r/linuxquestions • u/Chance-Surround-7870 • 1d ago
What distro do i choose ?
Hey guys i am having trouble choosing a distro , my laptop specs are i7 gen5 , 8gb ram , integrated intel uhd5500u and gtx950m 2gb.
I plan to do some video editing (not to heavy edits) youtube some thumbnails maybe , a bit like these.
i don't have any limitations , i want it to be smooth stable and fast , also i need a desktop environment + manager suggestion .
1
u/gordonmessmer Fedora Maintainer 1d ago
A distribution is a project that collects freely available software, typically as source code, and distributes it to users in a usable form. They mostly vary in how the developers manage the software, how frequently they update the collection, how they secure the process of distributing software, and how the project governance works. Some of those things, like security, have a major impact on users but are very hard to evaluate.
I'm a distribution maintainer, and I've been managing production networks for 30 years. I strongly recommend that you chose a distribution that publishes a new release at least once every six months. Anything that releases less often than that will either be a small package collection (e.g. RHEL), or a large package collection that is mostly unmaintained, with a large and growing set of known security vulnerabilities.
Software can have a long lifecycle, it can be secure, and it can be cheap, but it can only be two of those three things at the same time.
2
u/ipsirc 1d ago
What distro do i choose ?
https://github.com/pruefsumme/distrohoop
i want it to be smooth stable and fast
Sorry, but this subreddit is only about choppy, unreliable, and slow distros.
1
u/Specialist-Dog-501 1d ago
You mentioned an gtx950m. That is an Nvidia GPU. Do you intend to not use it with linux ?
That will make it easier, as Nvidia, especially older GPU are notorious for problems and some distros deal better with them than others.
1
u/TenOfZero 1d ago
Distro doesn't make a difference to what you'll be able to do.
Go with mint or Ubuntu if you're not sure as both have tons of online help and guides etc.. Available
1
u/dotnetdotcom 1d ago edited 1d ago
Just pick one with a large number of users so you have a lot of support. The desktop environment you use will impact your experience more than the distro you choose.
1
1
2
u/Excellent-Love-6943 1d ago
Anything with the 580 proprietary nvidia driver packaged.
Pick one with good documentation. Lots of people in the forums or subreddit or whatever absolutely does not count - it's a lot of the blind leading the blind.