Monday, January 20, 2020

Linux Distro Bleg

The new computer is on the way.

I may keep Windoze 10 on it just so I can play some old games (I miss Starcraft now and again), but I'll certainly want to turn it into a dual-boot box and do most things in Linux.

But it's been ages since I've had to choose a Linux distribution, and never for a PC this loaded. So I'm looking for recommendations.

The CPU is a quad-core AMD 5500B, operating at up to 3.7GHz. It's got 16Gb of RAM, and I'm pretty sure it can support up to 32Gb if I ever want to buy more.

One possible fly in the ointment: I'm pretty sure this machine comes with something called the "Trusted Platform Module (TPM 1.2) Security Chip." I recall hearing complaints -- or at least fears -- in the past that this and other "secure boot" schemes might not work and play well with some Linux distributions.

I've always preferred the KDE desktop to Gnome and other GUIs, but I'm not unwilling to abandon KDE if necessary to get a Linux installation that meets my needs in other respects. Which are, pretty much, browsing the web and editing text and support for at least two monitors (my current configuration is HDMI direct to one monitor, USB adapted to DVI on the other; I'll be trying to get the new one to work that way but with the HDMI adapted from DisplayPort); everything else optional.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

No comments: