<html><head></head><body><div>On Fri, 2017-05-19 at 12:54 -0500, Scott Raun wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><pre>We're going to be getting new laptop computers in the near future. My
wife has been happily running Peppermint 3.0 for a couple of years,
and wants to continue running Linux.
We installed Peppermint because it would load and run on the old Dell
Latitude we inherited. (Thanks, Josh! It's been a workhorse - it just
can't keep up with what she wants to do on the web nowadays.) The new
laptop will be significantly more powerful. Any recommendations on
distros to consider instead of just going straight to Peppermint 7?
</pre></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Do the research.</div><div>Choose the distro then the laptop that has compatibility or choose the laptop and research which distro has all the right drivers to make it all work on install.</div><div><br></div><div>Gone are the days of picking a laptop and dropping your preferred distro on it and everything just works.</div><div><br></div><div>For example</div><div>Qualcomm atheros (AKA Killer) wifi cards have more issues than Intel cards - actually connecting and staying connected to lower throughput speed.</div><div>What graphics card/architecture (AMD/NVidia/Intel)? Onboard Intel graphics has better battery life. </div><div>Internal/External monitor resolution to be used? FHD?, 3K?, 4K? You may or may not need the power of separate graphics card.</div><div>Laptop slots? some models have more traditional connectors (USB-2, HDMI 1.2, SD card, 3.5mm headphone) and some don't </div><div>Docking station? Some smart docking stations do not play well with Linux.</div><div><br></div><div>Sometimes your choice to use a LTS version is hampered by not being able to support your new hardware, sometimes your choice to not use a LTS version breaks your ability to keep using certain hardware e.g. AMD dropping support for proprietary AMD driver in favor of encouraging users to use the open-source AMDGPU/Radeon drivers so your distro upgrade removes working drivers. Unfortunately the open-source drivers do not support all functionality that the proprietary drivers did.</div><div><br></div><div>I first installed Linux (RedHat 2.1 CD, kernel 1.2) on a new Compaq laptop and have used Dells, Macbook Pros, and Thinkpad hardware with one distro or another ever since. I'm currently running Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS on a 4K UHD Dell XPS-15 9560 (2017) and the Dell USB-3C/TB dock will power the laptop but the ethernet port doesn't work, nor do many of the other ports.</div><div><br></div></body></html>