Transitioning from Windows to Linux Mint was effortless for me, everything worked out of the box and i haven’t typed a line of code yet. All i’ve had to to do is install Diodon to get the clipboard history feature.
However all i’ve done with it is internet and office work, basic stuff. No gaming, no video editing, no 3D animation or any such. I think if you have a mature and complicated creative workflow it’s totally possible that you’ll struggle to move to Linux
I still use Mint. Even though I’m having problems lately with mounting external drives. I mained Elementary OS for a while but something about it seemed…shallow.
External SSD in an enclosure.
So, it says it has a bad sector or bad generic error. I’ll put it on my wife’s windows laptop and do a chkdmsk /f/v/r and it cleans nothing up. And then it’ll work one time in my Linux mint. When I use it on my windows 10 living room machine then back to the mint computer - same error.
As long as I don’t put it into a windows computer Linux mint is happy
Mostly web surf, listen to music, take notes, do file organization, etc. I have my Steam Deck for gaming, and I’d probably use web-based apps for the engineering work I do before loading anything onto my laptop
But I may also want to download things like FreeCAD and other tools in the future
Any linux OS with a Desktop Environment will do that for you. If it’s a newer laptop you should probably go with Fedora and pick KDE Plasma desktop. Fedora has really good driver support for newer hardware and seems to work well with what framework laptops ship with.
Linux Mint is also good however try to stay away from snaps starting out as they can cause confusing behavior due to how they’re implemented. A recent problem was Firefox from the snap store not working over VNC.
I want to buy a Framework laptop soon. I have the option to choose which Linux distro is best for me and load that on.
Any suggestions?
Just install Windows 11
spoiler
This is a spoof on all the “Just install Linux” answers that make no sense.
Lol
Transitioning from Windows to Linux Mint was effortless for me, everything worked out of the box and i haven’t typed a line of code yet. All i’ve had to to do is install Diodon to get the clipboard history feature.
However all i’ve done with it is internet and office work, basic stuff. No gaming, no video editing, no 3D animation or any such. I think if you have a mature and complicated creative workflow it’s totally possible that you’ll struggle to move to Linux
I’ve heard Linux Mint is pretty straightforward. Might just go with it, at least at first. Thanks!
And yeah that’s what I would do anyways. Basically web surfing and whatnot
System76 has their own OS. You should start there and move on if you wanted to.
PopOS! Is not as user friendly as it seems to linux veterans.
Correct, horse battery staple! (Puns) I have had issues with it occasionally when I tried but it is a start.
I usually suggest linux mint with cinnamon desktop for casual users or Fedora with KDE Plasma for power users .
I still use Mint. Even though I’m having problems lately with mounting external drives. I mained Elementary OS for a while but something about it seemed…shallow.
External over USB or network?
External SSD in an enclosure. So, it says it has a bad sector or bad generic error. I’ll put it on my wife’s windows laptop and do a chkdmsk /f/v/r and it cleans nothing up. And then it’ll work one time in my Linux mint. When I use it on my windows 10 living room machine then back to the mint computer - same error.
As long as I don’t put it into a windows computer Linux mint is happy
Sounds like NTFS journaling errors.
Assuming the external disk is /dev/sdb
sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdb1
It also offers a specific option to clear the “dirty” flag on the partition:
sudo ntfsfix -d /dev/sdb1
What are you intending to do with your laptop?
Mostly web surf, listen to music, take notes, do file organization, etc. I have my Steam Deck for gaming, and I’d probably use web-based apps for the engineering work I do before loading anything onto my laptop
But I may also want to download things like FreeCAD and other tools in the future
Any linux OS with a Desktop Environment will do that for you. If it’s a newer laptop you should probably go with Fedora and pick KDE Plasma desktop. Fedora has really good driver support for newer hardware and seems to work well with what framework laptops ship with.
https://fedoraproject.org/en/workstation/download
Linux Mint is also good however try to stay away from snaps starting out as they can cause confusing behavior due to how they’re implemented. A recent problem was Firefox from the snap store not working over VNC.
https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
To be honest your best bet would be to search linux distros in the framework forums and see what they’re experiencing.
https://community.frame.work/
Good luck with your new laptop. If you’re doing CAD go for AMD as that seems to work better for GPU intensive workloads on Linux.
Appreciate the tips! Yeah I think the forums will probably be my best bet since they’re focused on application -specific solutions.
I think I’ll grab an AMD CPU with Fedora/KDE Plasma and go from there.