No surprise there!

Then they sell useless OOTB laptops. Those laptops desperately need Linux (or BSD).

And they sell laptops with 4 GB RAM and pre-installed Windows 11 here. No idea how they work. :)

I have a similar machine from 2011, though it’s x64 >> Samsung N150P. I used it as a typewriter for a couple years and I can suggest the same for you if you have such interests. However later I turned it into a homeserver and currently it serves as Pi-hole, Jellyfin, syncthing etc. Without x64, server might be tough but typewriter wouldn’t mind. For general daily stuff, it’s not really useful.

No problem!

Yeah, it took me kinda long to find about it as well. By the way, if you decide to install it, don’t forget to also install a GUI for it, something like iwgtk for example. Good luck!

It is indeed a pain to use on Linux. We have a similar (maybe the same) Macbook Air and recently I had to deal with the same thing to make it usable. I have tried many different distros, and most of the time I had to install the broadcom-wl driver via phone-tethering. Installing or even using dkms version is not the only problem too, the driver is also awful. The distro I settled was LMDE, surprisingly it was the only distro that came with Broadcom drivers, which was a plus at first. However it deteriorated so fast as you described, I had to find a permanent solution. My solution was completely ditching broadcom-wl drivers in favour of Intel’s iwd driver.

iwd also has performance issues time to time, but at least disabling/re-enabling it solves the issue, unlike had to restart the Macbook with broadcom-wl.

I also tried to replace the Broadcom Wi-Fi module by opening the back cover of Macbook since I had a Wi-Fi card laying around, but sadly the one on Macbook was not a nowadays’ standard M2 unit, so couldn’t done it.

Technically all distros support Nvidia since it’s a kernel thing, however some of them have better out of the box experience, so it would be wiser to go with one of those distros. For gaming, it’s usually better to have more recent drivers, if you play different varieties of games and some of them are newer titles. Though depending on the games, even Debian could be a suitable option.

If you don’t want to learn under-the-hood features, Bazzite could be a nice option for you. If you want familiarity with Windows, you might want to go with KDE as your desktop environment. However don’t be afraid of trying new angles if you like the general idea of a distro. So Pop!_OS might look different than Windows, it’s also a solid distro.

If you’ll need Microsoft programs or some Windows-only programs, choose something you can install Winboat on it, which isn’t currently usable for Bazzite, until the devs bring Podman support for it. Know that, Winboat is not the only interface you can install Windows programs, it just makes things much easier. So depending on the programs, Bazzite still could be a good option for you.

People here seem to recommend Arch-based distros but I wouldn’t start with them, at least until you get some familiarity with Linux in general. There is no problem using them, but a beginner couldn’t handle if something goes wrong after an update (usually happens with Nvidia). It does not happen a lot, but even once is enough for people who can’t handle it.

There is nothing wrong with Linux Mint. You might find it quite straightforward. It does not have the latest Nvidia drivers most of the time but this might not be a problem for you. If you play newer titles though, then it’s probably not the distro you would want.

I wouldn’t say never against a FOSS project. Some people do like GNOME. It’s the best to see for OP’s own eyes. They might like it or hate it. However one shouldn’t be prejudiced. Hate all you want after you tried and found weak points for your usage cases. Some popular distros use GNOME for a reason. Personally I find it too restrictive, but I don’t hate it. You would have rights to hate if it was the only DE around but you have tons of alternative options out there.

If you knew/remember the first days of KDE 5, it was the buggiest DE ever invented at that time. However nowadays I barely even see any bug in KDE, at least for my use cases. And I’m a WM guy who use KDE out of laziness.

Yup. Couldn’t find any FOSS launcher to replace it. However I have an apk from before the times they got bought, though I also blocked it on the firewall and always used like that anyway. It doesn’t get update from Aurora Store too because it’s in the blacklist.

— Yo, comrade, which launcher are you using?

— Eblan.

— ???, I just asked a question.

— The launcher is Eblan.

— Ohh!

Currently it’s quite buggy but I can see this replacing Nova Launcher for me in the future.

Assuming 1:1 aspect ratio is for the physical screen, the resolution most likely won’t be a square because of the rectangular shape of pixels. So you’ll need to calculate the resolution of visible part of the screen first. After you have found your resolution, you’ll probably need to add that resolution config under /etc/x11/xorg.conf.d/.

For distros, not desktop environments. You can choose DEs for distros though. But there it is: https://distrosea.com/

I hope they can pull this off because we really need this.

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, I saw some people recommended USB adapters. Luckily I got it working with blacklisting (still testing for possible issues though), without that it indeed had ridiculous speeds.

Thanks, that’s good to know. Even though I currently fixed the problem, I’ll keep this in mind.

Thanks!

Well, the problem is no distro ever came with this driver pre-installed, at least the ones I have tried, including Ubuntu. I’m used to trade-offs too but this machine will be for someone else so it should work without problems. Later I have found about blacklisting and luckily that worked, and seems to be working fine so far. Since it’s driver related, distro choice won’t matter here. Unless I could have found a one that comes with that driver.

I wanted PinePhone to work decently so I could daily drive it but when I got it it was already far behind from my old phone hardware-wise. PostmarketOS had run roughly. It was kinda usable but I couldn’t manage to use Signal on it (it was a desktop app that time). GPS wasn’t working either. 2 most important things for me. Battery life was also abysmal.

This was years ago though, PostmarketOS is probably much much better now. I sold that PinePhone so I don’t know its current state. I wouldn’t expect more from what I tried.

If I’m gonna get a Linux phone now, I want to see a good Android app emulation. At least until we get real alternatives. I still need a couple apps from Aurora Store. F-Droid apps have a better chance to be ported to Linux from Google Play ones anyway.

Just so let you know, if someone operates an ISP their staff is tech-savvy. Even if they are not, they still know what you download. They have logs and they are bound by law if some government agency wants your data. They will provide it.

That’s okay though. Sometimes I do the same and don’t even notice it already exists.