I’m resetting windows 10 on my Thinkpad T580 for work but would like to create a partition for linux. It’s an older laptop and really chugs through games like Minecraft or RuneScape but I enjoy playing relaxing games while I listen to audiobooks at night. I grew up using windows which is why I’ve mostly used Ubuntu and ZorinOS in the past but I’d like to expand my horizons to something like kubuntu. I value good UI/UX design and something lightweight for my old potato. Any recommendations on Linux distros?
** Thanks for all the input! I tried Fedora first but it felt kind of clunky to me. Then I tried out Mint xfce and it’s right up my alley! I can run a separate Firefox profile right off the task bar that runs outside of my VPN which is perfect for Netflix and other sites that have issues. So far loving how customizable it is. Minecraft runs ok off GDLauncher, and lutris is really cool. I forgot I had a boat load of old GOG games that are perfect for this laptop. I really fucking love Linux 😆
Since I began exploring Linux again for the first time in 20 years, I’ve tried a handful of distros. I’m… semi competent working in the command line, and here are my experiences.
Pop!_OS: comes with proprietary drivers for Nvidia cards! Neat! Some minor compositor issues with Nvidia and multi monitor support, but I hammered them out. Eventually the general glitchyness of the desktop environment and software center turned me off.
Fedora KDE: getting my laptop to handle multi monitor support, while still allowing high refresh gaming on the external monitor was a no go. I managed to install drivers from the command line, but Optimus, used to select power profiles and allow one monitor to have hardware acceleration while the laptop screen itself runs off the processor, would not function no matter what I did.
Nobara: hmmm. Fedora, but the aforementioned driver issues are solved out of the box, neat. But I hated the gnome based custom DE. they have other DE spins like KDE but I didn’t try them.
Manjaro: Arch, but easier? It was pretty smooth, but too complicated for my tastes.
Linux Mint Cinnamon: Mint just fucking works. A graphical driver manager that automatically detects my GPU and lets me click what driver I want to use with no bullshit? Multi monitor support was easy. Gaming is easy. The software center is clean and smooth. No glitchyness anywhere. Cinnamon is beautiful and easy enough to customize if you want to rice it out. Mint isn’t as sexy or interesting as some other distros, in fact it works so well for someone with slightly lower than intermediate Linux chops, that it’s almost boring.
My vote is, try a few. But in the end, mint seems like where I’ll come home to whenever the distro hop itch strikes again.
IMO one should never recommend manjaro. To suggest an easy arch endeavouros should be the way to go, why? Because the manjaro devs make way too many mistakes and a mistake or two can happen to anyone, but when it happens often it becomes a pattern, one where I wouldn’t want someone to deal with if it can be avoided.
Yeah, I had seen some of the criticism but figured it wouldn’t hurt to give it a whirl. I haven’t tried endeavor yet, maybe I should.
Definitely try it. I started Linux with Mint since it’s the closest to Windows I could find. Later on I wanted to try bleeding edge but vanilla Arch was too complicated for a noob like me. Until I found EOS. The transition was smooth and painless. I learned more about Linux in a few months with EOS than years on Mint, but that’s a me problem. Now I have vanilla Arch on my VM and EOS on my laptop bare metal. It’s pretty stable, and that one-time Grub issue was the only hiccup I ever experienced that was not due to my stupidity. Lol.
Now I want to try Gentoo, but man it’s even more complicated.
Thanks for the encouragement! I’ve been reading up and thinking about making it my project for the weekend. The question still lingers, do I need sexy Linux, when regular boring functional Linux does everything I need it to very smoothly? I game browse the web on it. I don’t code or make content, and my day job keeps me so busy that I want my shit to just work when I feel like booting up a game my steamdeck or switch can’t handle. Is the feeling of running it successfully worth it?