I didn’t intentionally pick Ubuntu, my pc went shit and I needed to install some os and the only one I had available in a usb was Ubuntu noble.

Laptop specs: I think a 7th gen inter i5, 8 GBs of ram and (the issue) a 125 GB M2.Sata SSD

I’m not really going to play games on it, it’s one of those weird laptops that folds and can use a stylus.

So what would you suggest for something light in size and good with a stylus.

  • Sentient LoomEnglish
    8•1 month ago

    Debian. You’ll have the same (amazing) package manager without the extra ubuntu stuff. Find a desktop manager that supports the stylus (I assume Gnome and KDE Plasma both will support it).

    Just make sure to enable non-free packages.

  • PenguinCoderEnglish
    15•1 month ago

    Debian proper. You’ll have issues with any stylus on Linux. Not to say it won’t work but may need more effort to get working.

  • @[email protected]English
    28•1 month ago

    If you want stability, you probably can’t beat Debian, and you should be fairly used to the backend by now. I suspect the stylus use is just going to be figuring out what package provided your current access to it.

    Before you wipe the laptop, I would recommend finding a command to list all the installed packages, then at least you’ll have a reference to what was in place before. And if possible, maybe grab a backup of the /etc folder (or whatever might still be accessible) so you can reference the current configs on various packages to recreate whatever doesn’t work by default.

    There are a number of lightweight desktops you can choose from. I personally like Mate, but maybe you can play around with others on the new system and purge the ones you don’t like. And while you’re swapping drives, check the memory slots, maybe you can drop another 8GB stick in there to give the whole system a boost.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      7•1 month ago

      maybe you can drop another 8GB stick in there to give the whole system a boost.

      I already opened my laptop before, it’s one of those silly ones that have RAM BUILT INTO THE MOTHERBOARD, the stupidest design choice ever.

  • @[email protected]
    7•1 month ago

    I just went through this. LMDE: Linux Mint Debian Edition. It’s Mint without Ubuntu and it’s pretty great.

  • @[email protected]
    9•1 month ago

    There’s no big difference between ubuntu, mint or debian. I am not sure why people try to sell it to you.

    Look up if fedora silverblue supports your stylus. Create a live image and test it. If it works, install it. If not fedora, then opensuse aeon.

    • data1701d (He/Him)English
      1•1 month ago

      I swear Ubuntu does something - I have run different distros in equally-specced VMs, some with GNOME, and Ubuntu by far performs the worse. Sometimes, it’ll actually take 30 seconds to respond to a simple button click.

      When I have to test builds with what’s in Ubuntu repos, I usually avoid using Ubuntu directly and opt for a derivative like PopOS (which has unfortunately fallen behind on getting to Ubuntu 24.04).

  • @[email protected]
    2•1 month ago

    It sounds like anything with KDE Plasma will make you happy. If the underlying OS has been fine with you, then try Kubuntu. If you want a non-Ubuntu system, try openSuse or Fedora.

  • Papamousse
    2•1 month ago

    I went from Ubuntu to MX Linux maybe 6 years ago, it is a fantastic distro, systemd optional, no flatpak/snap, xfce, simple, fast, always up to date for apps (.deb) and kernel.

  • Archy
    1•1 month ago

    Recently install Fedora 42 KDE on one of those weird laptops with a pen - everything just works, no tinkering.
    Looking at your specs - I have almost the same config, except in place of SATA SSD I installed a NVMe SSD, if course the laptop needs to support that. KDE Plasma is superior in the touch support, although the screen keyboard is a little buggy at times. But the situation in the GNOME ecosystem is a bit worse for touch/pen devices. Good luck

  • @[email protected]
    1•1 month ago

    If you’re seeking something simple to use where you may never need to open the terminal, I’d say ZorinOS(Lite).

    You can also test out Debian if you don’t mind a bit of tinkering on the terminal. You’ll have to add yourself as a user to the sudoers list first thing but there are plenty of 2-second video tutorials on how.

    For both distros, if you are searching for support, you’d search “on Ubuntu” and basically the same would apply.