Linux

In all honesty, you should decide between Debian and Fedora. If you're new to this, stay away from Arch Linux, Gentoo, or Manjaro. Simplicity is key. The two systems I mentioned are known for their reliability, so you should be fine with either one.

• Affinity Designer can be run under Linux with Bottles translation (forum post how to set it up)
• Canva does not support Linux
• GIMP is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
• Adobe is not supported on Linux at all
• Blender is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
• DaVinci Resolve is natively supported on Linux (offical website)
• VSCode is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
• almost every DE has a file explorer
• no ads included 😀 👍

Why is no-one recommending pop-os? Works fine for me in all aspects. They even provide hardware, but that's not needed, you can just use the OS.

I ran Linux on a Zenbook Pro Duo. Fedora's KDE distribution was the only release I ever found that worked out of the box with both touchscreens as I'd expect. You'd think a big release like Ubuntu would work, but whatever they have set up for touchscreens is slightly out of whack. For example, touch and drag would select text instead of scrolling the page.

By default, your laptop might try to stay awake all the time. The second screen is treated as an external monitor, and there's a setting you can find in the configuration menu that forces the laptop to stay awake when an external device is connected.

Some other things to note. If you've got an older model, you might be able to find a third-party software suite such as this one that will allow you to use your laptop almost normally.

However, if your laptop is new enough, you might be unable to find any software (third party or otherwise) that supports the built-in features such as quick screen swapping, numpad, or turning off the lower screen. The lower screen is LCD anyways, so you won't get burn in. If you're worried about power, I've found that despite the lower screen being on full-time, Linux still doubled or tripled my battery life compared to when I ran Windows. I think the biggest immediate drawback is that you may not have any on-board audio due to a lack of drivers, though that might have been fixed in Fedora 40. I know they were working on that in the newer version of upstream Linux (which may not have arrived yet), but I haven't been following it. And finally, you won't be able to adjust the brightness of the lower screen without some configuration. Again, some of that might be mitigated if you can find some compatible and reliable 3rd-party software for your laptop.

I will say that despite all the limitations mentioned above, I still vastly preferred Linux to Windows. The battery life alone was enough to warrant the switch.

Resolve works on on linix but make sure you check that your codecs are supported.

I Will spit out what i think cause this threads are full of words and empty of content... Almost any Linux distro is good for starting out ... Make sure it has a nice manual and community Ubuntu, mint debian or something similar... Vs code Is a Microsoft fork of vs codium an open source app, to avoid telemetry just use vs codium... Remove adds can be done in different ways in my opinion add bloock on Firefox is a good start... File explorer are good on any Linux distro just learn how to use one ... If u have a document u should probably save it in the document folder... in your user home ...

Using VS code is definitely bad. Round these here parts, you choose either the Church of Emacs or the Cult of vi… no exceptions.

Linux Mint although X may not work with touch screens.

The other option is Fedora Workstation but you will need to update to the latest release every 6 months as it ships brand new packages.

Linux is not a company! Its a community driven open source project made by people like you who don't want to be under a corporations thumb!

There are many such open source programs, and they should be your first choice when looking for alternatives.

I suggest trying the Fedora OS, and using the site alternativeto.net to find open source alternatives to any programs you need.

Don't forget to always use the packge manager to install sotfware!

I'm only a Linux command-line guy (Mac for GUI), but you're making the right decision. You can have a computer that doesn't suck and this is one of the ways. Good luck!

KDE Neon is a fantastic choice for those coming from Windows. https://neon.kde.org/

https://zorin.com/os/ its an out of the box distro that specifically tries to emulate the windows feel. In particular it has play on linux installed by default making running windows programs when needed as easy as it can be. the out of the box is office type stuff really though so you will have to install blender and such.