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Modest laptop arriving, what new Linux distribution should I try? (wiki.livingcartoon.org)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Looking for suggestions besides Kubuntu, KDE Neon, Debian, Arch Linux, or Kali. I have previous experience with XFCE, Ratpoison, Openbox, KDE Plasma. Recently started trying out LXQT.

Would be on a modest Dell Latitude with i5, 14" 1080p display with intel graphics, and maybe 16gb ram.

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[–] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I went with fedora bluefin.

It's an atomic/immutable type OS, based on silverblue, but with a bunch of drivers and software bundled in.

Atomic is not for everyone, but I love it. I tried it on a whim when I got my framework 13 over a year ago, and it's been on there ever since.

I've been using Linux on and off for a couple of decades now, mostly Ubuntu, but some others (OG DSL anyone?).

Really though I've never been able to ditch windows until bluefin. My problem has always been that after a year or two, my system starts to get unstable. And you can forget about complete version upgrades. Out of the question. They never fail to always fail. I just can't stop tinkering with things.

But bluefin? It has everything I want and need in a daily driver. And it's very nature FORCES me to not tinker with the inner gubbins. Thusly, it just works. Every day. Every update. Solid.

I use distrobox for tinkering. Or I spin up a Windows VM in proxmox if I need to get crazy. And I've still got a Windows computer gathering dust in the corner for when Windows on metal is required, but that's only happened once since I started this party.

So yeah, if you haven't given it a try, I highly recommend it.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    KDE and Xfce Ubuntu spins have been great last few LTS, just leaving them alone. I've also run DSL.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    That's fair. I had 24.04 installed because I needed a Linux de for something, and it eventually became the base of my Plex install for awhile.

    I purposely did very little to it, besides periodically update it.

    Almost immediately I had display issues where the monitor would shimmy back and forth about 10 pixels, rapidly. No rhyme or reason. I figured it was a Wayland thing.

    Then the updater started hanging. That's when I started learning proxmox to properly replace the whole setup.

    By the time I got it moved over, you couldn't restart the machine unattended, because it would kernel panic unless you used grub to revert to an older kernel.

    I swear I didn't tinker with this thing, it just.. Died.

    Of course that's just my experience 🤷‍♂️ Glad things have been solid for you. I still recommend poking at atomic distros, I think they're the future for a lot of less experienced users. It'll be good to have knowledge of how they work.

    I've got my very non-techy buddy running it right now. There are a couple of issues with flatpaks not having extended permissions, but otherwise, smooth sailing.

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