I installed Linux Mint for the first time on my personal Laptop just a few months ago, and it ran so well that I didn’t want to mess with it to try out different distros.

But today, my company’s IT department announced that they have some spare old Laptops to give away (technically because they didn’t meet the specs for Windows 11, didn’t stop the IT department from giving them out with Windows 11 pre installed though)

So now I got a few devices to play around with!! They’re a Precision 7530 and a Latitude 7390 2-in-1!

I already got ZorinOS running on the little guy because apparently Zorin is nice for Touchscreen support. For the big guy I was initially thinking that I could try Bazzite, but the installer was like “Intel UHD Graphics aren’t really recommended” so I might try something else first. Any recommendations? I mainly just want to try as many different flavors of Linux as I can haha

    • python@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      5 days ago

      Not yet, but I have seen that it is very popular on Distrowatch! :D It’s definitely in my backlog

  • The_v@lemmy.world
    14·
    7 days ago

    Umm… With 2 free computers and nothing on them.

    Run down the list and install all the different distros. Test them out for a few weeks then onto the next. Pretty soon you’ll one that you prefer.

      • python@lemmy.worldOP
        1·
        5 days ago

        Installing one distro on one laptop and then only using that laptop to figure out how to install the next distro on the other laptop! That would give me an actual goal in each distro I install too, since I’d have to get the wifi and browser working and figure out how to run that program that burns iso files onto a usb stick :0
        … that would be such an entertaining youtube video concept too, I wish I was into video making haha

    • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      This is the way.

      The only way to find the right distro is to try them out, on the end device, with the end user.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
    101·
    7 days ago

    “Intel UHD Graphics aren’t really recommended”

    Because Bazzite is gaming oriented and Intel UHD is barely good enough to render a display?

    • JamesBoeing737MAX@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      5·
      6 days ago

      Well, it works for MC, older games, even stray runs somewhat (from my experience). It’s decent for a 300€ laptop with a quad core like the ones in the post.

      • python@lemmy.worldOP
        2·
        5 days ago

        I actually have tried it on the bigger laptop by now and somehow Bazzite runs Sekiro more smoothly than my “Gaming” Lenovo Legion Y530 that has an actual GPU and is from around the same time ever did. 🫣 It was completely unplayable on my other Laptop… which makes me think that maybe I misconfigured it to not actually use the GPU back in the day??? I’ll have to experiment with that a bit more haha

    • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
      7·
      6 days ago

      I have a Dell with UHD+Nvidia, took me a while to get Prime working to switch video cards. Even on UHD, it could do basic Steam games and Minecraft if you didn’t have high expectations.

  • da Tweaker@feddit.org
    4·
    6 days ago

    You can, if you have far to much time in your hands, install arch, gentoo, vor any other distro with a non graphical installer. I believe its a great experience, especially because you learn a bit more about the internels, and a few cool bash commands.

  • silt_haddock@lemmy.world
    6·
    7 days ago

    I just got a new laptop for my work (which I also use for personal stuff, it’s a family business).

    It came with Windows 11 but I’d got a bigger SSD which I’d installed before I’d even turned it on so Windows never even got a chance to boot.

    I installed one of the Fedora atomic distros and it seems to be pretty good, though I’m trying to figure out how to tune battery life. I’ve setup TLP but haven’t noticed any improvement, though, it’s still much better than when I first tried Linux on a laptop.

    I’d never used Fedora before, but the first distro I ever used was Ubuntu Dapper Drake and I’ve dipped my toes occasionally since then, but never fully committed until now

  • Digit@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    71·
    7 days ago

    so I might try something else first. Any recommendations?

    https://distrowatch.com/

    try 'em all.

    Edit: PS: distrowatch’s search is handy: e.g. https://distrowatch.com/search.php?defaultinit=Not+systemd [Edit: PS: maybe try {in approximate increasing ambitiousness] antix, devuan (or other respins of devuan, like expiron, peppermint, vendefoul, shebang, gnuinos), pclinuxos, salix, slackel, slackware, calculatelinux, artix, obarun, voidlinux, decibellinux, gentoo, crux (or kwort), sidelinux(?), milis(?),bedrock, guixSD, LFS. Or whatever… :) Have fun exploring.

  • ColdWater@lemmy.ca
    2·
    7 days ago

    And end with Vanilla Arch, for me atleast I distro hop every week when I got into Linux for the first time and I thought I’m going to use Fedora, Debian, OpenSUSE, EndeavourOS as my main but ended up using Arch Linux permanently instead. For me it’s the “just work” distro easy to use and troubleshoot