Hardware for Linux desktop?

GPUs you can pretty much use anything you like nowadays (although I'm not sure how well supported the newer Intel dedicated GPUs are).

RAM is as much as you like. I run 32GB on my laptop, just because RAM is good for everybody

SSD I always go with 1tb just to have some room, but unless you're running some REALLY heavy apps/games/etc you don't need much.

You may want to consider System76; they do prebuilds that are pretty solid, and come with Linux pre-installed. https://system76.com/desktops

If you run an Intel Mac, you can just throw something on it (Mint; Ubuntu; Fedora; whatever) and it just generally works. You don't need much to have a productive system, my main non-work laptop is a Dell 1420n from 2007(!) with 4gb ram and a Centrino pre-iX series from intel, and it works just fine on EndeavourOS with KDE. Make of that what you will, but 16-32gb is plenty for most people.

My desktop is a Frankenstein mix of Ryzen 3600; Nvidia 1060GTX 6gb; 16gb; 2TB SSD; 1TB spinny disk; on an MSI Tomahawk B450 Max and have had zero issues. Everything worked 100% out of the box several years ago.

If you're looking for new hardware, laptop or desktop build?

AMD GPUs almost always work better on a fresh install, as their driver is built into the kernel, but despite what trolls on the internet say, Nvidia is just fine as well (just needs an extra step, but most distros have that built in when you first boot anyway). Plus, CUDA support works well if you use that sort of thing. Intel Arcs are... fine... but can create issues. Intel is working hard on cleaning things up all the time, so results may vary.

Otherwise, depending on how new your hardware is, most items just work. Laptops can cause a few random issues, due to some of the random chipsets they can have (I had a work HP x360... something... once that everything worked, except the mic, no matter the distro). Generally Lenovo supports 100% and Dell's XPS series has a linux version, so they should be supported as well.

Several vendors out there, System76 if you're in the US; Tuxedo or Slimbook if you're in the Eurozone. Mostly rebranded Cleos, but are built for linux.

You're running into probably the biggest fanboy arena of why people use & love Linux. There are millions of ways to do this, a certain amount of them more right than others. Determining which is which is left as an exercise for the hobbyist. It sounds like you're interested in 'SFF PCs', small form factor. If you're relatively new to Linux, my main concern would be getting hardware that really does work with the Linux distro you're using, if you do a custom build. I've built Linux systems for a long time, but never really been into the SFF scene, and I would look for a pre-made system from a vendor that supports Linux first for sure, trying to avoid future headaches.

Even with regular formfactor/hardware I feel like I see constant hardware problems with widely-used hardware. I'm thinking of common, and very poor, Intel wifi/bluetooth chips, with firmware updates and drivers pushed out that randomly break 2.4GHz or 5GHz wifi, or break bluetooth, or some combination of the above, for probably a decade now. Or the low power Intel chip in a Lenovo Yoga laptop I had for work that refused to leave power-saver mode. Did you want more than 4 browser tabs? I think not!

A NUC with appropriate intel graphics should be able to drive 1, probably 2, 4k displays.

iljitsch, I hate macs so can't speak to the comparision of desktop experiences, but I would offer the experience has been consistently improving year after year, using KDE on Fedora. I find it better & easier to use than Windows, since MS really started converting their OS into an ad platform. I have even gotten used to Gnome on my laptop, It has annoyances for being less customisable, but fewer problems since it's the flagship desktop for Fedora, and the simpler UI does seem to be more mac-like.

Containerised apps are all the rage now too, like flatpaks (and corporate-controlled/owned snaps), but I run into regular problems with them, like steam just not.. working, or slack randomly deciding copy/paste is a security issue.

Burn24 said:

Containerised apps are all the rage now too, like flatpaks (and corporate-controlled/owned snaps), but I run into regular problems with them, like steam just not.. working, or slack randomly deciding copy/paste is a security issue.

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Snaps drive me nuts; One of the more recent VSCode snaps just crashed on launch, so I finally said screw it and re-installed from the .deb package.

If they were well maintained I'd be somewhat OK with it, but if even one of the most popular code editors can't seem to get properly maintained it's going to be a pass for me.

iljitsch said:

I want to be able to switch between the two OSes/computers pretty much seamlessly. (Hello barrier!)

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I use Barrier on both Linux and my Windows work laptop. FYI, At this time, Barrier doesn't work with Wayland. Something to keep in mind, make sure you switch your desktop to X11 before you login (on the distros that default to Wayland at the moment).

iljitsch said:

@invertedpanda: those System76 PCs look very impressive, but I’m looking more towards a three digit price tag than a four digit price tag.​

So perhaps some type of NUC or similar would be more appropriate? Although the best of those seem too much for what I need and leaning to the expensive side.

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System76 also has a mini called Meerkat. Similar to a NUC or Mac Mini, specs look reasonable, and it starts at $549.

I've never used any System76 PC so I can't personally vouch for quality or anything, but it looks like a decent alternative based on the requirements.

Those N100 NUCs on AliExpress have mostly good reviews for this sort of toying about. 4 Gracemont cores is plenty powerful, and the cost is almost (almost) throwaway.

Eg: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005234874016.html

There's always the option of looking for second-hand business PCs with integrated graphics.

Wheels Of Confusion said:

There's always the option of looking for second-hand business PCs with integrated graphics.

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Yeah! That's a great idea. In the city I lived in that had a lot of tech, there was a discount electronics retailer that I assume bought up palettes of old PCs from large corps and resold them cheap. A friend got a perfectly servicable laptop for $100USD 10 years ago, and it would play music & netflix and do light browsing in windows no less, just fine.

Amazon, at least in my neck of the woods, does have a ton of those; if you check the top-selling computers, a good chunk of them are second hand "business PCs". There's a sharp price decline for devices that do not support Windows 11 too.

Previously, I would say desktop PCs should not be problematic. But a few weeks ago, due to $REASONS, I had to repurpose two gaming Windows desktops as Linux desktops, and one of them was a pain. (Luckily, $REASONS went away, and it's back at Windows).

So getting something from a Linux-friendly company might be a good idea.