... the 
Plasma taskbar at the top disappeared. The Super key couldn't open the launcher 
menu, so... no apps, nothing.

I found a webpage explaining how to delete the Plasma configuration files and 
reboot, and this did restore functionality. But the system has never been quite 
the same. *Mostly* ok, but I had to reboot a few extra times during the last 
week.

The cruncher was, yesterday I had a performance, and:

1. Plugged in a USB SSD... the touchpad sensitivity went down to a crawl. 
Unusable. Reboot.
2. 5 minutes later, the taskbar didn't disappear, but it froze -- couldn't 
switch workspaces, couldn't switch apps except for alt-tab. Reboot.
3. Fine for a few hours after that, but then I was using the Ubuntu Studio 
Controls app to switch the USB soundcard, and the system stopped responding to 
mouse clicks or typing. Reboot.

This is just hours before a show... a rather different quality of user 
experience from the last several years of rock-solid stability. (However the 
show went off without a hitch!)

The KDE community has been only somewhat helpful. KDE Forums ban all IP 
addresses from mainland China, and VPNs apparently -- summarily, with no way to 
appeal. So I'm not able to ask the user community for workarounds.

I ended up logging a bug report for the first problem, but was told that Plasma 
5.24.7 is no longer supported, and that if I need support, I should upgrade the 
desktop. But:

https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+archive/ubuntu/backports/+index?field.series_filter=jammy&batch=75&direction=backwards&start=300

plasma-desktop  4:5.24.7-0ubuntu0.1~ubuntu22.04~ppa1

... oh. 5.24.7. So, I can't upgrade Plasma without upgrading to Kinetic.

So the simpler question is: does Ubuntu Studio 22.10 ship with Plasma 5.27? 
(https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=466586#c1 -- "This is one of the reasons 
why multi-monitor handling was completely re-done in Plasma 5.27 to fix issues 
such as this one. Please update to 5.27 as soon as your distro offers it to 
you.") It seems I need this Plasma version... before taking on the risks of an 
OS upgrade, I'd like to confirm that it will really help.

The broader question is... what is the best way forward for me to have a 
stable, functioning system again?

Thanks. Again, my experience with Ubuntu Studio has been excellent over the 
years, which is why I'm caught a bit off guard with these recent troubles.

hjh

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