Choose whatever laptop you like, and do a quick search on the model for incompatibilities. If there's something critical or long-term, like a very specific hardware module not working well without its proprietary driver, consider changing, but most of the time, Linux will just work.

For distro, PopOS is good. It doesn't come with a bunch of bloatware, but it is also not barebones. Mint is also a great choice.

@Toldry System76 hardware is great and they run their own distro Pop!_OS. Highly recommend their machines. I have one otw as we speak.

I can't seem to find an AMD GPU based laptop with 144hz display that isn't absurdly expensive, does anyone know of one?

Lenovo ThinkPads are what I've mainly used the last decades and they're quite Linux friendly now, can even buy them with Linux preinstall I believe.

Framework feels more in the spirit of Linux than most but I haven't owned one.

https://lemmy.world/post/10533836

my brother runs a thinkpad T380. best thing about it is that there is a swappable and a built-in battery. he bought it "refurbished" so his didn't include the internal one for some reason. but you can open and even upgrade some components.

all for around 300€.

we think these have benn bought by companies for full price (1000+€) and are now being replaced, so the market for used thinkpads is very saturated at the moment.

currently runs windows, but i see no problems with running linux on a laptop, you aren't gonna game on integrated graphics anyway.

i've used Linux Mint Cinnamon a fair bit, i really like it. i've heard KDE offers more desktop customization, but i have no idea what that would actually look like. Kubuntu apparently has it.

Can't tell you what laptop to buy, but distro wise I'd recommend either Pop OS, Zorin or Linux Mint. Zorin is most windows-like, with Mint coming in second. Pop OS is very different but incredibly user friendly.

Hard to make a real recommendation without knowing your budget and general likes/dislikes. Like screen size, weight, clamshell vs convertible, integrated graphics vs dedicated GPU. I know you said gaming but integrated is great for indie and retro gaming and can handle some.modern stuff but a dgpu is needed if you're playing AAA titles and care about graphics and framerate, etc.

For everyone who says Linux runs on anything, that's mostly true but specific hardware components are still problematic. Most fingerprint scanners won't work if the laptop comes with Windows and you're installing yourself, the same for any unique hardware feature.

I have the Thinkpad x1 yoga gen 7 and everything works including the OR camera for facial recognition and the fingerprint scanner.

Lots of good Rocco's, but if you need to balance price and still get a high end machine, Lenovo Carbon. Runs fantastic out of the box, including S3/etc.

Ugh, don’t use Linux for anything ever. It’s so hard to use and you might actually have to learn something new. Just stick to windows so you know every single piece of software ever created will definitely work 100%.

/s

Wouldn't join some research center as engineer make more sense than going through university again?