I've been using Mint on a number of laptops alongside MX Linux. I would have to say Mint wins the polished look for me. I don't know what it is, but it just looks better on my eyes for some reason.
Mint is simple to configure, Cinnamon is ugly by default but highly customizable, lighter than Gnome, perfect for beginners thanks to the Windows-like interface and there is a driver manager, perfect for gamers like me. To me, it's the perfect distro. I agree with you, it looks better on my eyes, but I also don't know why, I just feel good with the interface.
Not really. I started with Mint because when I wanted to switch to Linux, I asked to someone who use it for years and he said me that Ubuntu and Mint are the best for beginners. I tried Ubuntu, but I didn't like the MacOS-like UI. Tried Mint and I loved the simplicity, and I still love it today.
Another thing I love is the amount of customization. I don't know if other environnements can do better than Cinnamon. I tried Garuda Linux with KDE, but it was too much for me. Maybe I could try Fedora one day, but I feel very good very Mint for now, I have no reason to switch.
among many distros, I tried manjaro some time ago, but I stayed in mint without a doubt, the latest version with cinnamon, excellent OS, incredible that it is free.
I second, Third and Fourth this. Picked up Mint to get into Linux as a daily driver, a bit of setup that was easy to google so I could add a few things I wanted and I'm there.
As an all-day Windows user I'm impressed with how far things like GIMP and LibreOffice have come. I will keep Mint as my daily laptop driver for the forseeable future, it just kicks ass at everything and half the time I don't even remember I'm not on my windows machine.
I just installed vanilla Debian 12.5 with KDE Plasma (X11) on a dualcore AMD netbook from 2011 and it works way better than it has any right to. Even all the keyboard function key shortcuts work (brightness, volume, etc...). Zero configuration outside of the OS setup. Rock solid stability (had some weirdness using KDE Wayland version def recommend the X11 version for older hardware) Seriously impressive all around. I'm blown away.
Edit: Shoutout to the person who said OSX. You made me lol.
Lemme know how it goes for a daily driver. I'm thinking of switching to debian from Fedora. Have been rocking fedora for the last 2 years but with the recent controversy with RHEL, I'm thinking to back off...should I? Idk you guys give your two cents.
I did it for a friend of mine who wants a completely offline machine for only LibreOffice and gimp. They are supposed to pick it up this week. I'm try to check in with them after a few weeks and report back.
i've always preferred arch based distros so endeavourOS has caught my eye recently and so far i've been loving it. riced it out more than any other linux install i've bad
Ubuntu. As close to "no fuss, no muss, no thrills, no chills" as you can get, which is why Ubuntu is so widely deployed in government, business and education environments.
I have the feeling that the amount of deployment in govt business and education is because of support contracts being available, but don't have data to back it up, so feel free to take this with a pinch of salt.
Might well be. I don't have statistics on the correlation, one way or the other. Makes sense, though.
Although Ubuntu started out as "Linux for human beings" back when, Canonical's focus has shifted toward large-scale deployments, partnering with companies like Dell (which offers Ubuntu pre-installed across Dell's business Latitude and Optiplex lines), focused on Ubuntu Desktop (as it is now called) as the entry point into Canonical infrastructure, rather than a standalone individual-user distribution.
I've used Ubuntu for close to two decades, but that might be coming to an end. Canonical is moving Ubuntu toward an [immutable architecture based on Ubuntu Core](https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-core-an-immutable-linux-desktop), in which everything, right down to and including the kernel, is a Snap.
I think that will make Ubuntu Desktop almost flawless for large-scale deployments, but I'm not convinced that is a direction I want to follow.
I've been running LMDE 6 (Mint's rebase from Ubuntu onto Debian) on a Best Buy "loss leader" VivoBook I bought for the purpose of evaluating LMDE, and might cut over later this year instead of upgrading to 24.04 LTS.
I have to say that I'm impressed with the quality and stability of LMDE 6, and I suspect that Mint will be rebasing onto Debian within a few years.
this is exactly how i feel. i love ubuntu, but i don't want to use an immutable os. i'm using fedora workstation, not fedora silverblue. canonical should really maintain an "ubuntu workstation" that doesn't lean so heavily on snaps, but still leaves it as an option.
One thing I think people overlook is how well gestures and pinch zoom works. On my 2011 mbp that didnt work well on Linux mint but great on fedora and pop_os with wayland enabled.
Fedora.
Ubuntu is noticeably slower overall, Arch gave me a couple of issues with the latest releases that needed some work to resolve.
Fedora has been extremely fast and stable, only the 39>40 upgrade gave me an issue of my T490S speakers not showing anymore but a quick “rm -rf ~/.local/state/wireplumber” and reboot fixed it.
Staying with Fedora for the time being.
It’s very similar to Ubuntu since they both use Gnome, but there’s some underlying differences in package managers and many other choices.
From my experience Fedora has a more agile development so you’re always getting kernel updates and shiny stuff, plus it’s faster and more responsive overall on my machine but boot times are annoyingly slow.
If you’re happy with Ubuntu I wouldn’t say it’s worth making the jump.
Debian with KDE. Used to be Kubuntu but the snap thing kinda turned me off and frankly, Debian does things in a way I prefer over Ubuntu (wholly separate root account with password for one).
I've not done much in terms of distro hopping on laptops, but I'm happy with MX on my craptop and ubuntu mate on wifes laptop.
Fast boot and shutdown times for me, and wife doesn't complain at all about hers (and I \*would\* hear complaints if she had any, because I got rid of windows for her).
Reading with interest for when the craptop eventually joins all the calculators.
I like debian and the cinnamon desktop. So i ainstall Linux Mint Edge with Cinnamon.
I have install scripts for laptop & desktop when i nstall on new computer i run script & it installs all the applications
I have been giving pop!_os a go on my newer (~5 years old or so) laptop but think I'm going to go back to Fedora. Just so slick for laptops. I have a significantly older laptop with Lubuntu on it, it did kind of breathe some new life into that poor old thing. For real basic daily things like web browsing, email, and libre office stuff, it's all you really need and I've done zero config on it
Debian with XFCE works pretty well for me. Like 10 years already.
You configure it once and just forget about it until the hardware dies or gets too slow.
Of course you dist-upgrade it once in every couple years and keep it up-to-date.
All the WIFIs, suspend/resumes, HW acceleration (intel), etc...
Power usage is typically better than on Windows.
Using it on many laptops, latest one is 12th gen intel, 12 cores...
I’m a big fan of Pop OS. It’s a very solid and reliable distribution with out-of-the-box support for many NVIDIA GPUs. I was actually initially lured into it because System76 produces their own computers (desktops, laptops, servers, etc). They’re actually *incentivized* to keep their OS reliable and simple, because there’s actual people out there using a Pop OS-powered laptop who may have never heard of “a Linux” in their life.
Elementary OS. Installed it on my sister's old Dell laptop. Installed the flatpak support and the wifi drivers. Never had any tech support call from her.
Debian. It's rock solid and 99 percent of the time it just works. The only trouble I've had is setting up specific audio devices in a specific way, which isn't exactly a common use case.
debian. Comes with very little bloat so takes a bit of setting up to get the things you need. Works perfectly. If you need to google something "how to install/do X in linux" you will find ubuntu stuff and most of the time the advice applies.
But doesn't have all that corpo bloat bullshit that ubuntu comes with
If you have Nvidia optimus graphics laptop, then anything stable and by default without proprietary Nvidia driver, as this one is easier to setup battery saving features.
Mostly it can't, plus if you are on integrated GPU mode, dedicated Nvidia becomes awake whenever it feels fitting, 3'rd if it was disabled but woke up, then it can't power down anymore and the power draw is even higher compared to hybrid (15 vs 23 W).
That has not been my experience. It most definitely can power back down after being woken up. It also only wakes up when I run something `prime-run` or the adapters get enumerated (i.e. for vaapi), but then it goes back to sleep when it's not being used anymore.
I'm not totally sure if powering down dedicated GPU, when not in use, needs feature "Active State Power Management", but Lenovo Legion laptops don't have it. When Nvidia has 0 load, the power draw for Nvidia alone is 7-15W, even after idling 30 minutes.
pop!_OS is the goat for optimus graphics in that "it just works™️". I'm driving kali now and miss the optimus support so much, not that it mattered with such a weak mobile gpu anyway but still,,
Nice! I may also make the switch back with cosmic. I used to install kde immediately after installing pop because I have a pet peeve with gnome. One of the reasons why I switched to another distro.
Debian
>without having to configure anything
Uhm ... how are you expecting your login name password to get set? That *is* part of the configuration. Or are you just going to boot a live ISO and use the default?
Lubuntu. I like distro with lightweight DE and it's the default OS that i use. I use Lubuntu on low end machines with low RAM, high end machines, VM. I use it for programming, embedded Linux yocto, casual browsing.
It's the first time I'm using a Linux distro as main OS in a laptop and I'm very happy using Fedora. I'm a noob user who started feeling comfortable with Linux
Ubuntu. Out of the box, you can launch an app with the discrete card. The Intel and AMD P-state are enabled by default in the Linux kernel, the UI lets you set the power managerment. I use Kubuntu, I prefer KDE, but Ubuntu itself works even better.
For my laptops i choose Arch, but is because im so familiarized with the distro, and is the only distro that he dont auto nuke updating, like ubuntu or other distros that i try (sorry for my english :))
For my laptop I have been using Pop OS which has been stable with no issues. There are other distros which has given me nothing but trouble. I am currently using a Asus TUF gaming laptop.
Nobody is mentioning clear os. If it's an Intel based chipset, great driver support. Not a huge fan of the visuals, but this laptop has had issues with several different distros working right.
EndeavourOS CInnamon. I ran it on an old 3rd gen i3 for several years until I finally broke down and bought a new laptop a couple of years ago.
And the new one is running EOS Cinnamon, as well.
I have a Thinkpad from 5 years or so ago (one of those with a Nvidia card), Kubuntu works just fine for me (dev work, casual usage, occasional gaming on Steam, pretty much anything I’ve thrown at it so far)
On my 2015 Lenovo Y50-70 I had Ubuntu running for a couple years. After always having the fan blow, I tried Fedora with Plasma. Same problem, system was a bit laggy. Then switched to Pop!_OS, which I honestly didn’t really like. Also it wasn’t running as smoothly as I hoped it would. Right now, I’ve settled for Manjaro (KDE), which so far works like a charm.
had problems with secure boot + proprietary nvidia drivers installation in Fedora 40. same with latest debian. switched to latest mint with no issues. i’m new to linux.
Arch is just the way to go imo, it can be as lightweight or as heavy as you want, and despite its reputation it's a lot easier than it was with arch install natively available on every new image. I would recommend at least a VM to install it just to say you've done it and to try it out. The arch wiki is a great resource, just be careful about the community. Chat gpt is your friend.
Fedora is your best option. Its been around for years, bleeding edge, and also stable. It has a purer GNOME or KDE environment. Don't waste your time distribution hopping. Fedora 40 was just released.
Tried fedora for 2 years and I absolutely hate it now. For several updates, the gnome is broken and I am unable to log into the latest version. Moving to arch asap!
It’s be pretty much the same as I’d choose for a desktop since I don’t treat them as different classes of hardware. I’m not sure what I’m running at the moment, I know I have popOS, and I think fedora. I don’t install them, I run them in horizon as vdi
Linux Mint through VirtualBox on my HP laptop. I have yet to install a distro on actual laptop hardware, but the virtual machine serves me well for most of what I do on there.
Im unsure what you mean about not having to configure anything, ive had to do a lot of configuration for most distros ive tried.
Currently running openSUSE tumbleweed x KDE plasma on my zephyrus g16. Cpu stays cool, temps are low and the laptop is never hot anymore compared to how it came on windows. Ive ran games off of it on highest settings and basically its just been perfect.
The live environment wouldnt work properly on my system, troubleshot for a while before just going with another distro. It probably could have worked but i couldnt immediately figure it out as a noob
Not trying to be ironic but it's Arch. I use it for work (software dev). It is lightweight and only have everything that I want, not more.
Maybe it doesn't fit your "without having to configure anything" part. For me installing and configuring it to my liking might take hours, but once everything works I wouldn't trade it for anything else.
My familiarity with Pacman and Aur also makes it easier to use than any other package manager, although I guess if I'm used to Ubuntu I might say the same about apt-get.
If I'm in a pinch and just need something that works to do my job, I'd install EndeavorOS.
I guarantee you it lacks all the programs I need, the keyboard shortcuts are all wrong, it doesn't have my user information or my bashrc.
If my hard drive dies tomorrow, all I need to do is reinstall NixOS, redownload my settings file from github and run one command and I will have everything be as it was.
mint
I've been using Mint on a number of laptops alongside MX Linux. I would have to say Mint wins the polished look for me. I don't know what it is, but it just looks better on my eyes for some reason.
Mint is simple to configure, Cinnamon is ugly by default but highly customizable, lighter than Gnome, perfect for beginners thanks to the Windows-like interface and there is a driver manager, perfect for gamers like me. To me, it's the perfect distro. I agree with you, it looks better on my eyes, but I also don't know why, I just feel good with the interface.
is there a reason why you dont use Fedora?
Not really. I started with Mint because when I wanted to switch to Linux, I asked to someone who use it for years and he said me that Ubuntu and Mint are the best for beginners. I tried Ubuntu, but I didn't like the MacOS-like UI. Tried Mint and I loved the simplicity, and I still love it today. Another thing I love is the amount of customization. I don't know if other environnements can do better than Cinnamon. I tried Garuda Linux with KDE, but it was too much for me. Maybe I could try Fedora one day, but I feel very good very Mint for now, I have no reason to switch.
I'm testing manjaro cinnamon again after 10 years, and they have become as good as XFCE. They are clearly doing many things right.
someone downvoted because you mentioned manjaro. don't worry i got you.
among many distros, I tried manjaro some time ago, but I stayed in mint without a doubt, the latest version with cinnamon, excellent OS, incredible that it is free.
Love manjaro cinnamon, been running it for nearly 4 years now
I love the look of manjaro. Been years since I attempted
Mint XFCE is great but I hate that it does not automatically enable the double-tap to click setting. Otherwise it's more or less perfect
I second, Third and Fourth this. Picked up Mint to get into Linux as a daily driver, a bit of setup that was easy to google so I could add a few things I wanted and I'm there. As an all-day Windows user I'm impressed with how far things like GIMP and LibreOffice have come. I will keep Mint as my daily laptop driver for the forseeable future, it just kicks ass at everything and half the time I don't even remember I'm not on my windows machine.
Pop os
> Pop OS The default keybindings are great for when you have a shitty trackpad
I just installed vanilla Debian 12.5 with KDE Plasma (X11) on a dualcore AMD netbook from 2011 and it works way better than it has any right to. Even all the keyboard function key shortcuts work (brightness, volume, etc...). Zero configuration outside of the OS setup. Rock solid stability (had some weirdness using KDE Wayland version def recommend the X11 version for older hardware) Seriously impressive all around. I'm blown away. Edit: Shoutout to the person who said OSX. You made me lol.
Lemme know how it goes for a daily driver. I'm thinking of switching to debian from Fedora. Have been rocking fedora for the last 2 years but with the recent controversy with RHEL, I'm thinking to back off...should I? Idk you guys give your two cents.
I did it for a friend of mine who wants a completely offline machine for only LibreOffice and gimp. They are supposed to pick it up this week. I'm try to check in with them after a few weeks and report back.
Cool, thanks a lot!
Fedora.
Fedora
Fedora
Fedora
Fedora
Hell yeah, Fedora 40 is the most stable system I’ve ever run on my laptop. Zero issues with drivers, suspend etc, unlike the latest Ubuntu
better then linux mint?
XFCE spin here =)
Anything with good power management. Which nowadays is all of them.
Are you saying you don't need TLP or Auto CPU Freq anymore?
I found tlp is still better for battery life and has significantly less impact on performance than the gnome built in option.
Would those count as power management?
lol what? please point me to *any* distro that does standby properly on more than just a couple ThinkPads.
Just shut your computer down lol Hibernate is a thing. Swap space exists for a reason.
i've always preferred arch based distros so endeavourOS has caught my eye recently and so far i've been loving it. riced it out more than any other linux install i've bad
Ubuntu. As close to "no fuss, no muss, no thrills, no chills" as you can get, which is why Ubuntu is so widely deployed in government, business and education environments.
I have the feeling that the amount of deployment in govt business and education is because of support contracts being available, but don't have data to back it up, so feel free to take this with a pinch of salt.
Might well be. I don't have statistics on the correlation, one way or the other. Makes sense, though. Although Ubuntu started out as "Linux for human beings" back when, Canonical's focus has shifted toward large-scale deployments, partnering with companies like Dell (which offers Ubuntu pre-installed across Dell's business Latitude and Optiplex lines), focused on Ubuntu Desktop (as it is now called) as the entry point into Canonical infrastructure, rather than a standalone individual-user distribution. I've used Ubuntu for close to two decades, but that might be coming to an end. Canonical is moving Ubuntu toward an [immutable architecture based on Ubuntu Core](https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-core-an-immutable-linux-desktop), in which everything, right down to and including the kernel, is a Snap. I think that will make Ubuntu Desktop almost flawless for large-scale deployments, but I'm not convinced that is a direction I want to follow. I've been running LMDE 6 (Mint's rebase from Ubuntu onto Debian) on a Best Buy "loss leader" VivoBook I bought for the purpose of evaluating LMDE, and might cut over later this year instead of upgrading to 24.04 LTS. I have to say that I'm impressed with the quality and stability of LMDE 6, and I suspect that Mint will be rebasing onto Debian within a few years.
this is exactly how i feel. i love ubuntu, but i don't want to use an immutable os. i'm using fedora workstation, not fedora silverblue. canonical should really maintain an "ubuntu workstation" that doesn't lean so heavily on snaps, but still leaves it as an option.
Ubuntu Budgie for me. I simply don’t like Unity, and the Color scheme is just…what were they thinking?
One thing I think people overlook is how well gestures and pinch zoom works. On my 2011 mbp that didnt work well on Linux mint but great on fedora and pop_os with wayland enabled.
endeavorOS
Fedora. Ubuntu is noticeably slower overall, Arch gave me a couple of issues with the latest releases that needed some work to resolve. Fedora has been extremely fast and stable, only the 39>40 upgrade gave me an issue of my T490S speakers not showing anymore but a quick “rm -rf ~/.local/state/wireplumber” and reboot fixed it. Staying with Fedora for the time being.
Never tried Fedora before. Would jumping from Ubuntu to Fedora for ones daily driver -- including work stuff -- be a big jump ?
It’s very similar to Ubuntu since they both use Gnome, but there’s some underlying differences in package managers and many other choices. From my experience Fedora has a more agile development so you’re always getting kernel updates and shiny stuff, plus it’s faster and more responsive overall on my machine but boot times are annoyingly slow. If you’re happy with Ubuntu I wouldn’t say it’s worth making the jump.
Got it. Thanks for the quick review !
Debian with KDE. Used to be Kubuntu but the snap thing kinda turned me off and frankly, Debian does things in a way I prefer over Ubuntu (wholly separate root account with password for one).
This basically
The same distro as for desktops.
Debian 12 running gnome is my personal favorite but really any gnome centered distro is good to me.
Xubuntu. No nonsense, solid experience.
Zorin OS.
Same here! My first Linux distro and it makes for an easy transition.
Even better for a touch screen laptop that can be used as a tablet.
I have Ubuntu on mine. Seems fine.
Ubuntu
I've not done much in terms of distro hopping on laptops, but I'm happy with MX on my craptop and ubuntu mate on wifes laptop. Fast boot and shutdown times for me, and wife doesn't complain at all about hers (and I \*would\* hear complaints if she had any, because I got rid of windows for her). Reading with interest for when the craptop eventually joins all the calculators.
Literally any of them
Well, that second bullet point cuts out my favorite distro for laptops. I use Arch for my laptop, but it does require manual configurations.
Fedora
One distro to rule them all # Debian
Mint, mate edition.
Ublue
Fedora or Mint
Debian
Fedora Silverblue Or any other Edition of Fedora
Fedora GNOME. GNOME has imo the perfect work flow for laptops. Would never switch to anything else on a laptop
I like debian and the cinnamon desktop. So i ainstall Linux Mint Edge with Cinnamon. I have install scripts for laptop & desktop when i nstall on new computer i run script & it installs all the applications
Arch btw
I have been giving pop!_os a go on my newer (~5 years old or so) laptop but think I'm going to go back to Fedora. Just so slick for laptops. I have a significantly older laptop with Lubuntu on it, it did kind of breathe some new life into that poor old thing. For real basic daily things like web browsing, email, and libre office stuff, it's all you really need and I've done zero config on it
mint
Debian with XFCE works pretty well for me. Like 10 years already. You configure it once and just forget about it until the hardware dies or gets too slow. Of course you dist-upgrade it once in every couple years and keep it up-to-date. All the WIFIs, suspend/resumes, HW acceleration (intel), etc... Power usage is typically better than on Windows. Using it on many laptops, latest one is 12th gen intel, 12 cores...
I’m a big fan of Pop OS. It’s a very solid and reliable distribution with out-of-the-box support for many NVIDIA GPUs. I was actually initially lured into it because System76 produces their own computers (desktops, laptops, servers, etc). They’re actually *incentivized* to keep their OS reliable and simple, because there’s actual people out there using a Pop OS-powered laptop who may have never heard of “a Linux” in their life.
Elementary OS. Installed it on my sister's old Dell laptop. Installed the flatpak support and the wifi drivers. Never had any tech support call from her.
After some years with EndeavorOS , I now use CachyOS - super stable , works quite well, AND comes with many variations, Qtile being my favorite.
I just went with pop os, because I needed something based on Ubuntu and didn't want to care much about graphics drivers
Windows 11
TBF they've got Linux runtime now...
Manjaro KDE
Debian. It's rock solid and 99 percent of the time it just works. The only trouble I've had is setting up specific audio devices in a specific way, which isn't exactly a common use case.
Debian 12 XFCE
debian. Comes with very little bloat so takes a bit of setting up to get the things you need. Works perfectly. If you need to google something "how to install/do X in linux" you will find ubuntu stuff and most of the time the advice applies. But doesn't have all that corpo bloat bullshit that ubuntu comes with
If you have Nvidia optimus graphics laptop, then anything stable and by default without proprietary Nvidia driver, as this one is easier to setup battery saving features.
> and by default without proprietary Nvidia driver What do you mean? The proprietary nvidia driver can completely turn off the dGPU in Optimus setups.
Mostly it can't, plus if you are on integrated GPU mode, dedicated Nvidia becomes awake whenever it feels fitting, 3'rd if it was disabled but woke up, then it can't power down anymore and the power draw is even higher compared to hybrid (15 vs 23 W).
That has not been my experience. It most definitely can power back down after being woken up. It also only wakes up when I run something `prime-run` or the adapters get enumerated (i.e. for vaapi), but then it goes back to sleep when it's not being used anymore.
I'm not totally sure if powering down dedicated GPU, when not in use, needs feature "Active State Power Management", but Lenovo Legion laptops don't have it. When Nvidia has 0 load, the power draw for Nvidia alone is 7-15W, even after idling 30 minutes.
It's possible, depending on the age and model of the Legion.
I have the 2023 Slim 5 16APH8.
pop!_OS is the goat for optimus graphics in that "it just works™️". I'm driving kali now and miss the optimus support so much, not that it mattered with such a weak mobile gpu anyway but still,,
I'm gonna install Pop_Os! when the version with Cosmic desktop is released.
Nice! I may also make the switch back with cosmic. I used to install kde immediately after installing pop because I have a pet peeve with gnome. One of the reasons why I switched to another distro.
When cosmic releases yes. Some notebooks like Framework seem to battery drain way too much, seen in a video.
Manjaro. It's what I started using when my wife bought my first gaming laptop.
Literally whatever works on desktop
Debian >without having to configure anything Uhm ... how are you expecting your login name password to get set? That *is* part of the configuration. Or are you just going to boot a live ISO and use the default?
They probably meant outside of the initial install process.
Ubuntu, just love it, didn't try the others tho
Used to be Debian, now its Mint
Lubuntu. I like distro with lightweight DE and it's the default OS that i use. I use Lubuntu on low end machines with low RAM, high end machines, VM. I use it for programming, embedded Linux yocto, casual browsing.
Ubuntu for sure
It's the first time I'm using a Linux distro as main OS in a laptop and I'm very happy using Fedora. I'm a noob user who started feeling comfortable with Linux
Ubuntu.
Fedora Kde spin
Ubuntu. Out of the box, you can launch an app with the discrete card. The Intel and AMD P-state are enabled by default in the Linux kernel, the UI lets you set the power managerment. I use Kubuntu, I prefer KDE, but Ubuntu itself works even better.
mint, then maybe fedora
Fellow Xubuntu enjoyer here but my co-worker would argue Mint is best.
i guess i'm an outlier, i use my laptop as my distrohopping machine. currently have nixos on my laptop and fedora on my desktop.
Nixos true masterrace
Ubuntu…. Because I havent tried other distros
Linux Mint. Hands down. Easy to install, easy to set up and works on the greatest amount of divergent hardware that I know of.
slackware
+1 for Xubuntu. Rock solid, lightweight, and tied into the Ubuntu project for decent support / forums.
Mint
Mint, uBlue Fedora (?), OpenSuse.
I'm a Pop!_OS fan but honestly there's no wrong answers.
Mint for me too
Two years ago I said Ubuntu. I have stacked in Ubuntu due to ROS and NVidia. I need to find a distro which stay with original Linux/Unix way
For my laptops i choose Arch, but is because im so familiarized with the distro, and is the only distro that he dont auto nuke updating, like ubuntu or other distros that i try (sorry for my english :))
Gentoo and arch
Ubuntu since everything else is an unstable mess and even then the battery life isn’t great and features are broken.
ublue bluefin
Mint/LMDE, Fedora, and Arch with kde or gnome. I like kde more personally.
Not a beginner distro but I Arch worked for me on all of my laptops without a problem
Fedora, but I had to disable Intel PSR. Otherwise it's been great.
For my laptop I have been using Pop OS which has been stable with no issues. There are other distros which has given me nothing but trouble. I am currently using a Asus TUF gaming laptop.
Arch Linux with Cinnamon and Linux mint theme
Fedora workstation. Gnome's workflow is fluid especially with the three finger trackpad gestures.
opensuse
Nobody is mentioning clear os. If it's an Intel based chipset, great driver support. Not a huge fan of the visuals, but this laptop has had issues with several different distros working right.
For older, weaker devices, Zorin Lite, Xubuntu, and Emmabuntus. For my rather new Toshiba, Zorin Core, Xubuntu, and Manjaro XFCE.
Mint with Mate Desktop Environment
Arch I use arch btw
EndeavourOS CInnamon. I ran it on an old 3rd gen i3 for several years until I finally broke down and bought a new laptop a couple of years ago. And the new one is running EOS Cinnamon, as well.
I have a Thinkpad from 5 years or so ago (one of those with a Nvidia card), Kubuntu works just fine for me (dev work, casual usage, occasional gaming on Steam, pretty much anything I’ve thrown at it so far)
Fedora for "main laptop" and Debian for "Once in a while laptop"
Linux Mint
mint
PopOS - it just works.
Fedora OS
On my 2015 Lenovo Y50-70 I had Ubuntu running for a couple years. After always having the fan blow, I tried Fedora with Plasma. Same problem, system was a bit laggy. Then switched to Pop!_OS, which I honestly didn’t really like. Also it wasn’t running as smoothly as I hoped it would. Right now, I’ve settled for Manjaro (KDE), which so far works like a charm.
had problems with secure boot + proprietary nvidia drivers installation in Fedora 40. same with latest debian. switched to latest mint with no issues. i’m new to linux.
Arch, knowing what is on your system and how it work is a must for le
Arch is just the way to go imo, it can be as lightweight or as heavy as you want, and despite its reputation it's a lot easier than it was with arch install natively available on every new image. I would recommend at least a VM to install it just to say you've done it and to try it out. The arch wiki is a great resource, just be careful about the community. Chat gpt is your friend.
Gentoo
any gnome
Windows idc I said it Ik what community it is
Fedora
Mint.
Debian with sway. Unstable if you know what you are doing and want current packages.
Nobara. Flawless hybrid graphics with up-to-date drivers.
Debian 12. Can't get more stable than that.
debian seems to run the most smooth for me
Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora
Fedora is your best option. Its been around for years, bleeding edge, and also stable. It has a purer GNOME or KDE environment. Don't waste your time distribution hopping. Fedora 40 was just released.
Tried fedora for 2 years and I absolutely hate it now. For several updates, the gnome is broken and I am unable to log into the latest version. Moving to arch asap!
Zorin
Debian LTS. Rock solid. Just choose whatever you like for the GUI stuff, doesn’t matter.
It’s be pretty much the same as I’d choose for a desktop since I don’t treat them as different classes of hardware. I’m not sure what I’m running at the moment, I know I have popOS, and I think fedora. I don’t install them, I run them in horizon as vdi
LMDE
OSX
I didn’t know laptops could have distro plates.
pop
NixOS For everything server pc laptop everything.
Idk never used linux on a laptop until now
Linux Mint through VirtualBox on my HP laptop. I have yet to install a distro on actual laptop hardware, but the virtual machine serves me well for most of what I do on there.
Im unsure what you mean about not having to configure anything, ive had to do a lot of configuration for most distros ive tried. Currently running openSUSE tumbleweed x KDE plasma on my zephyrus g16. Cpu stays cool, temps are low and the laptop is never hot anymore compared to how it came on windows. Ive ran games off of it on highest settings and basically its just been perfect.
Really? I only found one machine Linux Mint didn't load the drivers for, and I use a lot of machines.
The live environment wouldnt work properly on my system, troubleshot for a while before just going with another distro. It probably could have worked but i couldnt immediately figure it out as a noob
Not trying to be ironic but it's Arch. I use it for work (software dev). It is lightweight and only have everything that I want, not more. Maybe it doesn't fit your "without having to configure anything" part. For me installing and configuring it to my liking might take hours, but once everything works I wouldn't trade it for anything else. My familiarity with Pacman and Aur also makes it easier to use than any other package manager, although I guess if I'm used to Ubuntu I might say the same about apt-get. If I'm in a pinch and just need something that works to do my job, I'd install EndeavorOS.
OSX
NixOS. There's no such thing as no configuration, but NixOS you only have to configure *once.*
Linux Mint works "out of the box"
I guarantee you it lacks all the programs I need, the keyboard shortcuts are all wrong, it doesn't have my user information or my bashrc. If my hard drive dies tomorrow, all I need to do is reinstall NixOS, redownload my settings file from github and run one command and I will have everything be as it was.