Does my system limit me to a particular variant?

Ask Fedora
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Hello…beginner here…again.

I am still struggling to decide which variant of Fedora I should try first. (Did I use the term “variant” correctly?) So I have decided to look at the decision in a new way. I bought this Lenovo laptop used. It’s few years old. My question: Do my hardware specs suggest a certain variant? For example, does my hardware limit me to a particularly resource-efficient variant? I am interested in the atomic desktops, because I won’t have the experience required to troubleshoot every new release and l like the option of simply going back to the previous release…Thanks for taking a look at the specs below and telling me if you see anything that points to a specific variant.

thinkbook specs
thinkbook specs657×346 12.8 KB

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Hi Olivia,

From what I can see of the specs you posted, this looks like a perfectly capable piece of hardware that can run pretty much any version/variant of Linux (Fedora, Ubuntu …) …
My personal go-to is Fedora Workstation with the Gnome desktop interface. If you want to give it a try before you go full in, you can run it from a live USB and see what you think.

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With the power of your machine you can also install one Version and use an alternative in a virtual environment. To manage such one you could use the “Virtual Machine Manager”.

The advantage of this is that you can run two different versions of Linux or Desktops on the same time. While testing with the Live USB ISO you have to reboot and it just runs one at a time.

As a help, to choose the desktop version, it is possible to say, that the Gnome desktop is more oriented to the “Apple - OS” while KDE and the other Spins are more oriented to the windows-style of OS (Start Button & Control Panel etc.).

About the age of the computer you might have to care/check about the age of your Processor. If the Laptop has a processor which is build in between 2015-2017 it will be able to use Linux V3/V4. For the moment with Fedora you not need to worrier about that, because it still is using Linux V2. I tell you this because I wanted to test Alma Linux lately and their default for Alma Linux 10 is on Linux V3 already. They still have a Linux V2 version.

As @einer I also use the Gnome desktop. Even If I came from Linux Mint, I opted for the other than Gnome desktop to start on Fedora using the Mate-Compiz spin first. Now I am happy with the Gnome Desktop, even if my machine is from 2013 it still works.

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Do you intend to dual-boot? While there are some caveats in case of atomics desktops, it is nevertheless possible, but you should use a dedicated /boot/efi partition in such a setup, separate from the existing one. Some details are mentioned in the docs.

However, if you’re erasing the entire disk and installing Fedora only, then automatic partitioning is the best way to go.

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Thank you, George, for the formatting tip and for the very valuable link.

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Thank you, ilikelinux, for the information about virtual machines and the assurance that my laptop may have some life left…

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Thanks, einer, for taking a look at the specs and confirming that my laptop can run “pretty much any version”. It’s nice to know my decision is not limited by my hardware.

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Thank you, Mike B., for the warning about atomic desktops and the tip about partitions.

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That is a very good computer, and should, spec wise, last another 10 years.

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there are distros meant for specific hardware, but it is mostly focused for old limited hardware or for a very spcific task

the desktop you can run, most 4 cores or bigger cpus from the last 10 years can run any desktop, calling kde the heaviest one, you have well over double that so kde will fit in there just fine

after using linux for decades intermittently, i can say that kde, cinnamon and xfce are the desktop environments that you will find easier to use and more close to a user that comes from windows

your specs are like 2 to 3 times my hardware and this old cpu i have here runs easily kde

i would go for kde for the touch support and the desktop in general

you might need to increase the display scale so is easier to use the touch screen at high resolutions on the laptop screen

when you choose a variant is more about what you want from the pc, not what the pc can do with the variant, or desktop environment, unless you must run a pentium 3 with 2 gbs of ram as a daily driver or a server of some kind

fedora has some variants focused on specific tasks like iot or virtualization/containers, like other distros focus on very little ram usage, very little storage usage or very old slow cpu support, but as i mentioned, your hardware will not make you limit yourself to a distro that runs on 500mbs of ram for example, you have 16gbs available, same for storage

my point is, try to look at what the desktop environment you want to test can offer to you and dont limit yourself with the hardware that is basically a workstation machine from a couple years ago

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Thank you, MatH, for the assurance that my computer is up to the task. It’s the first computer I bought used and cost the least of all the computers I have ever bought. I am glad to hear that Lenovo Refurbished gave me a fair deal.

I like the idea of not buying another computer until 2035. If only my phone would last that long…

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Do I understand that you prefer kde, cinnamon and xfce to Gnome? Why?

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as a long time user of linux, i began with kde 2 back in 1998 iirc

kde is the most complete desktop environment when you come from a windows background like me

you will not feel lost using it, it has that old windows spirit but is alot more modern than current win 11, it feels fresh and alot faster for sure

cinnamon is quite decent, i used it daily for a couple months not long ago, it is fine, but i felt it is not enough

xfce is ideal for the worst machine you have, 2 cores and 4 gbs of ram from 2006 lol, xfce will feel like a rocket, it will do the job just fine, but i end up always on kde again

kde right now is far superior to anything one can find, people keep talking about gnome, but, gnome has always had a philosophy of be like mac but better, and i dont like mac, so

lxde used to be popular, but xfce is more popular right now, there are so many desktop environments now, but some projects are long abandoned or too new, alot of them are based on gnome and gtk tools so it gnome is really important, but, it is not for me

the idea of put the iso in a usb flash drive and give it a go via live usb, is great, but i end up on kde always, fo my opinion is kde first, then cinnamon and lxde

i cant tell you that any of the popular desktops are perfect, but i am very happy in kde, you will feel growing pains on any desktop you choose, because all of them are always growing, it never stops(well the ones that are in active development and maintained)

knowing that the growing pains are always there, it is very important to choose a stable distro that does testing and doesnt push every update and hopes for the best, because some updates are problematic and sometimes skipped, other times are replaced quite fast, kde 6.7.4 for example didnt last here 3 weeks iirc, kde 6.8 is not far, perhaps a couple months away, it all keeps evolving and often big features are added

when talking about features, when i used cinnamon and xfce i felt like nothing had changed that much over the years, on kde, alot changes, often, last year i used a old version of kde on mint and i felt like i traveled back in time

you never stop the learning curve and that is a good thing, every day learn something is a good thing, in my opinion, at least

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Noname 19, thank you for encouraging me to keep learning! Unfortunately, it seems the more I learn, the less I know…Questions led to more questions. Your praise for KDE encourages me to give it a chance. I was initially turned off by the misspelling of “console”, which was very superficial of me. I would hate to miss a great desktop environment simply because I am not mature enough to handle alternate spellings. After all, language is both proscriptive and descriptive…

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the more I learn, the less I know

and add to that what one forgets in life, knowledge, learing process never stops

and it is konsole, names on linux are far from restrictive, that is the kind of things that bring us wonderful names like mesa, that means man eating seals(they will deny it now, but i am that old and still remember the backlash and the jokes) or wine, that means wine is not a emulator or apps like gcalctool, what a complicated name for a calculator or kcalc that is the kde counterpart to the gnome one

the k usage in kde is massive on names, so dont put that much attention at spelling, specially on a world where things are written focused on a desktop by people who do not speak english natively, like me and many others here

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Because it is part of the K Desktop Environment.

I like misspellings, goes back to my reading of Blake.

“The more we learn the less we know” is so true in Linux, that is why I suggest people go KDE on Fedora and start performing the actions they want rather than looking for a ‘perfect’ environment that does not exist.

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KDE was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, a student at the University of Tübingen.

Konsole is a German word:

console

Noun​

  • Konsole
  • Kontrollpult
  • Truhe
  • Schrank
  • Tafel

See dictionary

Lets name it CLI Command Line Interpreter/Interface = (Gnome=Console/Terminal) (KDE=Konsole/Terminal/Console/)

GNOME was started on 15 August 1997[9] by Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena [es] as a free software project to develop a desktop environment and applications.[38]

KDE is slightly older.

Please Folks lets give the users the chance to decide on their own what is good for them.
Everyone has a different standpoint and background.

KDE & Gnome have a nice websites and also a forum made with discourse.

@oliviajohanson You will feel home everywhere.

I think the questions of the limits from your comupter we allready answered. You could makr the best answer as a solution.

I personally would like to know what brought you to fedora and what you would like to achieve with it.

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Mat H, Thanks for reminding me that I eventually need to stop reading forums and actually get to exploring Linux myself! My situation is this: My Lenovo warranty ends November 30 of this year. I plan to keep using Windows until that time, because I will need Lenovo to help toubleshoot any hardware issues that may arise and I don’t want to reinstall Windows should I need to send my laptop to Lenovo for repair. (I’m scared they will refuse to even look my computer if I have anything but Windows installed…It happened to a friend of mine… So, I have plenty of time to decide what distro to install next. Thus far, my Linux experience is limited to Mint, which I abandoned because it only sporadically recognized my printer and it crashed my system. Because I am not in a hurry, I have time to consider everyone’s perspective. In fact, I posted to this forum to elicit exactly that kind of discussion! Thanks, everyone, who shared their opinions. I truly appreciate all the input.

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Thanks, ilikelinux, I feel so much better about the spelling, now that I know it was an accepted spelling where KDE was founded. In fact, learning that Linux is international in character makes me fall even more deeply in love. ilikelinux, you can read about how I came to Linux and what I hope to achieve in my post to the link you kindly gave me. Thanks, again!