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.

  • kyub@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    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.

    • Hawke@lemmy.world
      0·
      11 days ago

      There’s nothing especially gaming-focused with bazzite that would interfere with general PC usage. I think it’s a great choice for “25% gaming”.

      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.

  • deadcatbounce@reddthat.com
    0·
    11 days ago

    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. Fedora has changed a lot but you’ll want to install the other repos first thing and there’s also a large move towards flatpak (which works very well).

    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.

    • Coriza@lemmy.world
      1·
      11 days ago

      I’m kind of noob in general terms and I’m afraid I’ll be leaving dual boot just in case.

      ArchLinux is the other alternative.

      Never change internet. Never change.

      OP, don’t go with the hype, don’t go arch Linux as your first distro, you can change to it later when you get more comfortable and feels like having a more hands on approach.

      PS: I don’t think that matters but just in case, I am an arch user for at least 12 years already as my only OS (except work computer) and I find it wild that so many people recommends arch Linux (or any of its derivatives) for beginners. I can only guess how many people get burnt and give up on Linux because of it.