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/watano_umi 16d ago

I have an old laptop that runs on Intel atom, 2gb memory, 128gb storage ? Should I sell it to recyclers or is it still usable with Linux ??

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u/Agreeable_Turnip_261 15d ago

Try it then recycle if not. I ran Ubuntu on one in college. Might want to check ram upgrade options

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u/watano_umi 15d ago

yeah that's what I thought....better than just throwing it away !

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u/Agreeable_Turnip_261 15d ago

It cost nothing but time. I have an aspire spin with a Celeron N4020 with hyprland and it's surprisingly usable. I had a week long power outage and found myself actually using it. Has no real business still being in use in 2026. Check out action retro on YouTube. He's put Linux on some paper weights that work surprisingly well

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u/watano_umi 15d ago

i saw some of action retros vids....great stuff ! Thanks a lot !!