Lightweight Linux ideal for students and developers on a daily basis
Lightweight Linux ideal for students and developers on a daily basis
I've worked extensively with Debian, Red Hat, and Arch Linux. I've used Linux for a long time on Raspberry Pi devices and have installed it on older systems before. I also manage Linux servers for hosting web services, so I don’t mind an OS that’s not beginner-friendly. My goal is to dual-boot Linux on my laptop (XPS 7590 OLED) and desktop (6700k, 1080 ti). I spend a lot of time coding but also attend classes where Windows tools are required, which is why dual booting makes sense. Since I carry my laptop around daily for classes and teaching, I need something stable and battery-efficient. I’ve tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Manjaro, and others. Manjaro felt great and worked well with my hardware, but as an Arch user it raises concerns about updates. I’m just looking for advice on what might suit me best. Thanks!
I previously owned an XPS 13 running Ubuntu for roughly three years before purchasing my MacBook. I could easily revert to that setup if needed.
Ubuntu or RHEL. I've never worked anywhere that allowed me to use anything other than those two options on their intranet might as well get used to them ahead of time. From your use case though it sounds like the improvements coming to windows 11 WSL would be a valid option for you though unless you really want to have a gnome desktop experience. Here's a video of a guy demoing it for several minutes. Seems like a good alternative for your use case without having to mess with a dual boot system.
Check Pop!OS, it matches your needs and fits well with what I have. It’s convenient when I need to get things done, though it can glitch occasionally—less than Windows but sometimes unpredictable. If possible, try PopOS LTS release [here](https://pop.system76.com/). Edited November 9, 2021 by AkIonSight. Pop's official site is the best reference.
It's odd, isn't it? WSL uses a lot of CPU power, especially with WSL2. I've noticed it sometimes fails to boot because of resource shortages, making it quite inconsistent. It's not very stable, particularly on laptops, and it lacks many features like mounting drives or switching partitions. The available distros are also limited. Plus, Windows is proprietary, which is why I switched to GNU/Linux a few months ago. For the past several months, it's served as a helpful bridge to Linux and gave me experience with the terminal.
this could be outdated information. i haven't tried wsl2 on windows 11 yet, i used it on windows 10. i switched to a different distribution when windows 11 was launching two months later, and at that time wslg was still in alpha, but i never used it either.
It remains a heavy consumer of resources on W11 with WSLg (even less noticeable on newer systems not under stress). I haven’t pushed myself enough to assume the file systems will work smoothly, so I can’t discuss that. However, the CPU freezes at least one core or thread without knowing which one. If you need a quick Linux setup when you must run Windows, opening the terminal and typing WSL works much faster than rebooting. That said, I usually treat WSL as a flexible tool—when I need it, I launch it and when I don’t, I shut it down completely, freeing up memory and CPU without any locked cores or reserved RAM (you can manage this via Task Manager with Ctrl+Shift+Esc).
I considered Pop, but after watching Floatplane, I realized Linus could wipe his whole desktop just by adding Steam. I’m probably sticking with Ubuntu or Kubuntu for years, and never experienced something like that before.