@davidgerard ...anyone need a hand installing linux, you are welcome to bother me.

@smhs @davidgerard I know just enough to be dangerous, and I’ve never been able to figure out how to choose a distro for desktop use. I’m using at least 5 different ones for various headless purposes, but every time I’ve looked at the options for desktop Linux I can’t even figure out which sets of problems I’d be choosing between much less which set of problems I’d rather put up with. It leaves me with no idea how to plan to buy a Linux laptop

@ShadSterling @davidgerard Almost any iron can handle Linux or more like the other way around, even winsh*t preinstalled is okay, just remove it.
I tried a lot of distros before settling on Ubuntu - because I was sure the popularity will grant ways to fix things, as in, it is discussed a lot on forums. ...and is practically Debian, a popular "friendly" one. I just removed all the cr4p from it. If I restarted I would go with Arch but as a start start, Mint, indeed is a good choice.

@smhs @davidgerard one thing I want is a way to get informed about which sets of problems I’d have to put up with from each distro without having to try a lot of them like you did. (Eg preinstalling a bunch of crap I’d have to remove vs less popular and harder to search for solutions.) I want to be confident that I can buy a Linux laptop and just use it, without having to worry that I’ll find problems later that require replacing it or switching distros

@ShadSterling @davidgerard A strange mix of comments from you... you say you are able to install different distros and then you say you'd have to replace a laptop cause of ...problems? ...what? It seems like you already know about these things - are you trolling with us?
Linux Mint is great for starters. Forget driver and GUI issues, all I did with my printer is plug it in. Don't try to undermine something that works. Microsoft is horrible. Ignore big corp. Love. Peace. I'm out. +

@smhs @davidgerard the distros I’m using are on cloud VMs; I didn’t install (or choose) the distro, and they’re not on my own hardware. While compatibility has improved, my feeds and search results are pretty clear that to reliably avoid having to replace hw to resolve driver problems I’d have to buy hw that comes with Linux preinstalled. Which is fine, I want to switch with my next new laptop anyway, but having to switch distros wouldn’t be about hw