Linux

Debian with KDE desktop. I prefer lighter DEs or WMs, but Debian is soooo stable and KDE looks so professional and makes it extremely easy to download packages - much easier than, say, Debian with XFCE which is what I use. When I set up linux on 2 old unused PCs for 2 coworkers after their computers died, I installed Debian with KDE and boss and coworkers were happy. Debian is the base of most distros, so sticking with Debian means more packages available usually and better tutorials and more stability. Even some foreign governments now use Debian as a base for their custom distros - China, too. I never had trouble getting Debian installed or running.

I had to get away from Ubuntu because of the recent performance issues and the requirement to have an account to get updates faster. I have used CENTOS and more recently Rocky Linux on all my servers for over a decade, so Fedora was the obvious choice for me. I had problems with desktop applications being missing from rpm repos in the past, but that has greatly reduced improved and flatpack has helped with some stragglers. But I'm still not a fan of RedHat, but Fedora is a little more separate from them than Ubuntu is from Canonical.

I tried Debian, but it's not easy to get up and running on a more modern laptop or desktop without a lot of tweaking and kernel mods. It's a good base OS but not good out of the box desktop OS. Same issue with Arch based distros.

Whatever you choose you should enable zram! It's a Linux kernel module so available on all distros. It makes a compressed partition on the ram.

I've had a ThinkPad with 8 GB of ram and it was night and day with zram enabled. Just used the defaults, no more stutter or hanging for minutes. I used Tumbleweed.

Fedora Atomic, GNOME or KDE will give you a system where you set it up and forget it.

I still like Ubuntu, as long as everything works, I recommend getting the LTS release.

Fedora is a good bet, it's really up to date and should simultaneously be stable.

I use endeavouros (Arch) gnome variant because I need a working distribution in Mainland China with an additional emulated deepin application or two (I hate tinkering with wine or bottles). But otherwise I'd be using Fedora.

I like gnome. I'd say KDE second. Fedora workstation does gnome and there's the kde variant of course.

Recently install Fedora 42 KDE on one of those weird laptops with a pen - everything just works, no tinkering.
Looking at your specs - I have almost the same config, except in place of SATA SSD I installed a NVMe SSD, if course the laptop needs to support that. KDE Plasma is superior in the touch support, although the screen keyboard is a little buggy at times. But the situation in the GNOME ecosystem is a bit worse for touch/pen devices. Good luck

If you're seeking something simple to use where you may never need to open the terminal, I'd say ZorinOS(Lite).

You can also test out Debian if you don't mind a bit of tinkering on the terminal. You'll have to add yourself as a user to the sudoers list first thing but there are plenty of 2-second video tutorials on how.

For both distros, if you are searching for support, you'd search "on Ubuntu" and basically the same would apply.

Slackware!

I went from Ubuntu to MX Linux maybe 6 years ago, it is a fantastic distro, systemd optional, no flatpak/snap, xfce, simple, fast, always up to date for apps (.deb) and kernel.

Zorin maybe, idk

It sounds like anything with KDE Plasma will make you happy. If the underlying OS has been fine with you, then try Kubuntu. If you want a non-Ubuntu system, try openSuse or Fedora.

There's no big difference between ubuntu, mint or debian. I am not sure why people try to sell it to you.

Look up if fedora silverblue supports your stylus. Create a live image and test it. If it works, install it. If not fedora, then opensuse aeon.

I just went through this. LMDE: Linux Mint Debian Edition. It’s Mint without Ubuntu and it’s pretty great.

Fedora Workstation

Linux Mint?

gentoo?

Debian works fine. Post your model number.

I recently installed Fedora on my own 2-in-1 flippy laptop, and it works well. The screen rotates when I rotate the device, touchscreen works, and the stylus works as well.

Debian. You'll have the same (amazing) package manager without the extra ubuntu stuff. Find a desktop manager that supports the stylus (I assume Gnome and KDE Plasma both will support it).

Just make sure to enable non-free packages.

I was on Ubuntu for years but the Snaps annoyed me and I was looking for alternatives so I went to Fedora (Bazzite). Couldn't be happier. I installed Bluefin on my laptop (slightly different flavor) and that's been nice too, although some things don't work as seamlessly as I think it should.

I would suggest Arch with KDE plasma, I don't have a stylus so can't vouch for it personally but I've seen it mentioned in the update notes alot.

Arch Linux!

For that style of laptops give aurora a try, its basically fedora, but polished for ultralights. I have a surface pro from 2018, still works great, had a harder time with other distros. Good luck.

Mint.

Fedora Kinoite / Silverblue,Xubuntu / Linux Lite / Zorin OS Lite,KDE Neon / Kubuntu, Arch + KDE / Arch + Sway or Hyprland. Wacom / Synaptics / AES styluses - usually recognized by the Linux kernel. KDE - provides profiles for stylus, pressure, buttons, sensitivity. Gnome (on Wayland) - recognizes styluses, but with less customization.

I have a 2-in-1 laptop that folds with a touchscreen and Debian has been good for me. Sometimes I have to toggle the auto-rotate on the screen on and off to get it to work again but I doubt that issue is Debian specific. I don't know about a stylus but even if Debian doesn't include drivers for it, installing proprietary drivers manually isn't that bad.

My specs are worse than yours and it runs fine for productivity stuff. I use it for writing, spreadsheets, some web tools, and notes / references while running tabletop games.

I have a Lenovo Flex with Aurora, which is a version of Fedora Atomic with "batteries installed" (nonfree libraries included) and a KDE desktop.

If you prefer Gnome that version is Bluefin.

The advantage of an atomic/immutable distro is that it's effectively impossible to break, but you can't tinker with the internals like you would a regular distro. And that's still with fresh packages hot from the oven about once a week.

+1 for stability in Debian. My main driver is usually LMDE.

I've had a good experience using PopOS on a folding stylus-having laptop

I would go Debian for stability.

I like fedora since it updates a little more frequently than Debian, but it isn’t a full on rolling release. I used opensuse tumbleweed for a while and it broke on me several times.

I also used arch for a while, but I’m a dad to young children and I just don’t have the time to fuck around with my OS anymore. When I have time to work on my personal dev projects, I just want to drop into tmux, launch neovim and go. After some distro hopping I landed on Fedora with KDE for my desktop and gnome on my laptop. I also have an old netbook running antix with iceWM and an old thinkpad running fedora i3. The latter 2 machines are my hard focus machines.

If you want stability, you probably can't beat Debian, and you should be fairly used to the backend by now. I suspect the stylus use is just going to be figuring out what package provided your current access to it.

Before you wipe the laptop, I would recommend finding a command to list all the installed packages, then at least you'll have a reference to what was in place before. And if possible, maybe grab a backup of the /etc folder (or whatever might still be accessible) so you can reference the current configs on various packages to recreate whatever doesn't work by default.

There are a number of lightweight desktops you can choose from. I personally like Mate, but maybe you can play around with others on the new system and purge the ones you don't like. And while you're swapping drives, check the memory slots, maybe you can drop another 8GB stick in there to give the whole system a boost.

Debian proper. You'll have issues with any stylus on Linux. Not to say it won't work but may need more effort to get working.