I’m personally a fan of NovaCustom; not as upgradable as Framework, however 7 years of parts are definitely nice to have. They also offer video tutorials on how to replace parts. Good stuff.
But, like any vendor targeting Linux, its devices can be more expensive than what you’d expect from Asus, Lenovo etc.
Perhaps the most important questions that need answering are the following:
How much computation power is required? I.e. do 10th generation Intel chips suffice or not?
Are you okay with buying devices second hand?
How much explicit Linux support do you require from the vendor?
Do you live in Europe or in USA (or close enough) to buy from Linux-first vendors and not be deprived from sending and receiving the devices (for reparations and what not) due to associated costs and time?
Distro
As for distro, it all comes down to personal taste.
Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition if you require a popular, reliable and beginner-friendly base.
If you don’t like how Cinnamon (the Desktop Environment) looks and/or feels, perhaps consider Pop!_OS, Tuxedo OS or Zorin OS instead.
However, if you prefer minimalism, then the likes of Debian and openSUSE Leap have to be mentioned.
All of the previously mentioned distros are known to ship older versions of software. This is excellent if you require stability above all, but what if you want a distro built on more up to date software? Well, consider the following then:
Fedora; software found here is at max six months old. Relatively minimal. However, it may require you to fiddle with codecs and what not on first boot. Thankfully, there’s a lot of documentation out there to help you with this. Just ensure that the documentation is written relatively recently.
If you like what you see from Fedora, but would rather prefer a distro that’s properly setup right from the get-go; then perhaps consider one of https://ublue.it/’s images instead. These are known to provide the most stability out of the (relatively) up to date distros. Please ensure to thoroughly read through its documentation, though. The uBlue images are excellent, but their inner workings can be different from other distros. Hence, you should rely on its own documentation first. And only after you’ve determined that it’s not found within should you consider consulting other sources.
Perhaps, you might prefer software updates as soon as they’re available. Hence, Fedora (and derivatives) didn’t quite cut it. Then, you should consider so-called rolling release distros. However, take note; every update comes with the risk of potentially breakage; i.e. something will misbehave that didn’t before. The chance of this is relatively small; probs in the order of 1%. This chance persists; regardless of the chosen distro. Hence, with distros that update more often, it’s more likely that some breakage will occur at some point.
With that out of the way, we should mention noteworthy rolling release distros:
openSUSE Tumbleweed is for those that absolutely require a rolling release, but desire as much stability as possible. Both openSUSE’s testing as well as built-in Btrfs + Snapper work hard to ensure a smooth ride.
EndeavourOS or Garuda Linux are the entries from the lineage of the (in)famous Arch (btw). EndeavourOS is primarily known for its easy installation towards a minimal Arch system. Garuda Linux, on the other hand, is more opinionated and therefore comes with all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a distro oriented towards gamers. Still, it comes with Btrfs + Snapper built-in. Which is exactly why it’s mentioned here. Note that you can setup Btrfs + Snapper yourself on EndeavourOS.
The openSUSE website obly lists three variants, Leap, Tumbleweed and MicroOS. I don’t see the many confusing variabts that are mentioned in the article
You need something like DamnSmallLinux, not Debian. Debian users about 800 MB of RAM with XFce, on a clean boot. It requires a minimum of 2 GB with a modern browser (one tab, 4+ GB with more tabs). DamnSmallLinux uses about 128 MB RAM on a clean boot, and with the Netfront browser about half a gig. Definitely better for such a laptop than any modern distro.
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