Help choosing a new linux computer?
Ok, so my computer is starting to fail in a way I can't fix (never get an Alienware, folks. It's not easily user serviceable, and the parts are very specific to fit in the fancy case so you can't easily replace things when they fail,) and so I'm back on the market for something new. Given the impending forced transition to Windows 11, I'm thinking this is the right time to also switch from Windows to some Linux distro, so I can have all the fun of figuring out a new OS on new hardware.
Given that I'm stepping into unknown territory here, is there anything specific that the fine people of Tildes can suggest/advise/warn me about when it comes to getting a new computer with Linux? I know there's a bunch of different flavors of Linux, and most of the major computer brands seem to offer Ubuntu as a default OS if desired, but I'm just hoping y'all can help me avoid any really obvious pitfalls.
I use my PC for a combination of work and gaming, but the work is all entirely online, so Firefox is all I need on that end. I play a bunch of games, but from what I can see most games can be played in Linux these days?
I guess I'm mostly hoping to not get caught out by anything I don't know I don't know. Help?
Not the biggest gamebreaker, but going with an AMD graphics card over nvidia will lead to a smoother experience. Depending on the distro you choose, nvidia may work right out of the box, while other distros you will have to manually install drivers. AMD graphics cards will have their drivers included regardless of the distro.
One hundred percent co-sign going full AMD for graphics and will also suggest an AMD processor for even easier install and setup experience. I’ve never had a problem getting my machine to work with any Linux distro when both CPU/GPU are AMD. I hesitate to say “it just works” because it’s Linux so of course there’s always at least some terminal tweaking going on, but it works far better than any other combo I’ve attempted.
This is good general advice. Related: If you do find yourself with an Nividia card (especially a decently modern one), I would recommend giving Linux Mint a try. I ended up with an RTX 4060 and was bracing myself for a bad Linux experience, but I have found zero issues with Mint. I can say that other distros were not as forgiving, though, so it's definitely worth considering an AMD card if you want maximum choice of OS.
Nvidia cards are definitely better than they used to be in this regard, but in my experience they are good until they aren't and you find yourself dead in the water. It is the reason I went with AMD for my most recent GPU after three straight Nvidia cards.
Yep, I completely agree. I went with Nvidia in my case because of a combination of budget, availability, and the fact that I hadn't originally intended to install Linux as my daily driver. It was a happy accident that everything fell into place for me.
I have generally gone with trying to get the "best bang for the buck" near the high end when I buy a GPU. Usually, that ended up being Nvidia. It wasn't this last time, but I was leaning towards AMD anyway due to some real headaches with Nvidia drivers in linux.
Thank you. That's exactly the sort of thing I wouldn't have expected.
It has gotten better in recent years, so if you really want to get a nvidia card, it will work. To my knowledge, AMD will open source their drivers, so it gets included in the linux kernel. Whereas nvidia is reluctant to open source their drivers. They have started releasing linux drivers (before I believe it was just reverse engineered drivers by the community), but not open sourced so they need to be installed manually, not included in the kernel (except for a few distros that are gaming focused that will include the drivers in their distro). Due to not open sourcing drivers, the general consensus of Linux users is against nvidia since it goes against the standard of open source in Linux.
Yes, that was a decision they made somewhere around Vega, and that's exactly why they've become compatibility kings.
They still have a closed driver, but it is exponetially more optional than the NVIDIA one is.
I don't have any particular attachment to nvidia or AMD. Whatever is offering the best price point for a medium-good graphics card at the moment is my preference, though knowing that AMD setup will be easier is definitely a mark in their favor.
This is finally changing with the new Nova modules, which will replace both Nouveau and the proprietary DKMS module once they are ready.
Hey there! I'm guessing you are thinking about a desktop? I'd recommend building your own (it really isn't that hard, stuff just snaps together). You can use something like PC Part Picker to select parts and confirm compatibility. Most hardware will be just fine in Linux, but going with AMD for graphics over Nvidia is preferable.
You could also consider getting a new case and I'm sure most of the alienware parts would fit in a bigger case, so you could reuse what still works. Things will run fast in Linux versus Windows with the same hardware.
If you are thinking of a laptop, Framework is the best bet for sure. Some Lenovos and HPs are good choices as well, but do your research on specific models. Stay away from System76 (bought a pang12 laptop from them, horrible computer). You can also consider an older M1 MacBook Pro with Asahi (that's what I daily drive with Linux, great hardware).
As for distro, it really comes down to desktop environment (DE) instead of distro. Main choices are Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE or something more complex (like Hyprland). You really can't go wrong with any of the main DEs, although Cinnamon and KDE are probably most familiar for someone coming from Windows. Fedora is my choice for KDE/Gnome, Mint for Cinnamon.
Thank you; I've been hesitant to build my own due to bad experiences years ago, but with a website to confirm appropriate components will work together, perhaps I could give it another shot. It'll definitely be a desktop. It looks like Mint/Cinnamon is a good basic choice to start with? I can see why people balk at switching from a system that gives minimal choices like Mac or Windows; Linux seems like one of those RPGs that require you to pick your stats before explaining at all what they do or why.
It is but also with unlimited free respecs
Flipping hell, if that isn't a good way to put it. I'm coming up on 3 years daily driving Linux and although I haven't had any real tear-my-hair-out moments that I can remember, the number of times I've scoured the internet for answers and then asked myself, "How is a new user supposed to know that?" is off the charts. And I've been using Mint too, which I will recommend. At this point I still kinda feel like I'm wandering around in the dark with my hands stretched out in front of me but at least I have an idea of the layout of the room by now... more or less.
I recall seeing a few potentially relevant convos on here over the years; if you haven't already done some searching, there surely are more.
Yeah, it's a pretty nice choice and commonly recommended. But you can try loading a bunch of different Linux ISOs onto a USB stick with a tool like Ventoy, and then just playing around with them a bit in live mode without installing just to get a basic feel of the UI/UX you'll get.
Cool, good to know it's a fairly easy thing to play around with.
There's also https://distrosea.com/, which let's you just try them in a web browser!
Cool!
I've been a Linux desktop user for best part of 20 years, don't even have a Window partition anymore, and the occasional desire to try another distro never goes fully away!
Personally I use Ubuntu, on desktop and laptop, mostly because it "just works" the vast majority of the time and there is excellent information and support all over the web for when it does not. When I'm working I can't be bothered with dealing with OS issues and when I'm gaming I really can't be bothered with OS issues!
If you are just starting out with Linux and new hardware then I'd recommend at least a short time on Ubuntu, if only to build confidence that you got the hardware side sorted. Don't be afraid to reinstall to try new things, just keep a copy of your /home folder tree and and a fresh install, even on a new distro, will feel quick and easy.
Makes sense. If swapping between versions is as easy as everyone says, there's no reason to feel locked into a given choice.
I will throw out that Framework is currently having a bit of a meltdown. They have been sponsoring and promoting some projects run by some people who have terrible views on trans people, immigrants and minorities. It’s boiled over on their forum and Mastodon quite a bit over the last few days.
I’ll add for transparency that I was posting over on their forum earlier today but stepped away when things got heated.
Hmm after reading the thread posted by fxgn, I feel like it's a non-issue. Omarchy and Hyprland have been drawing a ton of attention to Linux, Framework is known to run Linux well, so of course they'd promote it. I seriously doubt a single person involved in the decision knew anything of the political stance of anyone involved (hell I've been a DHH follower for years and this is the first I'm hearing of his political views).
Also, please note this is not a political stance or support in any way on my part. Just an observation of the situation.
I'd be inclined to be a little more charitable on Framework pleading ignorance, but the exact same controversy had come up with Cloudflare sponsoring Omarchy like a week ago. In the current state of the world, I'm running out of "benefit of the doubt"
You're running out of "benefit of the doubt" for framework because of what some other company did?
I would encourage you to recalibrate, taking into account that the internet makes you easily aware of every bad thing done by each 8 billions humans.
Eventually, companies will decide to stop trying to support progressives, if any misstep is met with a disproportionate reaction
For context, this is the thread it's referring to:
https://community.frame.work/t/framework-supporting-far-right-racists/75986
As someone who owns a Framework laptop and found out about this from your post... fuck, that's extremely disappointing.
I've been very happy with my System76 laptop, to the point that my next computer will probably be one of their Thelio desktops which look like they hit a lot of your key points. You do pay a premium with them, but they're one of the few Linux-first (and -only) computer vendors out there.
Also, their support was great in my experience. My motherboard ate the dust and System76 replaced it under warranty. They even sent me their specific packaging for the laptop to ship it to them safely instead of making me box it up myself and hoping for the best.
Now, getting one right now might be suboptimal. They have their own distro, Pop!_OS (which I really like), but it's been in a bit of a holding pattern while they've been building their own DE, COSMIC. COSMIC just entered beta two weeks ago, so it'll be a bit before it's fully cooked and they move Pop!_OS to use it by default.
That said, if you have no issues with changing DEs shortly after getting your new computer, or you're planning on using something besides Pop!_OS instead, then I highly recommend them.
Also, gaming on Linux is a dream these days! Especially if you're going through Steam. It has Proton built in, and by and large, most games Just Work™ to the point that I genuinely don't pay attention to which games have native builds versus Windows builds anymore. If you're more of a GOG and/or Epic gamer, then Heroic is a great launcher for those.
The one weakspot for Linux gaming is with games that use anti-cheat, as @ogre mentioned here. Many of these simply won't work.
Also, if you have a particular title that you adore and can't live without, definitely check to see if it's working in Linux. If it doesn’t, I've gotten around that particular limitation a few times by streaming them from my Windows machine using Sunshine + Moonlight.
You should know that live service & competitive multiplayer games typically don't run on linux because the developer’s anticheat blocks it. Titles like Destiny 2, Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc.
You can check other games’ linux compatibility on https://protondb.com and https://areweanticheatyet.com/.
Thank you, that's helpful to know, but fortunately not a concern for me. The only multiplayer I play is on the occasional Vintage Story server with friends.
Long time eBay buyer/seller and longer time Linux user here.
I suggest not getting a new computer. With Microsoft forcing transitions across the world, there has never been a better time to pick up a used computer for cheap. Tons of them are being dumped on the secondary market by businesses and universities.
Slightly less than new hardware will have more certain support under Linux (the hardware has been out there longer with more user-hours spent running on it and dealing with any issues which get rolled into following versions of all the distros).
AVOID Intel 13th gen and up CPUs as they are affected by microcode / manufacturing defect issues.
Getting NVidia for graphics has been, in my experience, fine (I'm using Linux Mint for reference) - you will (in my experience) need to switch to the proprietary NVidia drivers. In Mint this is very, very easy and not technical at all to do.
If your computer already has a graphics card that works for the games you like, a way to really cut down on cost is look for a used computer (eBay / local FB Marketplace / Craigslist) with good CPU/RAM/SSD specs (this will be pretty common) but not good GPU specs since that is the price bottleneck. Then install your card.
Not disagreeing as you're clearly correct here, but adding some nuance in case anyone else comes in here and, like me, gets worried because they have a 13th gen - from what I've found online, this problem is exclusive to desktop models and the laptop models (like mine) are unaffected.
Again, your comment is absolutely relevant for OP since they're likely going to build a desktop. Just wanted to attach this note for others like me.
Oh, hey, good catch. Specificity is important there.
As someone with experience, is there anything to look out for when buying used computers or components online? I feel like I wouldn't be able to identify a listing that was questionable, outside of things like overall merchant ratings and the like.
eBay feedback is a strong indicator and good starting point. Keep in mind that eBay protections are quite good, so if you are sent something that won't turn on or gets run over by a semi-truck in shipping, you're going to get your money back. Just make sure to take pictures in that event.
Look at how many items a seller has sold. If they are a new account that has sold 10 or so items, they are automatically suspect and should be engaged with more caution. If you are feeling particularly paranoid you can also reverse image search their listing photos to see if someone else has an identical listing.
Pay attention to what they show. Do they show the computer powered on? Do they show that the claimed specs are displayed on-screen? Stuff like that.
If you see a listing that doesn't say anything, doesn't say 'this works' or 'boots up and runs fine', etc... then contact the seller first and ask, both to know what you are getting and to get their statements in eBay messenger as customer service reps can review that in a dispute.
Are you in the US? Country of buyer and seller do factor in. If you are US based then it is safest (and now with tariffs which may or may not be charged.... grr) and generally cheapest to limit search results to US only.
If you are buying from a seller with, say, 99% positive feedback or better and they have sold more than just a few items, you're probably going to get what is advertised.
OH: do check out if they sell other computers, or at least anything else that is both large and fragile. If you are buying a full size desktop and the seller has only ever sold small items before, they may not have the experience to know how to properly package large and heavy items.
Awesome, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I've bought things on eBay before, but when it's stuff like clothing, as long as it's close to spec it's fine. I appreciate having more context when it comes to electronics.
I'd recommend keeping your budget mid-range and up, because once you start cheaping out on parts, then they'll be manufactured by some little-known brand, and so Linux compatibility is likely to be iffy.
That said, you want to do a quick websearch for all the main parts' Linux compatibility before you buy, particularly the graphics, wireless network, wired network (if any), audio. To help with this, search not only for the brand and model name of your prospective part, but also the chipset, since a lot of hardware is just branded versions of a chipset, particularly when it comes to networking. Driver compatibility is often given for the chipset, rather than the brand and model of whatever you've picked up.
Thank you. I'm bookmarking this comment to refer back to, since that definitely seems like the sort of concern that could bite me if I'm not aware of it as an issue.
Just for reference, here is the prebuilt desktop I am using with Mint.
I had originally intended to only use this with the Windows 11 OS that came with it, but I had an extra SSD lying around and decided on a whim to try dual booting Linux. I tried a couple of other distros first (Bazzite and I think CachyOS?), but ultimately went with Mint because everything was super smooth even running from the live CD. It's ended up being where I spend 99% of my time. I think I have booted into my Windows partition only 3-4 times since I bought the PC in April. This PC is my primary gaming device, and thanks to Steam's Proton I have had almost no trouble running all of my favorite games.
Awesome, thanks!
From my own experience, the most problematic component for a desktop PC might be the graphics card. If you have a specific model in mind, check if the manufacturer provides drivers that work on the latest kernel. The second most problematic hardware is typically the Bluetooth connector. However, this is less crucial because you can always find an inexpensive dongle with Linux support.
If you're interested in specific recommendations based on real-world usage experience, I can suggest finding (or building) a PC with the latest AMD CPU, as they offer a slightly better cost-to-efficiency ratio, and an Nvidia GPU, because they regularly update their Linux drivers and contribute to kernel development. The rest should be fine, unless you want to experiment with obscure no-name manufacturers. When I was looking for a new laptop, I chose Lenovo because they have several engineers who work closely with the Fedora team, ensuring that Fedora OS provides optimal support for their hardware. As far as I know, Lenovo also sell desktops and gaming PCs, so you might be interested in their components.
Thank you, this is super helpful.
What kind of gaming, what kind of work? What budget? If you do decide to build your own, feel free to post the parts list here, I or many others I am sure would be happy to review it.
I ask about work / gaming because depending on the answer depends on where you want to direct your money (CPU Vs GPU).
Work is finance work, all online working with Google Docs and accounting software, gaming is far more likely to be things like Victoria III or Rimworld where there's tons of calculations happening rather than fancy graphics, and my 2080 is still working fine for the stuff I play. Based on the variety of wonderful recommendations here I'm thinking about starting with a new case and fans and trying to reuse as many of my existing components as possible, and seeing about upgrading piecemeal once my initial problem is solved.
A problem with prebuilt PCs is they often use components with proprietary form factors, connectors, and mounting holes. You should verify if the board in your current computer can actually be mounted in a off the shelf pc case. Or you can post what model you have and someone can check for you
As an aside, your comment suggests your initial issue is cooling. If that's the true, switching cases/fan might not solve the issue as it could simply be time to reapply thermal paste. It's hard to say without knowing more.
My system is running cool enough; the specific problem is a CPU fan that I cannot figure out how to extract or unplug without truly ripping the system apart that is making a terrible grinding noise and giving an error on startup. I'm definitely open to figuring out how to replace thermal paste, but the fan itself doesn't seem to have replacement options available, so I'm writing off the case. If some components don't work with the new case, I'm Ship of Theseus-ing this whole situation and swapping out bits until it works again. Perhaps I've been overhasty, but I ordered a Phanteks Enthoo Pro, as it seemed to be on the larger, more flexible side, and the reviews said that there was enough internal space to make it easier to work on. My current computer is an Alienware Aurora 11. We'll see if all of the components work in the new case, I guess?
Oh man. So good news, it fits in regular cases. Bad news, it's thoroughly unpleasant
Well... shit. Thanks for finding that for me. I guess I have some unpleasant lessons ahead of me as I figure out how to make it work.
It appears it's a well documented thing (between the reddit link, YouTube guide, and general discussion there you should be pretty well taken care of). Edit: The one in the YouTube guide has a liquid AIO, but general servicing + fan headers should be largely similar (afaik, the bios/CPU behaves differently if you use the CPU water pump header, so be mindful which headers are used in your build).
It's just not plug and play like normal builds, because holy proprietary parts batman.
Ok, I guess it's time for a new motherboard as well. Frickin Alienware.
Maximal reuse is best! Upgrading when your current system no longer meets your needs. Good luck with extricating your parts.
I like the Framework16 for upgradeability. Don't forget to get the optional GPU.
You will need to be comfortable creating bootable usb sticks in order to install Linux/ update the BIOS.
It does run a little hot and the fan is loud, but otherwise A+.
People have already told you to buy AMD over Nvidia, which is pitfall #1.
Pitfall #2, IMO, is to fall into the niche distro rabbit hole (I use
ArchFedora, BTW). Just don't. There's a reason Ubuntu most often gets offered as a default distro, and it's because that's what's used the most [citation needed] and gets targeted for support the most: any rando consumer software that has any support for Linux will assume Ubuntu first and other distros second.I will anti-recommend Fedora despite using it myself (and liking it) because you will certainly be annoyed by having to futz around with RPM Fusion (a third-party software source) to install media codecs despite Ubuntu (and most of the other distros) including them by default.
(I've never used Mint but it's a close descendent of Ubuntu and uses Ubuntu's packages in addition to some of its own so it should be fine.)
Another Fedora user here - to soften your warning to @MimicSquid about it, I'll just add that the RPM Fusion futzing is a one-time pain point. I set it up when installing Fedora and bringing up my new system almost two years ago, and haven't really had to think about it since, even through several distro upgrades (Fedora 39 to Fedora 42). I'm running Fedora KDE and it's been quite solid.
Yes. It is concerning how often people recommend Fedora for beginners.
I agree. Tbh I do use Arch, but I started on Mint (which should be close to Ubuntu as far as ease of use / support is concerned).
No point for newcomers to go into deep OS journeys. They can do that on their own pace
Thank you for the warnings. I appreciate a perspective from someone who knows how deep the rabbithole can go, and who warns about going too deep to start.
Is it a desktop or a laptop? In my experience, most anything will work if it's a desktop machine, but for laptops you have to be way more careful. I don't have any up to date data, but the one datapoint I can offer is that I bought a System76 laptop some years ago, and it was good and I used it for a long time, but fairly expensive for the hardware I got. I'm under the impression that most manufacturers of linux laptops don't operate worldwide, so you may want to look at something that's close to you depending on where you live.
Hope that helps =)
Thank you; I'm inclined towards a desktop; ideally in a frame I'll be able to update for years to come. I don't want to be in a situation where there's exactly one fan on the market that'll work for the frame ever again.
I had a mini pc for about a year and I was running Linux Mint on it. It started having hardware issues and crashing regularly so I returned it. It probably was even less serviceable than your Alienware because a mini PC is pretty much a laptop and everything is crammed in there and you can't really replace or upgrade individual bits. So I'm also interested in a replacement linux desktop in a standard sized case. I've been looking at System 76 which seems to be about the only desktop that comes with Linux pre-installed so I won't have to worry about drivers etc.
I don't really like buying things like that online though. I wish something like Dell was still a good choice because I would buy it at Costco, which adds warranty and return options. But Dell computers are worse than they were in the past, they are less upgradable, don't have AMD options, and you must pay for Windows.
I saw another post here that mentioned a computer from Best Buy. But the ones they have with the specs I want are gaming computers with the goofy clear cases and colored lights and I don't want that.
It is really hard to find a decent spec'd prebuilt that isn't blinged out with RGB. Mine mostly sits under my desk and no one really has to look at it. :)
I will say that I like the glass case so far, though. It forces me to keep the inside of my case clean and organized. We'll see how I feel about it after a year of dust building up, but for now it's nice to have the reminder to keep it maintained.
I had good luck with Asus computers about 15 years ago. Not sure if thats still the case, but figured it would be a good starting point.
I struggled with a newish Dell maybe 6 or 7 years ago because it had some kinda hardware encryption on the hard drive, I tried to swap it out but I still couldn’t get it to work. My memory is hazy, I did try a ton of bios config settings, but end the end just sold it on Ebay.
The most difficult part for me starting out was creating a usb. For some reason the applications for that available on Windows just suck (or at least they did in 2016ish) and it took me a few tries to make a good one.
For anybody making an installer USB on windows now I would highly recommend Rufus. It will effortlessly write any os iso to any USB device. I'm not sure exactly when it was created so can't speak for 2016, but its my goto for any installations now.
Ventoy is also pretty nice because it creates a multiboot drive, meaning that you can basically just put many ISOs into a folder on the flash drive and choose any one of them during boot
Just to add a data point, I switched to Linux on my two-year-old Asus Zenbook earlier this year and haven't had any hardware-related issues that I know of. So Asus may still be a good option these days.
If I can offer my two cents. I switched from windows 11 to Linux mint about ~4 months ago permanently.
I haven't needed to use windows for any of my applications. They've all worked, out of the box. Even windows executables running through WINE.
If you need some specifics, I can provide them, but I'm using an Intel/Nvidia combo, and had zero issues.
Key bindings are all the same which is nice. This means things like CTRL-ALT-DEL still opens the "task manager" (they call it system monitor).
I game, do software programming, video transcoding, and other interesting tasks that span a broad set of "use cases", all with zero issues.
I am a little more "technically inclined" than most people, as my day job is a software engineer, but I've found the OS surprisingly intuitive and pleasant. I'm amazed that they aren't eating Microsoft's lunch more.
I'm happy to enter private chats with you and offer more advice or answer more questions if you'd like!
Fair point, I should clarify pretty much all of the ones I use regularly have been the same.
Also Win+L is not screen lock by default (in Cinnamon). It's easy enough to change though by going to Preferences>Keyboard>Shortcuts.
Thank you, that's very generous of you. I'll be sure to reach out if I have questions.
I also have been using PC Part Picker for years--first to upgrade an old computer then to build a new one when the old motherboard finally gave up the ghost. I am fairly mechanically minded and very patient but irredeemably clutzy, I picked a ASUS ROG motherboard specifically because it advertised that it was made to put up with some abuse. I've been really happy with it. I also recommend AMD-- I'd had Nvidia on my old system and it was a lot more trouble. Finally, I would recommend looking at the reviews on https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major, then checking out the websites and especially the support forums of any of the ones that interest you. Look for how quickly people posting problems are responded to, how respectfully they are responded to, and if their issues get resolved. Good support is like gold, at least to me!