I’ve noticed in the Linux community whenever someone asks for a recommendation on a laptop that runs Linux the answer is always “Get a Thinkpad” yet Lenovo doesn’t seem to be a big Linux contributor or ally. There’s also at least six Linux/FOSS-oriented computer manufacturers now:
So what gives? Why the love for a primarily Windows-oriented laptop when there are better alternatives?
I have a tuxedo. I love it. But…
I find Ubuntu to be the best out of the box. I would not use Arch as a productivity machine. My laptop runs EndeavourOS and I was able to get it to a decent place for dicking around. Manjaro hardware manager helps the process of getting the Nivida driver, but Nvidia recently open sourced their newer drivers so they are generally included upstream as part of most package managers. I just had to install nvidia-dkms and it works fine for gaming now. I can do DXVK stuff with Lutris (WoW), run Proton emulation (basically everything else), or just natively run Vulkan games.
If I were to have to stick to a distro to make professional day-to-day use with I would probably pick Ubuntu. It’s the most well supported overall by communities, and it’s one of the most consistent experiences within the Linux environment. Every other distro has some stupid hacky way of connecting to proprietary clouds, while Ubuntu just has native OneDrive and GDrive capabilities. Having access to those shared drives for my org is one of the most important parts of my job, and on most distros I just can’t access them outside of the browser.
I have been using Manjaro as my daily driver for years now (I work making a programming language), and I have absolutely no complains ;) … but this thread is to talk about hardware :P