Hello, good people of Dev! I need some help from the Linux users out there.
I've been thinking to switch to Linux (again) after being fed up (again) with Windows' constant lagging on my PC. I'm a web developer and just want a distro which is performant, good looking and has an abundancy of all the required packages (without any workarounds).
The distros in the banner are the ones I've been considering.
Linux Mint Cinnamon: I've heard it's very good for web development. It's lightweight and performant and I've heard some good things about Cinnamon. I've used Mint in the past (like 5-6 years ago).
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Ubuntu 20.04: I've used Ubuntu and have been considering it only for: familiarity and availability of a large user-base. My main pet-peeves while using Ubuntu 18.04 were the unavailability of these following features:- In Windows, the clipboard is at my disposal when I pressed
Win + v. I didn't really search for a clipboard manager that does this. - Blue light filter. I tried using Redshift but for some reason, I couldn't get it to work.
- Hibernation
- In Windows, the clipboard is at my disposal when I pressed
Manjaro: I don't know anything about it.Peppermint OS: I was considering it because some people claim it to be super performant.Pop!_OS: Super pretty! Lots of support for it on the comments below! I'll probably end up using this.
So, suggest me anything that you think will suit me!
- Web Development
- Kinda done with the lag-ful experience in Windows.
- Will run on Dual boot alongside Windows (which I'll mainly use for Photoshop, Premiere, etc).
- Wants small important features which were mentioned as pet peeves of Ubuntu above.
Laptop Specs:
- 1 TB HDD
- Intel Core i5 8th Gen @1.60GHz
- 8GB RAM
- Nvidia GeForce MX130
Thanks!
Edit: add laptop specs
Update
Thank you everyone for the suggestions and inputs! By far I've cut the list short to Mint Cinnamon and Pop!_OS. I looked at Fedora too but as I'm not really familiar with it, I doubt if I'll be using it.
Thanks for your inputs on Manjaro and letting me know about other cool distros like Zorin OS and Elementary OS. I'll surely try them out in the future!
P.S. I researched a bit and found out that the hibernating feature is not available out of the box in any Linux distribution(?).
Update: Aug 2021
I bought an SSD and shifted to Linux Mint and have been using it for a month.
- I don't miss the hibernate feature because booting & shutting down takes less than 10 seconds
- I use CopyQ for clipboard management
- Yet to find a Redshift alternative that can be turned on at any time and not just during the night
Thanks everyone for the inputs!
Oldest comments (129)
If you have laptop that have nvidia graphics card I highly recommend POP_OS. You can start use with almost 0 config that's amazing.
My first impression with PopOS was "How the f. I minimize a window. Are they serious?". Then I removed it a few minutes later, going back to Zorin.
They are very focused on keyboard driven flows. But you can add the min/max controls with a simple Gnome Extension.
This is something they should've done by default... But any way, the trick is to install GNOME Tweaks and then enable the minimize and maximize buttons.
You can also enable battery percentage from there ( shows up in top bar).
POP_OS is made for Developers
Given that you should use what is comfortable to you, the distro must also be customizable to fit the environment that you need. Personally, I prefer Pop!_OS since you can get started immediately. Further customizations can be easily added.
Also if you need a more complex highly-customized dev environment, you might want to check out containerized IDEs like theia.
Maybe Elementary OS could also be interesting for you. elementary.io/
Thanks for the suggestion!
It looks really good
Try Arch Linux
Thanks for the suggestion Ritik! But I don't really want to set everything up on my own.
I want to focus more on my dev work rather than Linux work.
Maybe when I build my dream workstation, I'll try Arch 😄
Then you can go with Pop!_OS. It's based on Ubuntu but a bit more polished than Ubuntu. You can also get the pure GNOME experience by default.
Although I had to move to Windows 10 in my studies, 2 years now - with a lot up and down, hate it & love it, I know that once I graduate, I'll go back to Parrot OS, focused on security and development. parrotlinux.org/
I use fedora 33 as a daily driver and its great, everything works like a charm. I do web dev, dont have dual boot but a colleague does, hibernation works and there's a clipboard history extension.
Pop os will be the most comfortable to start with, zero compatibility issues with nvidia, easy ubuntu like installation for all software, and also, all softwares are available.
Try Fedora 33, it has very consistent look and optimized gnome shell
If you’re new to Linux stick with Ubuntu based distros because there’s an endless amount of guides out there. Ubuntu, PopOS, ElementaryOS, Mint or Zorin OS are all good. I’ve tried them all and honestly they are all the same just different desktop environments.
If you are coming from Windows: ZorinOS and Linux Mint will feel most familiar.
If you’re coming from Mac: Elementary OS or Zorin OS (Mac layout)
If you’re a developer and want to be very producitive but open to a new desktop environment: Ubuntu, PopOS, ZorinOS. Gnome desktop is my favorite personally cause its very producitive.
I put ZorinOS in all the ones above because you can switch the layout between Windows, Mac and Gnome. It’s actually really awesome.
Whoa! The thing that shocked me was ZorinOS supported MS Office?!
Well it comes with wine preinstalled so it can run most windows apps. You can install wine on any linux distro.
Oh. I was aware of Wine. I thought it supported MS Office without Wine. Thanks for the clarification!
If you're looking for each to use, Windowsesque OS, look at Windows/Linux FX; it's absolutely mind boggling, how "look alike" it is; it's practically a Linux born Windows doppelganger, in both form, "AND" (relative) function. Its' WINE implementation is better, than that of any of I've ever seen. It can run the Windows XP version of pinball, unaltered, "AND" without "any" issues, even sound runs smoothly; first run, OoTB, no issues, no alteration; you can also (just the same as in Windows) edit the in game control keys, and they work!!!!!
Actually in every ubuntu based Linux you can configure for MS office very easily but it is not not working that well as it 8s working in windows. You can use the web version of office for basic things. And for other Linux it is slightly more difficult to set up and zorin is come with the base setup only.
" ... there’s an endless amount of guides out there ..."
The Arch Wiki is pretty darn comprehensive.
Linux mint is perfect distro. Perfect combination of beauty and performance plus all the goodies of ubuntu.
I prefer Manjaro XFCE. I know your Laptop Specs is good. But you have to open too many tab of browser. So, they will eat your ram more than any other software. Manjaro is based on Arch Linux. But this distribution is more stable than arch. You can use any kernel from 4.14 to 5.10 on manjaro. On the other hand, XFCE is one of the lightweight desktop environment but has many customizations.
But if you want to go with Debian/Ubuntu based distribution, I prefer Pop!_OS
I am on POP!_OS and couldn't be happier. Web dev wise, any distro will be pretty good. The nice thing with POP is that it comes with a lot of built-in options for gaming, 3D, CAD, science etc. than regular Ubuntu.
debian on fluxbox
I use Elementary OS now along side Windows 10. Same pc properties as yours. And i have used Linux mint cinnamon. On an i3 4gb ram. It was pretty fast though running windows on it was extremely laggy. So i suggest Linux Mint
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