Which Linux distribution to choose for a laptop?

Question

linux

Here it is in the yard of 2017. Quite a lot of time has passed since the release of the first versions of Windows and Linux. And now the moment has come when it is time to choose a good Linux distribution (otherwise Gates has already gone berserk with his surveillance).
Briefly about the characteristics of my laptop:
Processor: i5-4210u
Video card: Nvidia GeForce 840m
RAM: 8 GB DDR3L
I like the Ubuntu distro the most, but I feel that unity eats a lot of battery power. And so, dear inhabitants of this wonderful resource, I would like to ask you for advice: what distribution kit to choose? Or I ask you to advise effective ways to extend the battery charge. According to the specifications, my laptop should hold a charge for about 7 hours.
Thanks in advance for your replies and helpful help.

Answer 1

A simple version
of Debian + xfce = easy as ubuntu + eats little ram
after that we put kvm + virt-manager there we push Windows 10 enterprise LTSB (it's easier to disable surveillance there) into the virtual machine, google all the guides to disable surveillance, chop off everything that can be reached , we forward the nvidia video card inside, for toys, the performance loss will be minimal. If bill gates is still scary, you can go further in the second virtual machine, we raise a simple pfsense-type gateway, let all the traffic of the virtual machine with ten through it, and in the rules we cut all traffic from microsoft surveillance servers with a mask / 24: D
Total, if you don’t mind 500 -1000 megabytes of RAM, then you can be minimally secure.
If you want to "go deeper" then google qubes+whonix, but for the average user this is still redundant. Though times are changing...

Answer 2

The answer is in the question and it makes no sense to fence the garden

Answer 3

https://elementary.io/

Answer 4

Mint of course. With XFCE as a window manager. Fork Ubuntu, all Ubuntu applications that I ran on it run without problems. His work with laptops is the best of all that I have tried. Works with Fn buttons in most cases without any dancing with tambourines.
But it doesn’t matter anyway, because it’s better to install Win 10 on such a configuration and not show off. All the same, the day will come when you can’t do without Windows applications, and under Vine they either won’t start at all, or they start with a bunch of bugs and every minute falls.
Trust me, this is a milestone.

Answer 5

of ubuntu followers closest to windows mint.
I tested it on the chief engineer, a man over 50 at one time still developed lamp technology - norms, used it without any extra problems.

Answer 6

Definitely Debian 8 Jessie

Answer 7

During 2016, I slowly tried everything: I put a flash drive on a 64GB usb3 and sat for a week or two, simultaneously checking the download and work wherever I could. Main goals: convenient and inconspicuous distro for yourself and clients. Tried ubuntu, mint, debian, manjara, elementary, suse, arch, alt, fedora, gent, zorin, and some other smut. From DE I tried gnome, kde, xfce, lxde, cinnamon, unity, mate. In case of problems, I simply downloaded Windows, and later I figured it out. On December 16, I backed up Windows and installed mint with cinnamon as the only system. I am a little less than completely satisfied, although I plan to sit under elementary and fedora again later. Now I am slowly piloting it with clients.

Answer 8

Are you a weakling?
Arch of course

Answer 9

If you need minimalism and speed - then Puppy
If you are used to Ubuntu - then Hubunta or Lubunta
Or Mint.
If you are not afraid of experiments - take native Debian (on the basis of which Ubuntu is made), put a rat (Xfce) or, if necessary, prettier - lxde. Here is the whole answer to your question.
Well, of course Arch and Slack - if you're a pervert with straight arms. Well, or LFS if there is time and reasonable enough.

Answer 10

I like the Ubuntu distribution the best, but it seems to me that unity eats a lot of battery power.

https://geektimes.ru/post/287752/
Are you sure that someone needs you? And, for example, Google and Yandex, who know everything about you, do not bother you?

Answer 11

The most lightweight, economical and, at the same time, quite complete, not like SliTaz, is Lubuntu. Looks like something on Windows XP, tons of minimalism. I have an Intel Atom netbook from 2008, so I know what I'm talking about, it usually slows down almost everything, and if you install an antivirus, you can hang yourself. The most convenient Mint, looks like Windows 7, looks familiar, not like Ubuntu, strange as Windows 8, plus it has the most complete Russian translation. One could mention OpenSUSE with a KDE shell as being close in design to Windows 10, but I doubt that this miracle will be eaten little. Actually there are not so many distributions and most of them are based on Debian, so I would start with it first, and then according to my mood.

Answer 12

+1 mint