I have no experience with Linux, but I’d like to give it a try. I’m looking at the System76 Meerkat and Thelio with the Pop!_OS option.
I don’t see myself gaming on it because I have a Windows machine for just that. I’d mostly be using it for learning Linux and doing basic things like web surfing and word processing (Libreoffice perhaps).
Any recommendations or advice? Thanks!
Thank you everyone for their input! I’m impressed by how thoughtful you all are here on Lemmy. I will read up on the links some of you provided and I’ll give a shot at trying Pop!_OS on a VM on my windows machine. If all goes well, I’m still leaning on either a Meerkat or Thelio since I know they will work out of the box. Again, thanks everyone!
If you want a cheap option, I just installed pop os on one of lenovo’s education edition thinkpads with zero issues. Everything just worked. They’re usually on sale, with the highest spec ones going for about $250. Even has a touchscreen with built in pen. It’s not blazingly fast, and is missing some bells and whistles (backlight keyboard, high res display, USB c charge port) but it has a rather good keyboard, it’s durable and cheap, and it will even boot off a micro SD, so you can try booting different linuxes without even touching your local install. And with linux, it’s fast enough you won’t know it wasn’t a fast machine unless you’re deliberately doing something you need speed for, like transcoding video or something. Oh, it also has an Ethernet port.
Anyway, I highly recommend them for learning linux on.