Which linux distos do you recommend?

I’m usually pretty basic with ubuntu/debian. But do you have other suggestions that work well with the framework?
I’d like to know why :slight_smile:

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There are other threads in the community about this.

Fedora 35 seems to support all features.
Ubuntu 21.04 is missing the fingerprint reader support, but there is a thread about adding it.

Other Linux distros have been mentioned as well.
Ubuntu 21.10 seems to have a kernel version that has problems.
Some kernel versions work better than others.

I chose Ubuntu 21.04 on an expansion card, got the fingerprint reader working and haven’t changed it.

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Ubuntu LTS (20.04) with @lightrush’s salt script makes it the best choice in my opinion.

It will work after only 2 steps, and will just keep working, with the likelihood that something will break greatly reduced as compared to a rolling distro like Fedora.

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I’ve been happy with Manjaro Gnome, but you should check out the discussion in this thread:

Sounds like various distros are working well at this point.

I have Debian running great on mine. I used the firmware-included installer and compiled kernel 5.12.15.

Maybe there should be an official blog post about what works and known issues?

I installed Mint (Edge). Out of the box everything I’ve tested worked EXCEPT hibernation and the fingerprint reader. There’s threads on both and it sounds like people have been successful, but… not a project for Thanksgiving eve :wink:

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Stick to Ubuntu LTS / Debian, fix what needs fixing, enjoy trouble-free operation that you’re used to. With or without using my thing to get stuff dialed-in. Especially given the Wayland transition mess that’s playing out in the 21.* releases and other distros. I hope most of that is ironed out by 22.04 LTS. To be honest, advising to install something newer than 20.04.3 is a disservice to the users that will step on those landmines, especially novices.

I do highly recommend, whatever distribution you choose, to use the GNOME desktop environment (with a few extensions of course). Why I recommend GNOME is the 1:1 track pad gestures.

At least until other DEs introduce 1:1 gestures.

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I use Manjaro KDE. It works great, no issues. I prefer it over Fedora for pacman and its repos. I also prefer it’s out of the box zhs and ext4 over Fedora’s bash and btrfs. While it is Arch based, it really is new Linux user friendly.

I’m using Arch with KDE, and aside from the crushing anxiety of figuring out what software to install, it’s a wonderful experience (provided you’re already a Linux user. If you’re coming from Manjaro, you’ll be right at home)

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I have mine setup currently with Manjaro Gnome running BTRFS. Everything works fine including hardware acceleration. I would recommend doing a full update after install and updating to a 5.15 kernel.

Should be Arch Linux, with latest kernel and drivers and softwares. You should be good with it.

Debian sid works wonderfully on this machine. I’ll write up a post on here in a little bit, but the setup was quite simple and everything “Just Worked”. Of course, this comes with the usual caveat that sid is supposed to be “unstable”, but personally I have experienced basically no breakage over the 6 or 7 years that I’ve been using sid (across a few different laptops).

I’m planning to buy mine once I travel back to the US in June, so I don’t have it yet, but I’m currently planning to install Fedora once I do. I was previously using Ubuntu 21.10 but I’ve found Fedora to work a lot better for my workflow (I don’t mind the rolling distro since I was using non-LTS versions of Ubuntu anyway).

PopOS works. I do have a problem with the touchpad’s multi-touch functionality going in and out, but not sure if that is necessarily and issue with the OS.

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Been using Fedora 35 Cinnamon Respin. I haven’t had any show stopping issues. Everything works, wifi, fingerprint reader, etc. I’ve been pretty happy with it.

Linux Mint Cinnamon 20 … it just works

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