Lightweight distro for IT student: coding, light gaming, design tools (Figma/Canva), office, and editing - PopOS vs PikaOS vs CachyOS?

[Athx.]

Hey everyone, I'm a IT student switching to Linux for my coursework and personal projects. I need a distro that's lightweight but powerful enough for my workflow.
My specs:

• CPU: AMD Athlon Gold 3150G
• iGPU: Vega 3
• dGPU: Radeon 530
• RAM: 8GB (4GB 2400MHz + 4GB 3200MHz)
• Storage: SSD (OS) + HDD (data)

My use cases:

• Programming/coding (coursework & personal projects)
• Office work (writing, presentations, spreadsheets)
• Design tools (Figma, Canva for UI/UX and graphics)
• Light gaming
• Daily browsing/productivity
• Video/graphic editing

My current options:
I've been looking at PopOS, PikaOS, and CachyOS. They seem like good middle grounds—lightweight enough for my laptop but still feature-rich. However, I'm not sure which handles my specific workload best.
Questions:

1. Which of these three would you recommend for my use case?
2. Any known issues with Radeon 530 drivers on these distros?
3. Would 8GB RAM be sufficient for coding + design tools + light gaming simultaneously?
4. Are there any other distros you'd suggest that might be better suited?

I appreciate any guidance! Thanks in advance.

 

[Brickwizard]

lightweight but powerful

Pop is not lightweight and can be a pig to install on some kit due to lack of drivers, Medium/lightweight builds include Mint-LMDE [popular with Windows refugees] Parrot [home edition for general use or Security build for pen-testers] MX-Linux, Linux Lite, Debian stable [one of the oldest distribution and base for most other desktop builds]

 

[Athx.]

Pop is not lightweight and can be a pig to install on some kit due to lack of drivers, Medium/lightweight builds include Mint-LMDE [popular with Windows refugees] Parrot [home edition for general use or Security build for pen-testers] MX-Linux, Linux Lite, Debian stable [one of the oldest distribution and base for most other desktop builds]

Thanks for the detailed answer! Quick follow-up: You mentioned Mint-LMDE, MX-Linux, and others, but I also shortlisted PikaOS and CachyOS. Have you tried either of these? How do they compare to your recommendations for my use case (coding + design tools + light gaming)? Or should I just test-drive them myself?

 

[f33dm3bits]

How do they compare to your recommendations for my use case (coding + design tools + light gaming)? Or should I just test-drive them myself?

You can code and game on any Linux distribution, as coding tools and languages can be installed if needed on any of them. Gaming distributions are mostly just distributions that have a good out of the box setup for gaming, you can even game on distributions that don't have the label "Gaming distribution.

 

[Brickwizard]

OK so POP is designed and built by system 76 for their own kit, it is based on a cut down Ubuntu package [it doesn't carry a full set of possible drivers] if it works OTB great if not it can be pigs rear end to get working
Pitka I have never tried, it is optimised for gaming on latest kit with heavy resources [large ram latest graphics etc]
I haven't tried Catchy for a while, it would not run properly on my older HP or Dell Inspiron so cannot comment on current release,
with only 8gb of ram video editing may be slow, but the max your machine will take is 16gb this will improve your light gaming and video editing but still not brilliant [also you need to consider if the cost of ram upgrade is value for money]
on a 6-year-old business machine with limited hardware, there is not a lot you can do, you won't find any distribution significantly faster than another, and try out "live from a pen drive at least 6 different distributions to see which you like best and which works best on your machine.

 

[Athx.]

OK so POP is designed and built by system 76 for their own kit, it is based on a cut down Ubuntu package [it doesn't carry a full set of possible drivers] if it works OTB great if not it can be pigs rear end to get working
Pitka I have never tried, it is optimised for gaming on latest kit with heavy resources [large ram latest graphics etc]
I haven't tried Catchy for a while, it would not run properly on my older HP or Dell Inspiron so cannot comment on current release,
with only 8gb of ram video editing may be slow, but the max your machine will take is 16gb this will improve your light gaming and video editing but still not brilliant [also you need to consider if the cost of ram upgrade is value for money]
on a 6-year-old business machine with limited hardware, there is not a lot you can do, you won't find any distribution significantly faster than another, and try out "live from a pen drive at least 6 different distributions to see which you like best and which works best on your machine.

Thanks for all the guidance!

 

[kc1di]

Best way to find out what suits you the best is try some of them on live usb if you have a large enough usb stick you can install Ventoy on it and just copy several distro .isos to it and test to your heart content. I'm not a big fan of android type distros my experience is they all break with time. But I stick to the stable branches and it's worked well for me over the year. Don't limit yourself to the distros you have listed. Try several first then make up your mind. Which works best on your machine, and what works best for your work load. Happy hunting.