The pain of being dumb enough to buy a brand new gaming notebook with an nvidia gpu... But I'll return as soon as possible. The pain of using win 11 is unbearable.
It's not like you can't use Linux on a laptop with Nvidia GPU. It's just that AMD works better (and isn't as much of a PITA in how they treat regular Linux customers).
Yes, I know. I used a notebook with a 950 before and it worked perfectly fine. But with this new one I get too many error messages for now under Linux, many games and other stuff that worked pefectly fine on Linux on my old 2016 model Notebook, didn't work at all and the only thing I could find out is that this are some driver problems. I decided to wait a while and try again. No time for a neverending odysee of tinkering nowadays. I will try Kubuntu next month, hoping the newer Kernel will take care of my problems and if it works probably move to Linux Mint 23 later on.
Personally, I wouldn’t advocate for Ubuntu or anything downstream of Ubuntu (like Mint). Debian, at least, is free from Canonicals corporate shenanigans.
There is also Mint Debian if you want Mint. But honestly, distro doesn't matter at all to most users. Pick any desktop environment that looks nice to you and go for it.
True; however, Debian's update schedule is its blessing AND a curse, and old packets may result in lacking features (which can be frustrating) and lackluster performance in certain applications. And while you can use Flatpaks for some of it, system tools are not installed this way, and sandboxing brings its own set of issues.
That's not to say Debian is bad on desktop - Debian 12 is great and it runs on my laptop and I couldn't be happier - but the limitations are there.
Also, as far as I'm aware, Mint does modify Ubuntu to exclude some of Canonical's "features"
Anyway, if you want a sleek up-to-date system that is completely independent of Ubuntu, Manjaro remains a solid pick. Rolling release means you'll get the latest and greatest, and packet retention means you don't have to dip into unstable territory that is the domain of pure Arch.
EndeavourOS is essentially Arch with bells and whistles.
Manjaro has a lot of things done differently.
Yes, Manjaro didn't have a stellar reputation in the past, but currently it's amazing and I'm more than happy to have it as my daily driver for over a year now. Best Linux experience overall.
I beat Elden ring and doom eternal on Linux. Not sure what "top 3" are in your eyes, or what time we are talking about. Oh, I also beat cyberpunk 2077 on Linux too.
There are alternatives, depending on which Adobe software you usually use. For photos and vector I use Affinity, which works well via Wine… and there’s no subscription, either.
As long as you don't have tons of peripherals, don't want to play Fortnite and don't need 200 pieces of software, and if you have enough knowledge, yes, it can be the solution.
It's still difficult to do the swap for companies, or if you don't have any skills related to computers.