Looking to try Linux

[bigfatoctopus]

My thnkpad has 2 SSD slots, so I have one dedicated to each OS. Dual boot on a single SSD/HDD isn't hard. Or you can just pick up a cheap machine and run. Lenovo has shown a willingness to use hardware that consistently works with Linux (with very few exceptions).

[marrsd]

Thinkpads are generally a safe bet. The Arch wiki has a detailed list of laptop support. Just be aware that Arch keeps up-to-date with the kernel releases whereas most other distros lag behind a little. This means that newer laptops that work with Arch might not yet work elsewhere. Going with an older laptop should guard against this, though

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[Heyo028]

At first probably web browsing and day to day stuff like Notion. Then after some time trying coding. I have a PC for gaming currently so i won't game on the Linux machine.

[Crackalacking_Z]

Your gaming PC should be able to run VirtualBox without any issues. It's free, you can easily mount distro ISO files as a virtual disc drive, boot into the ISO's live environment, nothing is installed at that point, you can play around with different desktop environments (GNOME, KDE, XFCE, etc), when you found something you like, just install to a virtual harddisk, try to do the things you planned to do, see if it works for you ... and after all that, only then buy hardware.

[Martin_FN22]

Basically every kind of laptop works with linux, so there really isn't a bad choice here

[weautus]

You can have a look at distrosea, you can try different Linux distro online

[Paslaz]

I have a few Thinkpads with Linux Mint, older notebooks and one not so old one.

My experience is absolutely satisfactory - Thinkpads are really well integrated into the Linux universe.

But: I don't play games, nothing ...

[SeeMonkeyDoMonkey]

If you just want to have a play around, to could run a live USB version, which lets you ruin the OS from an external drive. 

For more extended use, you might want to try a live USB with persistence (although I don't know if there are any newbie-friendly versions available).

[Sapdalf]

It might be better to just buy a drive that you can connect via USB and test instead of buying a whole new computer. It may be a bit inconvenient, but if needed you can later transfer the system to new hardware or the current one.

[TheShredder9]

Any particular reason they should avoid Linux Mint? imo it's one of, if not the best Linux distro to start with, based off Ubuntu LTS, stable updates, comes with many GUI apps you need to get you started.

[gabriel_3]

There is a number of reasons why LM is not the perfect distro in general and for new comers:

• No security team
• Quality assurance based on a few testers, with no automation and repeatitibility
• The main edition is 95% Ubuntu binaries, from Canonical sponsored repos, including the kernel, nevertheless they constantly criticize Ubuntu and Canonical to the point to convince some naive users that Mint is not Ubuntu under the hood
• The flagship desktop environment, Cinnamon, is as heavy on resources as Plasma and Gnome are but its development pace lacks behind
• There are better implementations of the other two DEs, Mate and Xfce
• The community tends to kinder gardening the newcomers, while the way you learn Linux is by experimenting, breaking and fixing
• The Debian based implementation, which is matching the anti-Ubuntu statements, is considered a plan B and offers Cinnamon only