Linux

Thank you.

I think I need to narrow some things down;

My current Windows PC isn’t what I’m looking for; it’s a big and powerful gaming laptop from a few years back. I’m looking for something light and portable, but with a full keyboard for coding.

Pricewise I’m looking for something around $350; if this is unreasonable let me know.

As I understand it, Steam Deck uses KDE, so I’d like to stick with that for now.

Hey for me it was the same. For Hardware you can use anything. The optimal is a full AMD build Or Intel AMD build but Nvidia could give you a headdic. For distros I recommend something Arch based like Manjaro or EndeavourOS. As DE I recommend Kde Plasma because out of the box it looks pretty much like Windows but is highly customizable.

Used dell workstation. If you need a GPU you can swap out the power supply with the help of an adapter.

Recommendations for hardware: A relatively normal computer. I would avoid exotic hardware. If you've got an old computer kicking around, give it a try on that. Or, eBay is full of used corporate Dells that will do the job for pocket change.

I'm a fan of Linux Mint; I've been daily driving it for a decade now, but really don't worry that much about distro or DE, if you're really looking to get into programming and such you'll probably spend a lot of time in the terminal anyway.

Oh I almost forgot: Welcome to the Linux community!

I'm adding to the pile of Linux Mint recommendations, though I recommend the XFCE version, as it's lightweight. For hardware, if you want a laptop, definitely go with a refurbished ThinkPad. If you're wanting a desktop, look for something cheap and used. If you aren't gaming, the specs aren't super important

Linux mint is a really easy and simple starting point. Fedora and openSUSE tumbleweed are a tad more advanced but allow more selection on your desktop environment (mint uses cinnamon, while Fedora and SUSE have both KDE and Gnome options) and thus can potentially support things like variable refresh rate and, when it gets support from KDE later this year, HDR.

For peripherals, if it's razor or Logitech, it'll just work and have community apps made to configure them. I personally like Keychron's stuff so that's what I use and that's fully Linux compatible, it does require some setup to work though. HDR is unsupported for the time being, but variable refresh (gsync/freesync) is in the KDE Plasma desktop environment under Wayland. On the topic of Wayland, if you want to make use of this new display protocol you'll need an AMD graphics card, as NVIDIA has been slacking with their Linux drivers. NVIDIA is getting better but it's not stable enough on Wayland for the laymen. In the case of only having an NVIDIA, X11 works fine, but it's just missing some features.

Also you won't need JavaScript, 90% of what you do will be through the GUI (depending on the distro), especially once you're set up. I know Fedora needs to enable rpmFusion, NVIDIA repos if on NVIDIA, and install codecs for hardware accelerated playback. Mint doesn't have these issues for the most part, though you'll want to enable flatpak's and consider disabling snaps. Mint already includes a graphical installer for NVIDIA and includes the codecs needed for hardware accelerated playback

Thread too long so I won't read but I always recommend ZorinOS. The sole distro I donated to so far.

Start anywhere, being interested in it is all you need (and a decent search engine, and learning how to describe the problems you have to the search engine). Whatever you do, I think it's a good idea to pick something that will be your project on Linux so that you have a concrete goal that makes Linux useful.

For hardware I'm a cheapskate so I recommend using whatever you already have, but I'm sure others here will point you in the right direction 😹

I recommend dual booting at first with grub, so it's more of a departure from windows. Using a VM like Virtualbox or Hyper-V is a bit safer and easier, but you're probably not interested in Linux for safety or ease of use.

We're lucky to live in a time where if all you have is a Linux tty (no gui, just a text mode shell) you still usually have a phone with Internet to look for help. It's a good exercise when you have the time to try and get the system back up in those situations without external help for at least a few minutes. Most distros still install manpages just for times like these (man and info commands view them)

Thinkpad T480 is the last of the good Thinkpads and should be more than your Budget

Edit. Corrected typo.

Linux mint, if there is any problem try popOS.

Also would recommend trying out the distros before you install them in a virtual machine since it's easier to try multiple distros without the hassle of setting them up. Since you are in windows at the moment, you probably should try virtualbox

Edit: ventoy is a pretty cool project for when you want to setup a pen with the installation isos to the baremetal.

Probably Linux Mint (https://linuxmint.com) will be the best experience for you. If you have newer hardware or you're not sure scroll down to the bottom on the download page and download the "EDGE" iso since it has newer software than the default versions and more hardware support. If you have older hardware, you can probably install the Cinnamon iso too but if that doesn't work install the XFCE iso. Finally flash it onto a USB drive with https://etcher.io/ and boot into it, testing if some things work like audio and video. Software like VSCode etc. are already on the software manager so you won't have much trouble with writing JS.

I'll add: Back up your data and have fun! :3

Your new best friend: https://linuxjourney.com

There will be lots that will make you feel lost, because of the design language differences and the widely different philosophy, but you got this. Just take it at your own pace, one web search at a time and you'll be grand!

I use the steam deck as my main computer running the stock steam os.

I'm currently using distro box to set up different programming environments. This is possible on steamos, which has the system directories as read only, by installing podman into the home directory. Distro box have a guide for steamos setup.

I run neovim but I would think you could run vs code if you use it. Haven't tried running a web server on it yet, but again, should be possible. Or, you can get yourself a cheap vps from digital ocean or linode if you really want to learn Linux the hard way!