Suggestions to switch a daily laptop to linux.

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

All distros are fine.

You mentioned gaming. Hence, go for bazzite.

[email protected]

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/bazzite but I have not tried with nvidia though

[email protected]

Fedora is way different now, and has basically taken the old thrown Ubuntu used to carry as the default to try.

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.

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.

[email protected]

Since you only mentioned 25% gaming, I'd recommend against a gaming-centric distro like Bazzite. Instead, use a generalist desktop distro.

Since you mentioned that you're rather new-ish, I'd recommend against Arch-based distros like CachyOS. Instead, check out e.g. Fedora, Mint, OpenSuSE. (Probably in that order of priority)

These aren't hard recommendations, so you can do whatever and probably be fine either way, but it still doesn't fit that well.

[email protected]

checkout Aurora too

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

I always recommend this for people looking for a laptop: https://old.reddit.com/r/LaptopDeals/

Just check this out daily until you find something that fits your needs and budget.

[email protected]

I highly recommend using Manjaro Linux.

It's great for practical usage by practical people.

[email protected]

I have Bazzite on a gaming laptop from 2015, and it's been great.

For something non-atomic, Nobara or PikaOS might be good choices.

[email protected]

is manjaro seriously that much easier than stock arch installed via archinstall?

[email protected]

No, but if you want an easy arch install EndeavourOS is much more reputable.

[email protected]

I’ve been all over the gamut of distros, arch based, Ubuntu based, you name it, and Fedora is it. It’s more bleeding edge than Ubuntu based distributions like Mint and Pop_OS, but not as high maintenance as Arch based distributions. When a Linux noob starts getting Pacman notifications about unmerged pacnew files, they’re going to get turned off pretty quick.

Fedora is rock solid, clean, smooth, and generally free of issues for me for about two years now.

[email protected]

There’s nothing especially gaming-focused with bazzite that would interfere with general PC usage.

The only thing is that there’s not a lot of distro-specific guidance out there, and the immutable concept is a bit new and unusual.

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

The only thing is that there’s not a lot of distro-specific guidance out there

I'm genuinely curious to hear what's missing here.

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

Fedora seems favourite as you've used it. There's a new version due toward the end of March so you may want to hang on, to avoid legacy stuff being upgraded. Maybe they'll remove the x11 drivers.

There's also the inst.sdboot install flag to avoid the legacy grub install.

I don't find the install very easy to understand, compared to things like Debian but it's worth the fiddle.

ArchLinux is the other alternative.

agnos.is Forums

Suggestions to switch a daily laptop to linux.