I’ve been using this hp gaming laptop with win10 since 2 years ago with an old dumb LG screen for coding/emulate (35%) or gaming (25%) and other 40% without the 2nd screen (browsing/documents).
I’ve used fedora/red hat in university but it was almost 10 years ago for specific software (emu/simulators) so I’m kind of noob in general terms and I’m afraid I’ll be leaving dual boot just in case.
I’ve read some posts before about out of the box distros (because the nvidia gtx 1650ti mainly) but I’m not sure if I should go for bazzite or cachyos or opensuse tumbleweed or a better distro that fits great in my case and about desktop, KDE (plasma) is my choice at the moment.
Thanks in advance.
Edit: I appreciate your comments and warnings (mainly about arch/gaming based distros and other tips). I didn’t want controversy but I use that laptop for almost everything at home and I’m realizing that I need to invest more time both learning and extracting backups because the machine is limited and I’m willing to become a full linux user in the mid term.
Just make sure you get one that uses Wayland for better performance. Gaming on Wayland vs the old display server makes a big difference for me
I like fedora for daily use. Bazzite is a version of fedora and works great as a gaming station, would hesitate to use it as an everyday computer though.
I’m very happy with my EndeavourOS installation. It’s arch-based, but with easier installation and some apps to help maintain the system. I’ve had it on my T16 for more than 2 years now.
Fedora is probably the most obvious choice though, since you’ve already used it.
checkout Aurora too
Fedora is way different now, and has basically taken the old throne Ubuntu used to carry as the default to try. Clean, simple, rolling releases, it’s good.
Ubuntu’s reputation has been tarnished due to forcing Snap packages on users, sneaking Amazon-based software into default installs, and showing ads. I’d steer clear.
Arch is still Arch. Wiki is still amazing, but distro is work.
Ignore anyone who says anything about a “gaming” distro. There is literally no performance difference.
CachyOS is maybe the one distro that could claim performance improvements over the others, but like in the ~10% target area, nothing super drastic.
Since you’re familiar with old school distros already, steer clear of immutable until you find a need for that complication in your life.
Ignore anyone who says anything about a “gaming” distro. There is literally no performance difference.
I’ve never heard of anyone suggest a gaming-focused distro for performance reasons.
It’s always for compatibility and shit-just-works reasons. And that is wildly different between distros.
That was a secondary point to just ignoring the “gaming” distros, but this thread alone has a bunch of people pushing Bazzite because someone simply said the word “gaming”, and not recognize the majority of what OP said he would be doing is not gaming.
Immutable distros are a PITA for coders for a number of different reasons, so should not be recommended simply because of that. They have no benefits to workflow, only extra overhead to the other work OP is asking about,.who even said they are largely unfamiliar with anything except older releases. Suggesting they jump right into the fire with an immutable distro is bad advice.
I would suggest Debian. Rock solid and it usually has all you need. If you need newer software on it you can allways use backports and there is also a really cool project called distroboc that will let you run pretty much any application in a container.
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My crappy HP laptop works great with Linux I used Debian I had to install some packages to make things work but it was a decent way to learn the basics and now everything just runs. KDE makes things pretty easy and I often just use the app thingie.
I really enjoy running nixos because there is very little uncertainty of what’s installed. I don’t run any games so I can’t speak to that, but the centralized configuration makes fixing problems relatively easy. The downside is a steep learning curve to writing your own derivations, the community is split between “flakes” and normal nix derivations, and sometimes you just have to accept that it doesn’t work on nixos without putting in the work to write the derivations yourself. (Don’t get me wrong, people have made derivations easy to build, but it’s an unexpected side quest when you just want to try some new software)
All distros are fine.
You mentioned gaming. Hence, go for bazzite.
I don’t recommend bazzite. I am using bazzite right now it is great for gaming. But it is a nightmare to install any software via the terminal often times you have to use a virtual environment and even that doesn’t work very well.
If your a little familiar with fedora then it is a very good distro still and it has a kde veriant. (take my advice with a grain of salt I am pretty new to linux as well)
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I highly recommend using Manjaro Linux.
It’s great for practical usage by practical people.
KDE is also the best choice, in my mind. DE will probably have a bigger impact on your experience than distro.
is manjaro seriously that much easier than stock arch installed via archinstall?
No, but if you want an easy arch install EndeavourOS is much more reputable.
Reputable meaning you’ll get brownie points from “people” on the internet who can’t make decisions for themselves and don’t want you to, either.
I haven’t used Arch Linux in years so I haven’t tried out their installer.
Manjaro doesn’t require using the command line at all to install, so if Arch Linux can match that then it’s probably at least as good.
i mean you have to “use the command line” for the arch installer i guess, but it’s literally just typing “archinstall” and then having a TUI pop up where you can graphically set the install options and start the installation
