Hey everyone! I recently tested Linux on my old laptop and am now ready to dual boot on my primary machine, a Lenovo Legion 5 from 2021 with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H and NVIDIA 3050 Ti. I'm planning to use a second NVMe drive for Linux, so I'm curious if anyone has experience dual booting with Windows 11 on this model.
I'm considering either Debian 13 or Kubuntu 24.04 LTS for stability, and I'm fine with the terminal for any technical tweaks. My main use cases will be illustration, writing, and other art projects. I currently use Linux art software on Windows and would like to know what hardware and driver issues I should be aware of.
Also, I use an XP Pen Innovator 16 drawing tablet and I'm torn between X11 or Wayland. My laptop has a higher refresh rate than my tablet, and I saw some issues with X11, but Wayland lacks support for many art tools. Any advice on that?
Lastly, I'd love some tips on extending battery life. I know a gaming laptop plus Linux can be a tricky combo, but I'd like to use my laptop for lighter tasks without needing to lug around a massive charging brick.
4 Answers
1) Between the two, Debian 13 is solid, but Kubuntu might be a better fit for you since it has built-in tools that work great with tablets.
2) For your XP Pen Innovator 16, I can't speak for it directly, but my Wacom One works fine on Wayland. If you're up for it, try connecting your tablet to your old laptop running KDE and see how it performs.
3) For battery savings, consider installing 'tlp'. Once you set up your Linux system, run this command: `sudo apt update && sudo apt install tlp && sudo systemctl enable --now tlp.service` to help manage power efficiently.
For more insights on migrating to Linux, check out the migration page in our wiki! There are also some useful migration tips in our sticky post. Just remember to avoid unnecessary root access, steer clear of installing from third-party repos, and always verify checksums of your ISO files after downloading!
You should be good to go, but watch out for potential NVIDIA driver issues. For creative work and better driver optimizations, you might want to check out Pop OS or Nobara as alternatives. They are known to handle graphics cards better.
If you're doing art at any sort of professional level, I’d advise against using Wayland for now. Krita and Inkscape developers are still working on getting them perfect under Wayland. A lot of the graphic programs will run through XWayland, but colors can be off, which is definitely something to keep in mind.
Thanks for the heads-up on the NVIDIA drivers! I'll definitely keep those distros in mind.