If I were to buy a new laptop with some version of newbie friendly linux preloaded, intending to use it for music and graphics arts (not gaming), social media, and regular LibreOffice type stuff (and affinity, audacity, etc), what laptop would I buy with what version of linux?
@shekinahcancook I can recommend the German company Tuxedocomputers (https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en). They offer laptops with quality and a good price-performance ratio. You can choose between 3 different Linux distros (Tuxedo OS, Ubuntu, Kubuntu). I can highly recommend the in-house distro "Tuxedo Os". In addition, they deliver the distros with control software and all drivers pre-installed.
I have a couple of windows machines, so this one would most likely be linux only, for transitioning away from windows as much as possible. A few people have mentioned System76, so I will definitely look into them. Thank you for your advice!
@shekinahcancook
A Lenovo laptop since Lenovo officially supports Linux.
Regarding the Linux distribution, I'd probably go for Ubuntu, since the default client installation has most of the things one needs and most if not all of the hardware spotless work out of the box. Also, when things go south, there are many answers online. Only pay attention to use a LTS version. If the intended user is a Linux newbie, I'd avoid all "exotic" meaningless distributions with very few users.
@calispera@shekinahcancook probably 16gb ram is would meet your needs. But I'd go to 32gb ram just to be sure.
Most any processor will be okay.
The only compatibles I've had trouble with center around proprietary graphics cards. So, unless you need Nvidia for games there are real issues. Famous last words, of course 😁
Right now I'm researching for a linux only setup, since I have a windows laptop and desktop already. I agree a pre-installation will solve a lot of problems, but we'll see. Thanks for your advice!
@shekinahcancook you mean with Linux already installed? I've never had that, but sounds good for the beginning!
I always get used ThinkPads and then fight with the kernel until all hardware works.
I think for graphics you can go a bit lower than you would with any other OS, because Linux is so lightweight. I wouldn't worry about the other usage you want of it, graphic art has the highest demands.
I hope I understood your question correctly 🙈
Yeah, looks like I asked too early, lol, since now it will probably be next fall before I can invest in a good new computer. But thank you for reminding me that my main objective is graphics and I should look for one that can handle that first, and linux second.
This is going to be a long thread. Apologies in advance.
I've run Linux since 1997. There are one or two Babka Social users who have used it longer, but it makes me fairly old and experienced.
You can even find a post written by me if you type "Windows Refund" and Serge into a search engine.
There are lots of questions here. When you say graphics, I'm going to assume you don't mean high resolution video editing. If you do, then I think there's a slightly more complex discussion.
If you buy a new laptop with Linux pre-installed, you will usually pay a premium. Whether that premium is worth it to you is a personal calculation. For me, my thinking around this has changed over the last 15 years, a bit after I wrote that post.
If you want to get your machine fixed under warranty and it came with Windows, the manufacturer will give you grief. They're not supposed to. It's illegal, but they will.
If that doesn't matter to you, then the only thing you really need to worry about is compatibility. I'll come back to this.
Getting Linux installed on a machine that's compatable is fairly easy. You may have to go into the BIOS/IEMI and enable or disable some things, but the install process itself is fairly trivial.
The problem is compatibility. It's better than it was, but if you buy a brand new laptop, there's a chance some part won't work.
For years, I bought Dell XPS13 laptops with Linux pre-installed, but as of the last, say 3-4 years, the premium they've charged has been outrageous. The upside was that with Dell, if I needed service, I could get next day on site support for $300 a year. It was worth it for me.
But the last two laptops I bought were not Dells. They were Framework 13 laptops, and overall I've been happy with them.
There were some issues with the first model, but the second model has been really nice. A lot of bang for my buck. But they offer no on site support. You have to ship them the laptop.
The other laptop with Linux pre-installed, other than the XPS was from a company called System76, and I had the Lemur.
It's a decent laptop, but I didn't like the keyboard or build quality as much.
So for a simple suggestion, I suggest you buy a Framework laptop- but with Windows preinstalled, then install Linux, or you get a System76 laptop.
The reason to get the Windows Framework is that the Linux Framework comes as a kit. You have to put it together yourself.
I'm really bad at this stuff, and so I had a friend ( @ryuslash ) come over and help me.
Then just install Ubuntu on it. Ubuntu is probably the easiest bet for a simple OS in my opinion.
There are a lot of other answers I could give, but if you're buying a new laptop, that's my recommendation.
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