a distribution is just an assortment of packages, it’s the same linux + driver underneath. nvidia on linux is a headache. are there people who made it work? sure. is that a worthwhile waste of your time? it is not.

get hardware that’s linux supported and you’ll have plenty of challenges during the transition, you don’t need the additional “self destruction in…” countdown timer booming from the speakers.

if you still wanna have at it, pop_os (however it’s spelt), bazzite and nobara are some od the distros that have dedicated nvidia install images and are thusly more likely to work OOB and work better afterwards.

I have a desktop which has / had a similar problem.

Originally I built it with a g-series Ryzen which has integrated Radeon Vega graphics. Upgraded to a 3060 and wanted to run Linux for gaming instead of windows.

I couldn’t get a distro to reliably use my graphics card without the issues you describe. Stuttering, crashing, generally unusable.

Garuda was the answer (to be fair I’d try Bazzite too but I just didn’t get there as Garuda worked). In fact, it worked out of the box for me and I enjoyed it so much I made it my work OS.

I like the GUI utilities they’ve made for front-ending a bunch of Arch CLI utilities and I’ve been saved by BTRFS snapshots more than once.

My choice is Arch Linux purely because it’s bleeding edge

I’ve no idea if Arch actually has newer drivers than Debian / Fedora, but if they are you’ll (usually) get better support from the developers of whatever application / package - or in your case - drivers that you’re facing.

It’s more involved than “just” installing Debian, etc… but reading through the Arch Linux wiki as you install will (should) ensure you’ve got the correct drivers setup and you’ll know why they’re working.

So… it’ll be more effort, but you might get “better” results.

It’s not your fault because with nvidia gpu you have to add env variables to tell your pc that use nvidia prime, no matter what distro you use you have to configure env varibales, although I’ll suggest you openSUSE-Tumbleweed and I was going to suggest you Fedora but you had problems so it’s ok.

That’s odd, I remember using Debian 12 without this issue when it was released, I later switched to an Arch based distro (Endeavour OS) to experiment with how it would run games (they ran better, I think some games were freezing on Debian 12 stable).

I can’t say anything about Fedora, never used it.

Do you have more information about the specific driver you installed on Debian 12 and Fedora 42? Like the version number? Maybe the neofetch result of your computer specs too.

Sorry for not being able to give more details.

I have non pro version and I disabled the iGPU in BIOS it worked on ubuntu but battery was nonexistent.

Recently I switched on the iGPU. Now I tried various distros and Arch and Bazzite worked out of the box.

Bazzite

This could be an issue where the AMD GPU is only being used. I, like some of the others would suggest Linux Mint.

Did you make sure that Nouveau was not loading? If both drivers are on the system, Nouveau usually ends up taking precedence unless it’s been blacklisted. Also, if this is a laptop type with a hybrid graphics setup, you may need additional software to manage the handoff between GPUs (optimus, bumblebee, etc.)

Okay, I had the same problem with a 3060 laptop. The easy answer is : your next distro should be Nobara.

These errors happen because your computer does not use your Nvidia GPU but the AMD one. There is no hardware acceleration.

In Nobara, everything comes preinstalled and preconfigured. I didn’t have those problems anymore.

(If you fancy masochism, you can also go the Arch or NixOS way)

Give Linux Mint a spin, I seriously doubt there’s a friendlier distribution for newcomers from Windows.

Check the lenovo legión discord server, there is a linux channel and they can help you better than here probably

Try Ubuntu, it has a user friendly GUI for installing Nvidia and other 3 parts drivers.

My spouse has a laptop from Asus with VERY similar Specs (but an RTX 3050ti instead of a 3060) and so far Linux Mint has been a pretty trouble -free experience with ONE condition:

I set it to use the dedicated nvidia gpu 24/7 as opposed to the integrated AMD gpu. I forgot what exactly was happening but if memory serves it was disrupting something, I think recovering from closing the lid?

After doing that we’ve never had an issue again. They mostly use at their desk plugged in, sp the power usage isn’t much a concern.

Hope this helps!

It’s still Fedora under the hood, but Nobara has a pile of graphics tweaks to enable video editing and gaming, by the developer of the Proton layer that Valve uses for Steam. It’s optimized for high end graphics and nVidia cards.