EponymousBosh

My current and previous laptops were/are Dell and I can count on one hand the number of hardware issues I’ve had with Linux (minus the Nvidia GPU but yknow. Nvidia.)

I have anxiety and I’m also into horror. I dunno if it’s helped, but I don’t think it’s made anything worse at least.

Same

NVIDIA

Welp, there’s your problem. I have an NVIDIA card as well and it’s been the source of at least 95% of my Linux headaches.

I’ve tried a few distros and Linux Mint was definitely the most “just works” for me. Make sure you’re using the proprietary NVIDIA drivers, regardless of what option you choose. Currently I use SpiralLinux (Debian with a few tweaks) because I really like the BTRFS snapshots and fell in love with KDE during my distro-hopping, but Mint is what I would recommend to the vast majority of people.

I’ve used EyeBuyDirect before and they were alright. It’s been a couple years tho.

Seconding (or third-ing, or twelfth-ing) the recommendation for Linux Mint, but also gonna throw one in for MX Linux if the hardware is older.

I’ve been to at least one distillery and a hydroelectric dam. These days, your best bet is probably to just check the website of wherever it is you wanna go to.

Mint is a pretty solid choice for like 95% of people. If you’re already using LibreOffice then you’re halfway there, and I’ve been able to run all the games I want through Steam or Lutris (the Flatpak versions are better for compatibility IME). A lot of people use Bottles for games as well, but I’ve never been able to get it to work properly. I think I started using Linux full-time at about the level you seem to be at, and I didn’t run into any major issues.