I always wonder why mint is the one people try. It seems so out of date.

Fedora these days works really well and is really up to date.

I've become quite the fan of Fedora with KDE. Running Fedora 43 on both my couch Thinkpad and my gaming desktop. Only issue I'm having with it is sleep functionality on the desktop, which just sucks (it likes to not wake up from sleep) so I have that set to not go to sleep, just turn the screen off when idle.

Try out Debian. Stable, base of many other distros, loads of documentation, huge helpful community, just runs and barely ever breaks (I can't even remember the last time I had issues).

Umm... With 2 free computers and nothing on them.

Run down the list and install all the different distros. Test them out for a few weeks then onto the next. Pretty soon you'll one that you prefer.

You should try Fedora. It's the one used by Linus.

"Intel UHD Graphics aren't really recommended"

Because Bazzite is gaming oriented and Intel UHD is barely good enough to render a display?

dont forget your programming socks

I just got a new laptop for my work (which I also use for personal stuff, it’s a family business).

It came with Windows 11 but I’d got a bigger SSD which I’d installed before I’d even turned it on so Windows never even got a chance to boot.

I installed one of the Fedora atomic distros and it seems to be pretty good, though I’m trying to figure out how to tune battery life. I’ve setup TLP but haven’t noticed any improvement, though, it’s still much better than when I first tried Linux on a laptop.

I’d never used Fedora before, but the first distro I ever used was Ubuntu Dapper Drake and I’ve dipped my toes occasionally since then, but never fully committed until now

OpenSUSE is very less recommended but I would suggest it

https://media.ccc.de/v/5012-the-first-encrypted-steam-deck-runs-opensuse#t=0

Also check out their AEON it is still in RC but worth looking out for. Meanwhile Fedora immutable can be used with Intel.

If you wanna have fun, i woild recommend bedrock linux, haven't tried it, but it sounds cool and interesting. Also nixos might be fun to try in my opinion.

Snagged a thinkpad today for just over 100$. Guy mentioned it was because of windows 11. Its hippie christmas for linux!

GL! Hope you have a great time.

Check out https://www.wesnoth.org/ and https://supertuxkart.net/Main_Page :D

so I might try something else first. Any recommendations?

https://distrowatch.com/

try 'em all.

Edit: PS: distrowatch's search is handy: e.g. https://distrowatch.com/search.php?defaultinit=Not+systemd [Edit: PS: maybe try {in approximate increasing ambitiousness] antix, devuan (or other respins of devuan, like expiron, peppermint, vendefoul, shebang, gnuinos), pclinuxos, salix, slackel, slackware, calculatelinux, artix, obarun, voidlinux, decibellinux, gentoo, crux (or kwort), sidelinux(?), milis(?),bedrock, guixSD, LFS. Or whatever... :) Have fun exploring.

I'd say try fedora. Then give Debian a spin as it will expose you to more technical details.

Did you try CachyOS ? https://cachyos.org/ I'm impressed by how snappy it is on older computers.

I ran bazzite on a Lenovo flexpad with Intel und 630 graphics and it ran perfectly. I even ran mechwarrior 5 on it, albeit with the graphics details turned down so low that it looked like a mechwarrior game from the 1990s.

I'd give bazzite a go. Learning about how to install and use distroboxes is also lots of Linux fun.

Edit: also, you literally cannot break any of the immutable fedora distros. Very newbie friendly.

You can, if you have far to much time in your hands, install arch, gentoo, vor any other distro with a non graphical installer. I believe its a great experience, especially because you learn a bit more about the internels, and a few cool bash commands.

Computertruhe could be happy about well working laptops! Dont hoard ;) you can try distros with external SSDs

Void linux xfce. Just uses so little ram I love it.