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What is the best Linux distribution for laptops?

RustyZombie
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Depends on your preference. Mint and Ubuntu are popular distros

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I'd say "the one you can get running" :D

I found a great tutorial for Arch for the Macbook Pro, and since I'd been using Arch for a few years anyway, I ended up going with that. But your mileage may vary.

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Since I got my desktop up and running, I can tinker around with the buggy windows on my laptop.

 

Depends on what you need, but don't expect linux to be bug free.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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Depends on what you need, but don't expect linux to be bug free.

 

Nothing special.  I'm using Mint on the desktop I just built, and no issues so far.  Does Linux tend to be buggier on laptops?

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Does Linux tend to be buggier on laptops?

 

Unfortunately yes, a lot more. It depends on the laptop, some have good enough linux support that it won't make a big difference, but on others a lot of features may not work.

 

Mint is a good choice, another one you may want to look at is Elementary. If it needs to be very light I recommend xubuntu.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

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I use Ubuntu Gnome with TLP (Linux Power Management Tools) installed to improve battery life, works perfectly from my experience. Touch, wifi, ect all work.

Lord of Helium.

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Mint works fine on most laptops.  I'm using it on a six-year-old one right now with no problems--runs great.  LMDE supposedly runs a bit faster than their main version, if you need something a bit leaner.

 

It also depends how old the laptop is.  Even if it's seven or eight or nine years old, most Linux versions will probably be fine.  You might have to go for some desktop environment like XFCE or LXDE rather than the somewhat more resource-intensive Unity/KDE/etc, but it should be fine.  But if you need to squeeze more performance out: Lubuntu/Xubuntu, XFCE Mint, Arch (if you can devote the time to setup/maintenance and have the know-how, this is one of the best choices), probably Debian, and of course, FreeBSD if you want to wait for your bloody xorg install to compile for like ninteen goddamn hours or something.  (But FreeBSD will run easily as well as, if not slightly better than, most Linux distros on old hardware, but requires a lot more know-how and a lot more manual reading than almost every Linux distro.  It's also not Linux.  I'm also trying to get it up and running in a virtual machine so I figured I'd mention it for kicks)

 

The bottom line is that if it's a laptop from the last few years, pretty much anything.  if it's older, the standard list of more lightweight, but full-fledged, distros.

 

You might run into more hardware issues on laptops, though, but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be.  Usually drivers for slightly uncommon/nonstandard hardware parts, but even that is getting to be less of a problem each year.

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Ubuntu or Mint because they just werk.

Other honorable mentions would be manjaro or fedora.

 

CPU - FX 8350 @ 4.5GHZ ▒ GPU - Radeon 5700 ▒ Mobo - M5A99FX Pro R2.0 ▒ RAM - Crucial Ballistix 16GB @ 1600 ▒ PSU - Corsair CX600M ▒ CPU Cooler - Hyper 212 EVO ▒ Storage - Samsung EVO 250GB, WD Blue 1TB

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There isn't a best distro for laptops. When it comes down to it all distros will be able to use the same things. Just use whatever you are comfortable with.

 

Ubuntu or Mint because they just werk.

Other honorable mentions would be manjaro or fedora.

Please don't recommend manjaro. Its a version of arch thats usually multiple package versions behind. Its for people who refuse to read the manual and wiki or who refuse to use architect. And it just leaches off the arch devs.

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|ARCH LINUX| |CPU i5 4690k @ 4.7GHz| |GPU: Asus Strix 390x| |Mobo: Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mk 2| |RAM: Corsair Veangence Pro 16gb (2x8gb) @2133mhz| |CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i| |PSU: 750w EVGA Supernova 80+ Gold| |Case: Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX(Silver)| |K/B: Pok3r w/ Cherry MX Blues|

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|Samsung 250GB 840 EVO: Arch Linux installation.| |Seagate Barracuda 2TB: Mostly Games and stuff related to that. Music and most Media as well.| |Seagate NAS 4TB: Anime and Anime Art-Whoring.| |Seagate 1TB 2.5" SSHD: Arch install on my Thinkpad X220.| |Samsung OEM Lenovo SSD: Windows 8.1 cause I need to play JRPGs some how.|

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|Cans: Sennheiser HD 558(Modded)| |Earbuds: Shure SE215| I'm working on expanding this.

 

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Please don't recommend manjaro. Its a version of arch thats usually a multiple package versions behind. Its for people who refuse to read the manual and wiki or who refuse to use architect. And it just leaches off the arch devs.

 

Not trying to be rude or anything, but this comic sums up Linux in general pretty well. Sure, its great for some users but it still isn't quite there. 

 

fH80kCF.png

 

CPU - FX 8350 @ 4.5GHZ ▒ GPU - Radeon 5700 ▒ Mobo - M5A99FX Pro R2.0 ▒ RAM - Crucial Ballistix 16GB @ 1600 ▒ PSU - Corsair CX600M ▒ CPU Cooler - Hyper 212 EVO ▒ Storage - Samsung EVO 250GB, WD Blue 1TB

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Not trying to be rude or anything, but this comic sums up Linux in general pretty well. Sure, its great for some users but it still isn't quite there. 

 

fH80kCF.png

Yea but you've missed the point. Use arch if you want to use arch. Don't use a distro that just leaches off of what its based on. Being easy to install wasn't the point of arch. However if you do want to use arch because pacman and the AUR are awesome then there is architect.

But if reading the wiki and copying a couple lines on text is too hard for you then architect or manjaro is really not going to help you.

PS I never said install arch.

Windows 10 likes to spy on you. Protect your Data! Run GNU/Linux!
That One Privacy Guy's VPN Comparison Chart.

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|ARCH LINUX| |CPU i5 4690k @ 4.7GHz| |GPU: Asus Strix 390x| |Mobo: Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mk 2| |RAM: Corsair Veangence Pro 16gb (2x8gb) @2133mhz| |CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i| |PSU: 750w EVGA Supernova 80+ Gold| |Case: Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX(Silver)| |K/B: Pok3r w/ Cherry MX Blues|

Spoiler

|Samsung 250GB 840 EVO: Arch Linux installation.| |Seagate Barracuda 2TB: Mostly Games and stuff related to that. Music and most Media as well.| |Seagate NAS 4TB: Anime and Anime Art-Whoring.| |Seagate 1TB 2.5" SSHD: Arch install on my Thinkpad X220.| |Samsung OEM Lenovo SSD: Windows 8.1 cause I need to play JRPGs some how.|

Spoiler

|Cans: Sennheiser HD 558(Modded)| |Earbuds: Shure SE215| I'm working on expanding this.

 

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https://ubuntugnome.org/ (this  ^_^)

CPU = A10 6800K (@4.3Ghz) / GPU = HD 8670D (@844mhz/ram@1866mhz) - 2016 ≠ Dual Cores - why learn Linux ? - OLD intel x4 cpu (Q6600) + amd HD 7950 - this is what i think on watts x dollar cost - CPU "bottlenecks" only start to show "at the super high end cards" (like the 390) if you have a 4 cores CPU

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CentOS is also a nice linux distro (has a GUI) personally I like it more than Ubuntu. 

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On 30/1/2016 at 5:02 AM, Opask said:

Please don't recommend manjaro. Its a version of arch thats usually multiple package versions behind. Its for people who refuse to read the manual and wiki or who refuse to use architect. And it just leaches off the arch devs.

Isn't the point of Linux that it's open-source and everyone can build upon and use it how they want to?

Why is SpongeBob the main character when Patrick is the star?

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1 hour ago, patrick3027 said:

Isn't the point of Linux that it's open-source and everyone can build upon and use it how they want to?

Yes and no. First of all manjaro testing = arch stable. Now arch stable is actually really stable so there is really no need for it to be tested any further. And because of this the packages in manjaro end up multiple version behind.  While wasting all this time testing stable packages there is never any reason for them to help fix upstream issues. Because by the time they make it to manjaro they are usually at least a few months+ old.

Another appeal of arch was that it was minimal. And for the most part that is not the case with manjaro.

But anyways no one likes a leech, it might be a bit better regarded if they actually contributed anything at all to any projects but they really don't. I would compare it to the Mint guys but they at least created cinnamon. Which albeit is a fork of gnome but at least they did something. And a lot of people like cinammon so I can't really hate on them for that. Its probably closer to compare it to elementary.

Windows 10 likes to spy on you. Protect your Data! Run GNU/Linux!
That One Privacy Guy's VPN Comparison Chart.

Spoiler
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|ARCH LINUX| |CPU i5 4690k @ 4.7GHz| |GPU: Asus Strix 390x| |Mobo: Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mk 2| |RAM: Corsair Veangence Pro 16gb (2x8gb) @2133mhz| |CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i| |PSU: 750w EVGA Supernova 80+ Gold| |Case: Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX(Silver)| |K/B: Pok3r w/ Cherry MX Blues|

Spoiler

|Samsung 250GB 840 EVO: Arch Linux installation.| |Seagate Barracuda 2TB: Mostly Games and stuff related to that. Music and most Media as well.| |Seagate NAS 4TB: Anime and Anime Art-Whoring.| |Seagate 1TB 2.5" SSHD: Arch install on my Thinkpad X220.| |Samsung OEM Lenovo SSD: Windows 8.1 cause I need to play JRPGs some how.|

Spoiler

|Cans: Sennheiser HD 558(Modded)| |Earbuds: Shure SE215| I'm working on expanding this.

 

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Ubuntu. It'll significantly reduce the amount of swearing you'll do when you find every linux question/how to is based around Ubuntu. If you don't like how it looks just install a desktop environment. I prefer gnome with some extensions. Also don't uninstall the gnome bloatware or it'll break everything.

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