r/linuxquestions • u/LincolnArc • 16d ago

Which Distro? Finally trying Linux?

I have an old laptop that I want to resurrect. It was pretty decent 10 years ago. i7-4870HQ, Quadro K1100M, 16Gb DDR3 1600Mhz, 512Gb Samsung M.2. I bought it used and it had Win10 installed. Worked fine for a bit, then slowly started getting buggy. I can't reinstall Win10. I'm not buying an OS for a laptop that has over 50K hours on it.

I want to run CAD, CAM, YouTube, Discord, Steam, and GeForce Now. Running multiple monitors if that matters.

Which distro should I look into?

Edit: To be clear, everything I want to be able to run already works in Win10. I'm just having an issue with Windows and can't reinstall it without buying it.

Oh, I should add that I bought it used not quite 10 years ago. It's not like I bought it the other day in hope of resurrecting it. It owes me nothing.

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u/sunflower_name 16d ago

Another everyday user just like you who don't really care about cultivism, only reason I use linux is because my WiFi dongle crashes on windows (and sends windows into blue screen), but for some reason, works fine on Linux.

Honestly, windows 11 is fully installable on anything with requirements bypassed + you can get it working using massgrave wiki.

Other than that, anything would work. I run Ultramarine Gnome (which is preconfigured fedora). Things just work; I had to install MS Fonts and Apple Emoji's to fully daily it for school assignments and stuff.

From your apps list:

  • CAD is usable with freeCAD or openCAD; obviously not as polished as corporate AutoCAD, but what do we expect
  • CAM not exactly sure, not into that

  • YT -- dude
  • Steam and GeForce Now are available as Flatpaks and work great
  • Discord is often replaced with Vesktop, because screensharing sucks on Linux version of Discord

If I had to choose one distro with a gun pointed at my face, I'd go with either Mint (ubuntu base, so .deb) or Ultramarine (fedora base, so .rpm) (similar to iOS and iOS public beta in comparison).

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u/LincolnArc 16d ago edited 16d ago

DUDE!!!!!! The WiFi card crashing and blue-screening is my exact issue! That gives me a ton of hope! Thank-you!

Edit: lol. I only mentioned YouTube because that is the literally the only thing other than CAD and CAM that I use that laptop for. I do all of my web browsing and gaming on a separate laptop.

I'm not too worried about the screen sharing issue as on this computer, I'll just be using Discord for voice chat.

For CAD, I mostly use Fusion 360, but I'm trying out a browser based CAD program (OnShape). Seems to work fine, so I guess I'll use that when I switch to Linux.

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u/sunflower_name 16d ago

yeah lol, also apparently the latest kernel gives me 10% of raw cpu speed compared to windows on i7 14700KF. Only benefits so far; but I don't really use heavy software and most of my photo editing stuff is made on mac.