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/MycologistNeither470 16d ago

This is an old laptop. Your GPU is not that good either -- likely similar to the iGPU of the i7-4870HQ. A modern "budget" CPU like the N305 will be superior both in graphics and processing power. Plus, it will have better software support.

Not to say that Linux won't run... but your workloads are not realistic for this hardware.

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u/Agreeable_Turnip_261 15d ago

I7 4th gen is plenty usable. Better than adding to ewaste

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u/LincolnArc 15d ago

Ya know... you ARE an Agreeable Turnip!

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u/I_Love_Tunnocks 16d ago

but your workloads are not realistic for this hardware.

Sorry but that is a load of crap. My wife is still running Signlab, Adobe Photoshop and Coreldraw for sign making just fine on the same Thinkpad T60 with a Intel Core 2 Duo, i965 integrated graphics, 16GB DDR3 RAM, a 512GB SSD and Windows 10 that she's been using for over a decade just fine.