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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:
I can't seem to find an AMD GPU based laptop with 144hz display that isn't absurdly expensive, does anyone know of one?
Not a laptop, but I replaced my old laptop with a micro PC from minisforum EM680 and I'm very happy running Linux Mint in it. If you tend to use your laptop on the same spot, it's a great way have a more performing and ergonomic PC for the same or lower price.
I can power it from my monitor, so I can have only one cable at the desk. Bluetooth and wifi working out of the box.
At any rate, I suggest you stick to AMD graphics as they have native open source support.
Lenovo ThinkPads are what I've mainly used the last decades and they're quite Linux friendly now, can even buy them with Linux preinstall I believe.
Framework feels more in the spirit of Linux than most but I haven't owned one.
Lots of good Rocco's, but if you need to balance price and still get a high end machine, Lenovo Carbon. Runs fantastic out of the box, including S3/etc.
Can't tell you what laptop to buy, but distro wise I'd recommend either Pop OS, Zorin or Linux Mint. Zorin is most windows-like, with Mint coming in second. Pop OS is very different but incredibly user friendly.
Since you do want to game, I'd recommend going with a computer with an amd DGPU. Nvidia is mostly fine from a driver standpoint. Also Nvidia does have cuda so you might actually want to get one with an Nvidia dgpu.
Get something with an Intel wireless card, that'd be the best case scenario. I've had weird issues with both realtek and Broadcom. Lots of amd laptops come with mediatek based wireless cards, idk if they work well in Linux.
Tbh I'd rec any laptop that fit your requirements and install your distro of choice. (bunsenlabs for me).
my brother runs a thinkpad T380. best thing about it is that there is a swappable and a built-in battery. he bought it "refurbished" so his didn't include the internal one for some reason. but you can open and even upgrade some components.
all for around 300€.
we think these have benn bought by companies for full price (1000+€) and are now being replaced, so the market for used thinkpads is very saturated at the moment.
currently runs windows, but i see no problems with running linux on a laptop, you aren't gonna game on integrated graphics anyway.
i've used Linux Mint Cinnamon a fair bit, i really like it. i've heard KDE offers more desktop customization, but i have no idea what that would actually look like. Kubuntu apparently has it.
Hard to make a real recommendation without knowing your budget and general likes/dislikes. Like screen size, weight, clamshell vs convertible, integrated graphics vs dedicated GPU. I know you said gaming but integrated is great for indie and retro gaming and can handle some.modern stuff but a dgpu is needed if you're playing AAA titles and care about graphics and framerate, etc.
For everyone who says Linux runs on anything, that's mostly true but specific hardware components are still problematic. Most fingerprint scanners won't work if the laptop comes with Windows and you're installing yourself, the same for any unique hardware feature.
I have the Thinkpad x1 yoga gen 7 and everything works including the OR camera for facial recognition and the fingerprint scanner.
System 76, Framework or Tuxedo. Ignore the people telling you to buy a 10 year old Thinkpad.
Ugh, don’t use Linux for anything ever. It’s so hard to use and you might actually have to learn something new. Just stick to windows so you know every single piece of software ever created will definitely work 100%.
/s
Wouldn't join some research center as engineer make more sense than going through university again?