cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16072674

I’ve been quite happy with my Steam Deck - both as a gaming console and as a secondary computer when it’s docked, but for newer titles I picked up a Rog Zephyrus M16 (2023) last year.

Now that Windows is going off the deep end with AI, I’m looking to dual boot/trial Linux on this laptop with the goal to give Microsoft the boot.

It’s a beefy laptop:

  • 13th Gen i9-13900
  • 32GB Memory
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070
  • 1TB NVMe (Windows)
  • 2TB NVMe (Linux)

I added the second drive to avoid any issues with dual-booting with Grub/Windows Bootloader - instead making the Linux device the primary boot device and spamming Esc if I want to change to the Windows drive.

For distributions, I’m most familiar with Debian/Ubuntu - it’s the daily driver for my work laptop, and the vast majority of my home lab VMs are Ubuntu. With the Steam Deck, I started to get more into Arch with the Steam Deck, and now it’s the OS of choice for my HTPCs for simple streaming/Plex media player. I’ve also messed around with ZorinOS (basically a fancy skinned Ubuntu).

I need some advice on what to throw on this laptop - and some suggestions on how to squeeze the best performance out of this (Optimus vs. Proprietary NVIDIA vs. Open source drivers).

  • sugar_in_your_tea
    2·
    7 months ago

    Honestly, it doesn’t really matter, pick the one you’re most familiar with. Performance-wise, distros are largely the same, unless the distro ships really old libraries or something.

    So I recommend either Debian or Arch since that’s what you’re familiar with.

    If you want to try something new, consider openSUSE MicroOS. It has a readonly root like Steam Deck, and you interact with it in transactions, so you get a really solid system. Theoretically. I haven’t actually used it, but I do plan to once I need ti reinstall one of my Tumbleweed systems (or maybe I’ll reinstall my Leap NAS at some point).

    And yeah, avoid the nvidia open source drivers. It’s a cool project, but performance sucks because nvidia refuses to provide technical documentation.