I like endeavorOS, it’s the main distro I use on my pcs. I’ve run arch before (with i3wm and switchable Nvidia graphics) and did for years, but honestly I don’t really have the time to properly configure my systems to my liking, so the option to install the sway community edition and just tweak a few settings in the config files is very nice.

Yep. Have been using them for years, and just recently got a small gooseneck one. A lot of mornings I can just press a button, and in about 5 min I can come back and open a ramen cup just barely, and the water gets in without spilling. Also very nice for having tea whenever you want, and even sorta stirring honey or whatnot while pouring.

Usually it’s more a give away after installing mint on them, but it’s better than genuinely just tossing them for stuff newer than 7-8th gen intel.

Make friends with your local IT guys. Thinkpads are less common these days, because they’re “Chinese”, so it is more common to find dells (which usually are worse in my experience).

“What do you mean, ‘Why do I need that stack of old ThinkPads?’. They were free!”

While I don’t like 11 (have to use it daily for work), my biggest gripe is it’s even harder to fix than the last couple of releases of windows before it. In XP and 7, you just adjusted settings in the control panel, and if it was a niche setting, it was in the control panel, probably a few layers deep. In 10, you had the settings app, which was fine for basic stuff, but if you went beyond the basics you were going to control panel (and yes, it coexists with a settings app). Now in 11, the settings app was expanded, but there still exists a bunch of stuff in the control panel, but it’s often not obvious where you would do something.

After running arch for a long time, I just installed the sway community edition of endeavoros on all my machines. It works well, while allowing me to use tiling without having a ton of configuration time.

Wait, wait, wait. You’re blaming arch for Nvidia’s fuck up?

Honestly, mint isn’t bad or anything. I’m running an endeavoros sway build for my computers, but I recently installed mint on a laptop I was giving my rather tech illiterate sister. It was quite snappy and had a pretty cohesive interface, I was actually kinda impressed by how smooth of a process it was and how usable it was. I used to recommend installing Ubuntu on if they weren’t the most tech literate, but often it had some issues, but now mint is pretty much a go to. I fully expect to be the tech support if necessary, but I kinda suspect that it won’t be super necessary these days if you set it up right from the get go.

Proton and the like should be mostly ok on most Linux distro, the main reason for arch for a lot of people is the AUR and being able to get the latest updates first. It’s a bit of a double edged sword, but it rarely is an issue once you get the basics down. That being said make sure to occasionally read the arch wiki, it’s often a better resource than just copy pasting forum fixes that might cause other issues or just not work. Hope you enjoy!

It’s based on arch, so technically sure, but be prepared for the pedantry. Ran arch for years, switched to endeavor because it allowed for a basic sway install to rice on pretty easily without having to configure every little thing. Arch is great, but maintenance can get old after a while.