Distro Suggestions
Hi,
I have a Lenovo Ideapad gaming 3i with a gtx 1650, and I would like to find a more lightweight distro than PopOS that supports (or is easier to set up) nvidia optimus graphics. Any suggestions?
Hi,
I have a Lenovo Ideapad gaming 3i with a gtx 1650, and I would like to find a more lightweight distro than PopOS that supports (or is easier to set up) nvidia optimus graphics. Any suggestions?
It's a little more of a setup but you could try endeavour. It's pretty lightweight and performant, they have every kind of DE imaginable to install during the setup.
I had a good experiences with nobrara. For non gamers it is a bit bloated, but everything worked out of the box or after just one reboot. https://nobaraproject.org/
Linux mint has delivered me a consistent experience on the verge of boring (Good for an OS) with great driver support and minimal intervention. I have wandered a long path of distro hopping and can say if you want to screw around, learn linux, and have to care about maintaining it (Like a car or house) try EndeavourOS or other major distros. If you want an OS that works for you without much intervention, give mint a try.
The default Cinnamon DE is quite light, but it also comes with an even lighter XFCE version. I prefer Cinnamon because it just hits the right spot for what I knew computing to be.
For the best Nvidia Optimus experience IMO go with an arch based distro, something like Endeavor OS, and install and configure Optimus Manager. It has a Hybrid Mode which makes it work much like it does on Windows, were you just launch a game and it uses the dedicated GPU. I like it better that way vs having to be switching modes manually.
Here's a guide for it: https://discovery.endeavouros.com/nvidia/optimus-manager-for-nvidia/2021/03/
Have you thought about Garuda Linux. It's a Arch based linux distro with good setup for gaming in mind.
I’ve been playing around with Nobara. Coming from Fedora, I always felt like I didn’t have “everything I needed to run games properly”. Followed a few tutorials on YouTube to set up my Fedora (f36+) box for gaming but that feelining of incompleteness never left. Since installing Nobara, I’ve realized that my “feeling” was absolutely right! Nobara basically installed a bunch of other gaming things I never even knew I needed for basic gaming (codecs, other nvidia software, ProtonUp-QT, etc). Nice easy step through style setup. Using the KDE version and so far, I’m staying with Nobara. Just my opinion.