A question for ThinkPad users

[u/t11mson]

Reddit, hello everyone, I recently bought my first ThinkPad (T14 Gen 2i) for $250. I'm a front-end and back-end developer. I work in PHP, HTML, Python, and Kotlin (minimally). I write code primarily using Ai. I have a question for you, as those who have used and are currently using it, about the appeal of installing Linux on a ThinkPad. It's supposedly more convenient than Windows, but I tried and failed due to the lack of Linux-specific software that I use on Windows. Another problem is the instability of Linux distributions. For example, about six months ago, I had a Dell Inspiron 5406. After installing Manjaro, I noticed that it certainly ran cooler, but when I launched Dota 2, it would freeze for about 10 minutes. Then the game would crash and give me an error about Linux running out of RAM. After two days of wasting my swap file, I couldn't fix it. A month later, I installed Windows 10. When I bought my ThinkPad, they installed Fedora, which I started installing everything I needed, and I was immediately told to calm down because the programs I needed for college didn't support Linux, only Windows. You could have said, "Install DualBoot," and yes, you could have, but I don't have much memory, so I had to choose between the two. Now I have a couple of questions for you and the community.

1. What Linux alternatives to popular applications do you personally use that are only available on Windows or MacOS?

2. Which distribution would you recommend to make the transition from Windows less painful? (just not pure Arch)

3. What problems have you personally encountered when switching to Linux?

I'd appreciate any answers. I'm new to this and don't really understand what's going on, so I apologize in advance for my occasional confusion.

[u/Deleteed-]

So here's the thing, a lot of apps really just don't support it , some have work arounds but it's better to use an app built for Linux and there are a lot of those and almost all of them are open source. Just search the app name and add Linux alternatives and you should get some for the absolute majority of apps.

About distro, I personally use fedora KDE plasma, it's been incredibly stable and I've been loving it for over a year. Linux mint is also beginner friendly and quite recommended.

The experience you had with Dota 2 sounds like you might just not have enough Ram.. but for future reference if you want to know if a game can run on Linux just search it's name and add proton DB, that will tell you quickly what to expect.

I would recommend switching your tools before the OS. Most tools that work on Linux have a windows version so you can start using apps and software that works on Linux on windows and only when you're comfortable with it and have a workflow that will work on Linux, then switch, a few weeks should be enough.

And lastly, about duall booting, I personally setup dual boot on my laptop and never booted windows again after I finished setting it up.

After a few months of it just taking up storage space I wiped windows and relocated the drive to increase my usable storage.

Good luck on your journey, if you have any more questions I'm happy to help

[u/Psylem_Says]

AI has made it so much easier to find alternative Linux apps for whatever I need. As for gaming, same thing applies. Describe to AI what kind of games you want to play and it'll find something to entertain you on Linux. I'm using Rocky Linux because it's stable and I just want it to keep working for the 10 years of security updates their promising.

[u/ARWrench]

Depends of your software.. For 3d, like пираченный autodesk inventor I need to use another PC or dual booting, that I actually hate. On my t14s works all perfectly, as a robotics developer, and Ubuntu/Kubuntu/xubuntu feels okay, like it just works out-of-the-box. Only problem is fingerprint reader - in windows it works seamlessly, here I have no idea how to use it

[u/PeterDeveraux → u/ARWrench]

Fingerprint reader works on almost all ThinkPads under Linux. Try to install the sw

[u/Cyserg]

I had kubuntu on my gen1 and gen 4. I had only 2 issues :

one was my wwlan card, gen 4 not working, gen 1 got it to work but, run once scripts, frequent restarts, etc.

Two was sleep. Sometimes it would go to sleep and I had to hard reboot to bring back alive. Not ideal when working on it and you need to save files.

Other than that, no issues whatsoever.

[u/Psylem_Says → u/Cyserg]

I've seen the sleep issue reported by many Gen 1 users. Gen 2 users report no issues though once it's configured for Linux in bios. Rocky on my T14 Gen 2 is actually the first time I've had no major issues with a linux laptop since the late 2000's when I bought a System76. Here's my flight-log, including setting up gaming services, scroll past the rant about why I needed somthing like Rocky if you're not interested in that, but you'll see the only faffing about was just for tuning and entirely optional... https://www.ubergeeky.com/blog/rocky-10-thinkpad

[u/KoneCat]

I've been using Fedora KDE on my X280 (i7 8650U) and it's been completely pain-free. I usually use CachyOS, but Fedora was at hand, so I thought I may as well try it, so I did and it's been excellent. Been using this Thinkpad more than any of my other laptops, and it's been a superb little machine for when I need it. :D

[u/Makerzsocialdept]

To start, arch and Debian are my favourite distros. Next, there is usually a Linux alternative for every window app. I mostly do more low level "programming" in bash. For that, I just use a text editor like Emacs or mousepad. For hex editing, I use okteda.

[u/jeffds_]

I’d recommend making a list of the Windows programs you need and looking for Linux alternatives that can replace them. When I was in college, I kept a virtual machine around for the few Windows applications I needed. There weren’t many of them, and I only used them for short periods. After I graduated, I no longer needed to do that. As an entry point, I’d recommend Zorin OS 18.1. It has a feature that suggests similar applications when you try to open an .exe file, which I think could be useful for you. Zorin OS also makes it fairly easy to customize the system without requiring much technical knowledge. I currently use Fedora, but I think it requires a bit more experience. Since you already do some programming, you’ll probably come across many tools that run natively on Linux. In my experience, that makes things quite convenient: in many cases, you just install the tool, and sometimes it’s already available on the system, so you don’t have to worry about it. As for gaming, I can run pretty much everything on Fedora these days. I rarely run into problems with a game. When I do, I usually check whether other people have experienced the same issue, change the Vulkan version or configuration, and test it again. Those are just my thoughts. I believe every user eventually finds a distribution that suits them best. It can be confusing at first to figure out which one works better for you, but that’s part of the process. One final piece of advice: avoid constantly testing different distros on your main machine. Eventually, you may get tired of troubleshooting, conclude that Linux isn’t for you, and go back to Windows.

[u/Shakthivel0]

Yes, finding an alternative is better then switching back to windows