Ubuntu desktop?

[Joduko]

What sort of hardware configurations work best with Ubuntu in mind?

For a CPU I want 6-8 cores, but which plays nicer with Linux? Intel or AMD?
 

Same question for GPU. I don't need a lot of GPU horsepower just to play Minecraft so which plays nicer with Linux? intel UHD, Ryzen APU vega, nVIDIA or AMD?

 

And beyond that are there any types of brands to avoid for Linux in regards to MB, RAM, storage?

[mahyar]

for cpu what ever you want and for gpu i recommend amd other things just use whatever you want

[Master Disaster]

The only thing that really matters is GPU since AMDs Linux Driver is miles ahead of Nvidias. You'll have a much easier time with an AMD GPU over a Nvidia (though I've heard the Nvidia drivers have improved since I last used them).

 

Other than that Linux will use pretty much anything. The only other exceptions are things like Wifi adapters, bluetooth dongles etc which Linux can be a bit fussy about.

[Windows7ge]

For the most well known distros of GNU/Linux hardware compatibility is actually pretty good there isn't really a "plays best with" unless you're trying to do something very specific like hardware pass-though.

 

The only real input I can give you is as far as I've seen is NVIDIA drivers are suppose to be easier to deal with than AMD. There's GUI tools for installing NVIDIA drivers but to get AMD drivers you have to source them yourself and install them via the terminal. It's not actually that hard but it's kind of unfair that NVIDIA is being favored over AMD.

 

Other than that you could use "any" CPU. AMD Ryzen, Intel just about any gen.

 

RAM is pretty universally compatible. Not much to worry about there.

 

Storage, (at least SATA based) is pretty universally compatible. Not much to worry about there.

 

As for brands to avoid. Nothing really comes to mind unless again you're doing something very specific but if it's just to play Minecraft, general use, and maybe some other light games there isn't much you need to avoid with Ubuntu anyways.

[Drama Lama]

4 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Other than that you could use "any" CPU. AMD Ryzen, Intel just about any gen.

at launch Ryzen 3000 CPUs had problems with Linux due to some random number generator 

 

don‘t worry 

if you download the latest versions you won’t have a problem 

[Master Disaster]

7 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

For the most well known distros of GNU/Linux hardware compatibility is actually pretty good there isn't really a "plays best with" unless you're trying to do something very specific like hardware pass-though.

 

The only real input I can give you is as far as I've seen is NVIDIA drivers are suppose to be easier to deal with than AMD. There's GUI tools for installing NVIDIA drivers but to get AMD drivers you have to source them yourself and install them via the terminal. It's not actually that hard but it's kind of unfair that NVIDIA is being favored over AMD.

 

Other than that you could use "any" CPU. AMD Ryzen, Intel just about any gen.

 

RAM is pretty universally compatible. Not much to worry about there.

 

Storage, (at least SATA based) is pretty universally compatible. Not much to worry about there.

 

As for brands to avoid. Nothing really comes to mind unless again you're doing something very specific but if it's just to play Minecraft, general use, and maybe some other light games there isn't much you need to avoid with Ubuntu anyways.

Might be the case in other distros but anything remotely modern and Ubuntu based comes preloaded with AMD GPU drivers. The only edge case is if you want to do anything workstation related, in that case you need AMDs GPU-Pro drivers.

 

For gaming its ready to go OOTB and the drivers will update as required with Kernel updates.

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, Drama Lama said:

at launch Ryzen 3000 CPUs had problems with Linux due to some random number generator 

 

don‘t worry 

if you download the latest versions you won’t have a problem 

20.04.1 LTS or 19.10?

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Might be the case in other distros but anything remotely modern and Ubuntu based comes preloaded with AMD GPU drivers. The only edge case is if you want to do anything workstation related, in that case you need AMDs GPU-Pro drivers.

 

For gaming its ready to go OOTB and the drivers will update as required with Kernel updates.

Ah, yep. My own applications require OpenCL. Never got ROCm to work right so had to download the pro drivers.

[Drama Lama]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

20.04.1 LTS or 19.10?

I do not even know that numbers are supposed to mean 

 

but the problem with Linux not being able to boot on Ryzen 3000 were fixed just weeks after the launch 

[Windows7ge]

9 minutes ago, Drama Lama said:

I do not even know that numbers are supposed to mean 

 

but the problem with Linux not being able to boot on Ryzen 3000 were fixed just weeks after the launch 

IIRC those are the current latest Ubuntu release both Long Term Support version and the October release (19.10)

 

Should we just go by kernel version?

 

In which kernel release was it patched?

[Master Disaster]

I can confirm both 19.10 & 20.04 both work perfectly on a 3800X. Which ever you decide to go with depends on what you want from the OS, 19.10 will get more recent updates and more frequently but this also means there's always a chance an update will break something, 20.04 being Long Term Support won't always pull the most up to date software (especially Kernel Updates) but you can be confident what it does pull will be thoroughly tested before being upstreamed. 20.04 will also get support for 2 years where as non LTS get 12 months IIRC but then you can always just dist-upgrade every 6 months to the latest version as its released where as LTS only gets one release every 2 years. If you installed 20.04 you wouldn't get a new full OS update until 22.04 where as 19.10 should get updated to 20.10 in October.