I’m on the market to buy a new laptop, and Lemmy has successfully coaxed and goaded me to give Linux a serious try.
I’ve never used *nix as my personal OS.
Which hardware/laptop do you recommend? And which OS to pair it with for a Linux newbie?
I’m a software engineer, and quit my job to pursue an MSc in AI. So my uses will be:
- programming
- study
- browsing lemmy
- gaming
Linux runs on literally anything. The hardware doesn’t matter too much these days, but which distro you pick does. I would say to just load a flash drive with a live image of a distro you think looks cool and see how you like it on a trial basis. Try a couple of them before you reqlly make a decision and then load the full image
The hardware doesn’t matter too much these days
WiFi, Bluetooth and Nvidia graphics have entered the chat
Fingerprint reader and webcam standing by
The proprietary Nvidia graphics drivers works pretty well in most distros. Just go to your distro’s driver manager and enable the proprietary driver.
WiFi and Bluetooth yeah, if you run Linux mint setting up the proprietary drivers us literally like 2 buttons in the drivers menu
All distris that have GNOME look the same. Same for KDE. I wouldn’t go the looks cool route
Distro choice doesn’t matter too much. Even ubuntu if you ignore snaps
I use manjaro xfce but i would reccommend fedora or mint if ya starting out. Fedora seems to just work most of the time hardware wise.
Framework, System76, Slimbook and Tuxedo are great choices
I’ve heard great things about system76, never had one of their laptops myself but still have the desktop I got in 2011 (Wild Dog Pro). I personally use the frame.work 13, and it has been working great with Arch installed. I do not recommend Arch, use something like PopOS, or LinuxMint.
I have been eyeing a framework laptop. Just curious how you use the modular ports in your case: do you have different ones you swap sometimes?
2 type c’s and 2 type A USB are in it 99% of the time. I have the HDMI, and display port modules but have rarely used them. I also keep the 2.5Gb Ethernet for when I break the WiFi to get back into the router, and a microsd for when I reflash my raspberry pi’s .
Is there any advantage to having extra ports over a dongle with all of those at once?
IMO, modular ports is not the main selling point for Framework. I was sold on their commitment to a platform that is repairable/upgradable.
Other than they fit nicely into a pocket in my backpack…no. The main reason I love their product is the reparability aspect, allowing me to swap ports is just a neat feature.
I have a “typical” set of ports (2x USB-C, HDMI, USB-A) that’s on my laptop most of the time. I also have the 2.5GbE adapter that I use occasionally.
I keep a copy of Windows installed on a storage card, saves from having to mess about with partitioning for dual booting.
I was typing up a reply and realized this said most of what I was saying. The only thing I’d add is that support matters, popularity matters. Supported or popular HW platforms are less likely to have small random niggles than an off the shelf dell laptop. System 76 or tuxedo lines are ideal supported platforms. Think pads area super popular.
PopOS or Mint are as easy to use as ubuntu, but without being chained to snaps, which everyone is moving towards flatpaks except canonical
What generation of framework do you have?
Intel 11th gen. I was in the first few batches when it came out and haven’t had a need to upgrade, but love that I can if needed.
Oh man that’s the same as me! I’ve been having all sorts of issues with reliability with mine so I was curious if it was different generations. I guess I’m unlucky?
I’ve had no issues that weren’t caused by me, but I also have a pretty minimal setup.
Check out the Framework 16. Ubuntu and Fedora are officially supported. I run Debian on my Framework 13 no problem.
System76 and Framework
I have a very similar use case so here is my opinion.
HARDWARE
-No dGPU unless this is your PRIMARY gaming computer. (Reason: better battery life, lighter laptop, with recent AMD iGPU you have decent performance for non-VR/not massive openworld AAA games.)
-recent AMD CPU. (Reason: better performance to watt ratio than Intel which makes a big difference for most of your use cases. Better multi-core performance which makes compiling code much faster. Massively better iGPU for light-medium duty gaming.)
-atleast 16GB ram if not expandable but as much as you can reasonably budget.
-16:10 or taller aspect ratio screen (16:9 sucks on laptop size devices, the extra height makes a big difference for school, coding, browsing, pretty much everything but watching 16:9 movies)
-Resolution: personal preference. IMO 1080p or 1920*1200 for 16:10 is ideal for 14" and below laptops. Lower resolution means better battery and on a small screen the PPI is high enough. If you are OK with a trade off of battery life and want a super crisp display then 2K is the highest I would go. 4K is retarded on laptop sized screens unless you are plugged in 90% of the time and you’ll have to fuck with scaling then.
-metal body for stiffness and durability
-decent key travel (usually longer travel means better IME)
If you want to do machine learning/AI work professionally I use and recommend investing in a dedicated desktop with a large memory nvidia (cuda cores) GPU and installing the cuda drivers. Trying to cram commercially viable ai hardware into a laptop is a losing battle and you’ll end up with a worse experience for both use cases, wont be able to fit large models in the memory anyways, and end up buying a desktop for AI while being stuck with a laptop that is worse for laptop use)
SOFTWARE
#1 Nobara OS KDE - best OOB experience for gaming IMO. Easy transition from windows. Has kernel fixes and many laptop specific fixes (asusctrl for example) by default which means you have a good chance of extra features like LEDs, fingerprint, etc working without tinkering). Fedora based.
#2 Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE6) - best non-gaming distro to learn and grow into IMO. Access to deb packages. Stable. (nobara has been stable for me as well, but it is LMDE’s bread and butter). Ease of transition from windows. Can game just as well if you are capable of following simple instructions to configure the stuff done by default on nobara and pop (may need to manually change kernels, drivers, etc to get the best performance on new hardware)
#3 Pop_OS - used it for years, but I prefer Nobara after comparing. Ubuntu based so you have access deb packages without ubuntu’s bullshit. Setup out of the box for gaming. I got fed up with failed updates, broken packages, and sluggishness so I swapped to nobara which has been a treat.
EDIT: you can snag some good deals on amazon warehouse deals (used-like new) laptops. These are usually just open box returns and if there is anything wrong you have 30 days to return it.
I recently upgraded to an Asus vivobook S 14x OLED (M5402R) for $780 CAD ($580USD) with a ryzen 7 6800H, 16GB DDR5, a 1TB gen 4 nvme, and it has zero signs of use, slight coil whine under load that I can only hear if I put my ear next to the keyboard and don’t have any sound or music on (I suspect this was the reason for the return on mine since its a common complaint for this model. That’s what I was hoping for since I’m not that picky and its worth the steep discount IMO.) Everything works oob on Nobara. I believe lenovo also regularly heavily discounts their previous gen thinkpads which are a great option, although the AMD configs are rare. Good luck!
Esp32
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I woke up my wife in bed laughing…
It’s real though, https://github.com/ESP32DE/Boot-Linux-ESP32S3-Playground
I know uou can do it, it’s just a really tiny laptop 🤣.
Any used ThinkPad will be an incredible value with Linux installed.
ThinkPad cus framework still doesn’t have a trackpoint :p
Get some live distro first and check it out without installation. You will be able to test some basic desktop environments very easily. Most of the distros will have live image. Even better run it in a virtual machine and play around. Test KDE, Gnome, Cinnamon and XFCE. Look at some themes and plugins. I think customizing your desktop is a nice, visual way to see how flexible it all is and get the feel of how configuration files work. If you will like what you can achieve with a bit of work you will just keep going. If you will find it ‘stupid and useless’ it’s probably not for you.
If you just want stuff to work with minimal hassle, Linux Mint is an excellent choice. PopOS is also often recommended, especially for laptops. If you really want to get into the nitty gritty, something Arch based might fit the bill.
Any modern Thinkpad will run any Linux distro easy, from bios updates up to gaming with Proton. Dell laptops also have a good linux support. Try to avoid laptops with Nvidia cards though, AMD driver installation is way easier if not completely invisible/painless.
A couple mentions in here of Linux Mint, I also recommend it having tried out a few distros before landing here. Especially if you go with an external GPU laptop, which might be a good choice for gaming needs, then Linux Mint has been really good about solving all of the annoying driver problems that could come up.
I have a Dell G15 Ryzen (AMD with nvidia GPU), it’s been pretty good but there’s always a trade-off between bulkiness and gaming needs. It’s just a little awkward to lug around to coffee shops, but it’s certainly got enough processing power for me.
System76 was a contender too, I think I just went with whichever was on sale!
I have never had an issue on Linux mint that was not me fucking with the comabd line doing things it warned me I should not, or that wasn’t outright a hardware failure
Just gonna throw in a recommendation for Nobara as a distro. Based on Fedora, maintained by Glorious egroll who makes great versions of proton. Distro is tuned for gaming but is great for regular use too. Used it for over a year and set my GF up with it as her first Linux desktop.
+1 for Nobara. I never could stand the farting around it took to get Fedora to use codecs and non-free software, so I was a little off-put trying Nobara, but it’s been a pleasure to use. I still miss the AUR but not as much as the last time I left the Arch ecosystem. And it comes out of the box ready to game, with everything you are going to need to have the best experience you’ll find on Linux without having to beat your head against all weird things you have to do to configure properly.
And KDE is a first-class citizen instead of sitting on the backburner waiting for a chance. I liked that change in the last release even though it was working well enough despite being non-default.
I don’t know if I can recommend framework. I’ve been having lots of reliability issues with their hardware.
I had massive issues a few months in. Lots of weird issues such as SSD randomly disconnects, screen flicker & system crashes, and issues with powering on after leaving the laptop overnight.
Been emailing back and forth with them since October trying out different fixes. All this time I haven’t really been able to use my laptop reliably. It should be getting sorted eventually. Their warrenty is pretty good and they finally agreed to replace the whole thing.
The laptop was nice. The modular ports was kinda cool because you can choose your io. The nice part was being able to open the laptop and upgrade parts without voiding warrenty. I think this is hardware issues rather than linux compatibility issues.
Maybe a Thinkpad would be more reliable for uni work
