Hello All.

First, I have been daily driving Linux(POP_OS) for nearly a year and outside of some frustrations, it has been a great experience. I expect a certain level of weirdness and quirks. I was using my Windows laptop to get some stuff done, and wanted to listen to some music over Bluetooth. This is where I messed up. I guess recent Windows updates just kind of break Bluetooth?? Every fix I have googled and tried failed to fix the problem. I kind of expect this behavior from Linux. I don’t expect it from an OS developed by a For Profit company.

Long story short, recommend me a distro that runs well on an Asus laptop with an Integrated and Discreet GPU. If Windows breaks functionality, then there isn’t a big reason to keep a Windows Machine around. If you say Arch, I intend to bully you but I’m open to any suggestions. Microsoft isn’t worth keeping around, even as a backup/standby.

I appreciate you <3

Quick Edit: This received a lot more engagement than I thought. Thank you all for the recommendations. I’ll spin up some VM’s and test them out. Thank you all for the guidance. May your day/night/other be most excellent!

  • LordCrom@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    I always recommend Mint to wundows converts. It looks like the windows UI, just works out of the box 99% of the time, and has a huge user base that is happy to provide assistance

  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
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    6 days ago

    Distro choice matters less than it looks like, and it’s fairly subjective. As long as you stick to a serious and newbie-friendly distro, you should be fine - for example, you could simply keep using Pop!_OS, why change it?

    That said, a few distros you might want to try:

    • Mint - another newbie-friendly Ubuntu derivative. If you feel like you must try something else, but you don’t want it to be too far from your comfort zone.
    • Debian - because it’s the grandfather of Pop!_OS (and Mint); it has some rough edges, but it’ll be a good learning experience. Note Stable tends to stick to really ancient packages.
    • Fedora - it’s also newbie-friendly, but from another different family. If you feel like stepping outside your comfort zone.

    Also note you can dual boot different Linux distros, just like you’re dual booting Pop!_OS and Windows. Or even multi-boot.

  • scintilla@crust.piefed.social
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    6 days ago

    If you’re willing to run arch-based but not vanilla arch cachyOS is amazing in my experience.

    If not that fedora is pretty ok. Could just run PopOS too if you like it.

    • LongboardingLad@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 days ago

      Thanks for your thoughts. My experience with Arch has been weird. I can get everything mostly working, but sound has always been an issue on my current hardware. Black Arch was fun to mess around with because I didn’t necessarily care if sound output was borked. I will look into cachyOS and spin up a VM. Thank you friend!