I’m a long-time Linux user but for the past few years my main laptop - a Lenovo Legion 5 with both AMD iGPU and Nvidia dGPU - has been on Win10. I’d like to upgrade and am looking for suggestions for distros and configurations. I’ve mainly used Debian-based distros in the past but am not particular. Here are my main concerns:

  • I will likely still need to run Windows in a VM for a few corporate applications that won’t run in Linux (according to some teammates who have tried).
  • I do a lot of work in Figma and haven’t tried it at all in Linux, but I know for sure it needs GPU acceleration. It seems like I’d have to choose between the following:
    • just running in a browser window and (somehow) assigning the dGPU to that browser
    • the above, but using the unofficial Linux electron-based figma app
    • try running the Windows app in Linux
    • putting Linux on the iGPU and passing the dGPU through to a Windows VM for this
  • I also do a fair amount of local LLM work. I would prefer to do this in Linux with the dGPU, but again I could pass the dGPU through to a Windows VPN and then do it in WSL2 in Windows (which seems a little janky)
  • I don’t want to dual-boot

Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions on this? I haven’t tried GPU-switching in Linux for a long time and had poor success in the past. Am I better off leaving both GPUs accessible in Linux, or passing one through for the Windows VM?

  • will_a113@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
    2·
    8 hours ago

    Great info, thanks! That makes two mentions of Pop_OS so I guess I’ll give that a try first.

    • minimalfootprint@discuss.tchncs.de
      2·
      1 hour ago

      I can add an aspect when it comes to Lenovo laptops. PopOS automatically searches and offers updates for different firmware for my Thinkpad. Really neat feature I haven’t seen in other distros to keep your device up to date.