this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2024
21 points (95.7% liked)

Linux

48669 readers
433 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm a long-time Linux user but for the past few years my main laptop - a Lenovo Legion 5 with both AMD iGPU and Nvidia dGPU - has been on Win10. I'd like to upgrade and am looking for suggestions for distros and configurations. I've mainly used Debian-based distros in the past but am not particular. Here are my main concerns:

  • I will likely still need to run Windows in a VM for a few corporate applications that won't run in Linux (according to some teammates who have tried).
  • I do a lot of work in Figma and haven't tried it at all in Linux, but I know for sure it needs GPU acceleration. It seems like I'd have to choose between the following:
    • just running in a browser window and (somehow) assigning the dGPU to that browser
    • the above, but using the unofficial Linux electron-based figma app
    • try running the Windows app in Linux
    • putting Linux on the iGPU and passing the dGPU through to a Windows VM for this
  • I also do a fair amount of local LLM work. I would prefer to do this in Linux with the dGPU, but again I could pass the dGPU through to a Windows VPN and then do it in WSL2 in Windows (which seems a little janky)
  • I don't want to dual-boot

Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions on this? I haven't tried GPU-switching in Linux for a long time and had poor success in the past. Am I better off leaving both GPUs accessible in Linux, or passing one through for the Windows VM?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Chewt@beehaw.org 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I had a dual gpu Dell Xps laptop a couple of years ago, and the best experience I had with it was PopOS. It was the only distro that worked with that laptop out of the box without just completely disabling the dgpu.

[–] Vitaly@feddit.uk 2 points 2 days ago

I also have two GPUs in my laptop and PopOS works great for me