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BobbyShmurda @lemmy.world

Stable, consistent workstation recommendations?

First, thanks for reading and commenting.

I would appreciate any\all feedback from all of you, if there are recommendations for a stable, consistent setup - both hardware and OS. Or comments that I am asking for something unrealistic. Either a desktop or a laptop connected to a docking station.

a. I would like to suspend the machine at night and continue working in the morning.
b. To be able to support three monitors. c. VM app to test stuff - virt network to test varied apps\code on different clients and servers. d. Libre Office to create docs and presentations. e. LTS.

Currently using a System 76 laptop w\ Pop OS and a docking station. The first laptop was warrantied to poor construction (keyboard and bezel weren't flush, they separated and you could see the motherboard...) and now the second one is having the same issue - let alone sporadically working with suspend or the docking station (will have to reconnect the docking station, most times rebooting).

I've distro hopped for years, so I would consider myself a beginner\intermediate user. I am more than willing to pay\donate for consistency, and right now that leans towards MS and Windows (sigh).

What are corporate users using? I think that is my standard, as I've worked at places that were primarily windows shops, And it is pretty easy to come in in the morning and resume from yesterday. "RH for workstations" ?

Thank you!!

38 comments

  • What are corporate users using?

    Corporates are using ThinkPads, HP EliteBooks and MacBooks. OS being Windows, macOS mainly. Linux on workstations is pretty rare - mainly used by developers - and the distro being Ububtu LTS (which I do not recommend).

    Since you want to use Linux, go for a ThinkPad. There are more Linux-friendly laptops of course (like Framework and System76) but I believe none of them offer corporate-levels of stability and build-quality like ThinkPads yet - as you have experienced yourself with System76.

    Main pro-tip is to avoid systems that use nVidia cards - they're often responsible for buggy suspend/resume in Linux, and can break your OS sometimes when you do an OS/kernel upgrade. So if you're after stability, avoid nVidia like the plague.

    For the docking station, I've had good experiences with the HP Thunderbolt Dock G4. The initial releases were in fact a bit buggy with suspend/resume, but HP have released subsequent firmware updates to fix those issues. In fact, HP have been really good at providing regular firmware updates for those docks, and the best part is that it's on the LVFS too - which means the firmware can be updated directly in Linux using fwupd. A lot of vendors don't bother updating docking stations - and even fewer update them via LVFS, so this is something you might definitely want to look into.

    Finally, for distro recommendations, I would recommend a Fedora Atomic distro since they're immutable, and rollbacks are as easy as just selecting the previous image in the boot menu. Given your requirements, I'd recommed Bluefin - specifically the Developer Experience version, since it comes with virtualisation tools OOTB.

    For reference, I mainly use Bazzite (another variant of Fedora Atomic) on my pure-AMD ThinkPad Z13, and haven't had any issues with suspend/resume, external monitors, or virtualisation dev/test workflows. There's virtually no overnight battery drain either when suspending. My system also supports Opal2, so my drive is encrypted transparently to the OS, with virtually no performance overhead. It's also nice not having to muck around with LUKS and the complexities around it. I use this system for both work and personal use (gaming), and it's been a great experience so far - both software and hardware. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

  • For the OS: Debian

    Hardware: a modern thinkpad

    • I'd recommend a framework laptop over a modern thinkpad

      • Having had both, I can say that with the framework you get a much better display, but you lose the trackpoint. The framework has better repairability, but has less IO. The hardware on the framework is well supported on Linux, but can be hit or miss on thinkpads, especially newer ones.

        The only thing I'm really missing on the framework is the black thinkpad chassis - can't really get used to the aluminum.

  • I think CentOS Stream, Debian or a tweaked Ubuntu LTS are good for stability and all free also as in freedom (after replacing snap with flatpak on Ubuntu).

    OpenSUSE slowroll is a good model for better tested but not randomly held back packages.

    Fedora has the older stable release, currently 39. It is more stable than the current 40.

    As a workstation Desktop I can recommend KDE Plasma, but it is not bugfree. Plasma 5 has bugs that will not be fixed, Plasma 6 has those fixed but random other bugs and random missing features.

    GNOME is unusable in many parts for me personally, but very very likely the most stable but also modern Desktop.

    COSMIC will be pretty awesome. It doesnt really have bugs for me, but simply a ton of missing things. But the way they build the project, how well everything works and implements all sorts of "we have this new shiny thing" from various DEs like KDE Plasma, is really nice.

    But that will take at least a year to be really finished.

38 comments