Some of the best you can get in terms of durability. You might pay for it a little in weight and thickness though compared to some ultra thin models.

I’ve been running it for a long time without issue. But how “stable” it is depends on how much you read the documentation and developer announcements, and how much you fiddle with things you don’t understand. That can be true in mint or Ubuntu as well, none of them prevent you from breaking things.

Recently endeavour changed the way they deal with some firmware related packages, this would cause an error when updating, causing a handful of packages to not be upgraded. A quick DuckDuckGo search of the error message took me straight to a forum post by the devs explaining that you have to uninstall one of the related packages, and run the update again. If you didn’t think to look you’d probably panic and think your system was broken. Just an example of how the operating system itself doesn’t hold your hand. It’s up to you whether that’s acceptable or not.

On the topic of stability, save your important files on a separate drive. It’s been said elsewhere in the thread but bears repeating. As long as your files are stored in a separate drive, if you run into issues you aren’t able to fix, you can just wipe and reinstall, it maybe takes 20 minutes depending on your hardware, and while you’re experimenting and learning, it wouldn’t be uncommon for you to break some things.

Operating systems are rarely unstable. Users are the most common source of instability.

I think Fedora using either Gnome or KDE would be a great place for you to start. Ubuntu or Mint aren’t terrible choices either.

On the topic of Arch, there’s a Distro I use called EndeavourOS. It’s billed as an Arch based distro that’s geared towards the terminal, but unlike Arch it comes all of the basic software you might need right out of the box, and offers a long list of desktop environments (KDE, Gnome, and XFCE being the best choices on the list)

I use Hyprland on it, but Hyprland isnt advisable until you have some solid experience with a different desktop. Because it is geared towards the terminal, it expects you to install and update your software from the terminal. Not a difficult task, but it might not be ideal when you’re just getting started.

Should be possible.

Sorry, I misread your comment on my first reply. Yes, you can have gnome and hyprland installed side by side, you would just use SDDM to choose what session you’re starting at login.

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EndeavourOS Bcause:

It’s Arch with an easy installer, with all of the most common administration tools already installed

With the Arch repo, AUR, and flatpak I have a wide breadth of software to choose from

I can easily install it without a desktop environment to install and set up Hyprland without the clutter of another DE

Not to mention it’s active and friendly community and excellent documentation

I think it’s pretty normal for people to want their high end thing to look high end, or whatever high end looks like to them. My PC case is basically a black rectangle with a single pane of glass on one side. It has some rainbow vomit lighting inside that isn’t all customizable with Linux, but my razer mouse mat, mouse, and keyboard all glow a lovely purple, just one static color. My desk, peripherals and case all match in black, so really any color I choose to run with makes for an easy vibe change.

I think maybe a half a dozen people have even seen my pc setup, and I don’t really take visitors back there, so whatever cool looks my setup has are just for me, and I enjoy it.

That said, there is a such thing as it being too busy, too gaudy, etc, so I totally get what you’re saying. My shit is lit up but I still feel like it’s fairly subdued.

You’re overthinking the hell out of this. Just plug it in and go. My 8700x3d is insanely fast during any load I’ve ever thrown at it, your new chip will be even more so.

This is the answer OP, your flavor of Linux matters when it’s your daily driver work/play machine. But for a server OS? You’re not missing anything using Ubuntu, and your experience won’t change much with another distro.

Thanks for this, I’ll definitely dig in further

My solution? Run Linux. If the game won’t run on Linux because of kernel level anticheat bullshit, DRM, or lack of proton support, refund that shit and never purchase a game from that developer again. If they do data collection, and it still runs on Linux, it is my understanding that all they can gather is what the proton compatibility layer feeds them, which is basically fiction. Proton is already tricking the software into thinking it’s running on windows, and is sandboxed from your bare metal system. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The games I already owned before my time with Linux? Whatever. I’ll take the loss. I’ll probably never play PUBG again and I’m fine with that.

I really agree with you about immutables. Not only are they awkward to use as far as managing and installing software, I feel like they prevent people from learning how a traditional Linux system works by keeping them in the padded cell of read only root.

As far as arch, it only really took me a year of fiddling and learning on Fedora and mint before I managed to get arch running. Yes there were hurdles and growing pain, but it made me a better user.

I commented elsewhere about endeavourOS, but I have some other wisdom to pass along.

Keep good backups of your personal files, stuff you don’t want to lose, and don’t be afraid to try something new. You dont like something about how your system is running? Nuke it and install something else. Installing Linux is a cakewalk in most distros and rarely takes longer than half an hour (your mileage may vary with the low specs on the laptop)

I’ve learned a ton about Linux by trying many different distros, breaking things, fixing things, and occasionally distro hopping to see how I like a different offering.

There’s a lot of great content on YouTube that can help you learn, and reviews of various distros so you can get an idea of how things work without having to install it yourself. Have fun and don’t be afraid to fiddle with things.

Absolutely. The desktop environment you go with will be the biggest factor for ram usage. Check out endeavourOS, it’s basically Arch with an easy installer with some basics preinstalled that vanilla arch doesn’t come with. It has a great community and runs like a champ for me. You’ll have to learn how to install software from the command line but a brief YouTube video can help with that. It also has one of the widest selection of desktop environments I’ve seen in a distro. XFCE would likely be your best bet for low ram usage.

Install your software from official repositories and flatpak and you shouldnt have any issues. My latest install has been going strong for about 6 months without issue. Linux in general is quite stable unless you’re mucking about with things you don’t understand, and if you do like to live dangerously in that regard, it’s a great way to learn a lot.

If you’re worried about stability, keep good backups. Back up your important personal files, as well as your config files so you can reapply any customizations you had in place.

If anything happens that’s too tedious to troubleshoot, reinstall, it takes like 20 minutes tops and gets you back to square one.

You could also use time shift to create system snapshots.

I highly recommend Hyprland if you want a truly infinitely customizable UI. But, there’s a big learning curve to even using it, let alone installing it and setting it up.

You could use endeavourOS as your operating system, which is Arch based yet easy to install. I can’t speak to setting up Hyprland on other distros as I haven’t done it, but I’m sure if you look around you’ll find out what you need to know.

Big 2nd for Fedora. Fedora isn’t Debian stable but isn’t exactly unstable either, and I think having fresher packages in your main repo is worth it.

Maybe I’ve been hitting the hopium pipe too hard….

Yeah. But for a kid who’s not going to give a shit about the difference between snaps and flatpak, just install mint or Ubuntu and call it a day. Unless you’re popping the hood and rifling around breaking things, they basically install and administrate themselves.