Hi,
I have a Lenovo Ideapad gaming 3i with a gtx 1650, and I would like to find a more lightweight distro than PopOS that supports (or is easier to set up) nvidia optimus graphics. Any suggestions?
It’s a little more of a setup but you could try endeavour. It’s pretty lightweight and performant, they have every kind of DE imaginable to install during the setup.
Linux Mint Debian Edition is very lightweight and easy to use.
I’ll try it out thanks
Isn’t that a streaming one, though? I tend to go for mint XFCE.
Linux mint has delivered me a consistent experience on the verge of boring (Good for an OS) with great driver support and minimal intervention. I have wandered a long path of distro hopping and can say if you want to screw around, learn linux, and have to care about maintaining it (Like a car or house) try EndeavourOS or other major distros. If you want an OS that works for you without much intervention, give mint a try.
The default Cinnamon DE is quite light, but it also comes with an even lighter XFCE version. I prefer Cinnamon because it just hits the right spot for what I knew computing to be.
Have you thought about Garuda Linux. It’s a Arch based linux distro with good setup for gaming in mind.
If you want lightweight, void is pretty good. Not sure about nvidia though.
I’ve been playing around with Nobara. Coming from Fedora, I always felt like I didn’t have “everything I needed to run games properly”. Followed a few tutorials on YouTube to set up my Fedora (f36+) box for gaming but that feelining of incompleteness never left. Since installing Nobara, I’ve realized that my “feeling” was absolutely right! Nobara basically installed a bunch of other gaming things I never even knew I needed for basic gaming (codecs, other nvidia software, ProtonUp-QT, etc). Nice easy step through style setup. Using the KDE version and so far, I’m staying with Nobara. Just my opinion.
