Which Linux distribution is good for AI usage?

[LeanLux]

As a linux beginner I installed first Zorin to try to get chatGPT to guide me through an AI-installation which also does some tasks.
unfortunately GPT destroyed Zorin totally, so I installed Mint for its great hexchat help; but that os was also destroyed by GPT.
Hence I asked for which new linux distributions to install - and from there I will only do installations I find in the web - not let any AI guide me through terminal prompts anymore.
It said:

Distro	Strengths	Weaknesses	Verdict
Pop!_OS 22.04	Best NVIDIA GPU out-of-box System76 dev-friendly tweaks Clean GNOME Ubuntu base	Slightly bloatedLess minimal than Arch	Recommended
Debian 12	Rock-solid Full control Non-bloated Great for servers	Needs manual driver setupOlder packages	For advanced users
Arch Linux	Ultimate control Rolling release Community power Bare metal tuning	Steep learning curveBreakage risk	Not recommended yet
Linux Mint 21/22	Easy installer Ubuntu LTS base Friendly UI (Cinnamon/MATE) TimeShift	EFI issues Boot recovery weak Poor GPU driver integration	Avoid for now
Ubuntu 22.04	Default standard All packages available Works with most tools	Snap messGPU driver issues sometimes	Acceptable fallback

Laptop Model: Acer [exact model, e.g. "Aspire A515-58G"]
CPU: Intel Core iX-XXXXH (e.g., i7-1260P)
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (or whatever it is)
GPU 1: Intel Iris Xe (iGPU)
GPU 2: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050 (Laptop GPU)
Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD (e.g., Samsung, WD, etc.)
Network: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201, Bluetooth 5.x
BIOS version: [e.g. InsydeH2O v1.17]
Boot Mode: UEFI
Secure Boot: Enabled/Disabled (current setting)
Current OS: Windows 11 / Linux Mint 22 (dual boot? wiped?)
Problem: Unable to boot into Mint, initramfs shell appears instead
Boot from USB: USB detected only after BIOS tweak, but resets order after reboot
️ Goal: Find most stable Linux distro with best NVIDIA RTX 2050 support, for local AI dev

Optional:

• I prefer systemd boot over grub (if relevant)
• I need excellent power management (for laptops)
• I want driver support for RTX 2050 without manual hacking

What would you install to get the most out of this system in terms of reliability and installation friendliness?

 

[Brickwizard]

Welcome to the forms,
I don't know where you got your list, but most of us will have some arguments with it

POP made specifically for system 76 equipment, IF it works out of the box without issue then good, if there are problems you can spend days trying and never fix it

Debian Stable with driver pack is no more difficult to use than any other distribution and is not just for advanced users

Ubuntu, one of the oldest Debian based distros, it is rock solid creates little in the way of problems, but it has become a little bloated

Arch based and slack based distributions can be challenging for the newbie to set up but there are some more friendly distributing based on these.

Mint22/23 Based on Ubuntu, rock solid some say better looking, one of the easiest for a newbie but carries the Ubuntu bloat

None of the above [personal choice]
Mint LMDE
Parrot home edition
MX-Linux

If asked for newbie friendly distributions, I would say
Mint LMDE [based directly on Debian stable, so a title lighter than Mint Ubuntu based
Mint 22/23
Ubuntu
Parrot home
Peppermint,
MX-Linux
Debian stable, with driver pack

most distributions will come with a choice of desktop, but if you like a distribution but not the GUI just change to one you do.

Linux distro with best NVIDIA RTX 2050 support,

all distributions use the same drivers

 

[Condobloke]

G'day LeanLux, Welcome to Linux.org

You said "As a linux beginner"........placing all your faith in ai, instead of in yourself and in experienced users, is probably not the greatest start for you. You have already been led astray by ai .

 

[MikeWalsh]

Linux distro with best NVIDIA RTX 2050 support

all distributions use the same drivers

^^^ This.

It's not so much a case of who provides the best support - as m'colleague points out, all distros will use the same drivers. It's more a case of who provides the most friendly, easy-to-use & hassle-free method for installing those drivers...

Trust me, even today, not all distros are equal. Some make a right 'pig's ear' out of the process, and leave the user with all sorts of issues that then have to be put right manually. Even automated package management won't always provide the 'magic fix'...

You said "As a linux beginner"........placing all your faith in ai, instead of in yourself and in experienced users, is probably not the greatest start for you. You have already been led astray by ai .

Couldn't agree more. You cannot beat advice distilled from the personal experience of actual users. AI ain't the "magic bullet" everybody makes it out to be.....all it does is 'regurgitate' whatever's been stolen from the countless websites that have been 'raped' during its training.

And AI has been proved to be frequently so wide of the mark that its answers aren't worth placing any faith in.

(shrug...)


Mike.

 

[Trynna3]

Firstly: what does it mean 'destroyed by GPT'? Installation and set up of the Linux OS or using chat gpt on Linux?
I have used chatbot to set up and troubleshoot my LMDE and other distros... you need to keep your head above all and question things. Don't blindly follow suggestions, the bot is stupid. It is resourceful, but often advises wrong.

 

[bob466]

Welcome to the Forum.

According to your list...I shouldn't be using Linux Mint Cinnamon 21.1 or 22.1 because of all these problems.

Who told you Mint had all these problems...some bot.

What do you mean by..."destroyed by GPT"? Do you mean the Guid Partition Table ?
I run Mint Cinnamon 21.1 and 22.1 on two separate SSDs with the Guid Partition Table and a UEFI Motherboard with zero problems.

Boot recovery...what's that because in the 10 years of using Mint Cinnamon I've never had that issue. As you are a beginner I can't blame you...the only advice I can give you is...listen and learn from people who use this Distro not some bot or youtube.

 

[dos2unix]

These days 99% of the Ai we do, is in your browser. You can be an Ai server, but that's different.
Pretty much any distro will do this. The mainstream ones support the preferred browsers.

The browser matters more than the distro. For example, if you want to use coPilot, you have to use Edge.

 

[f33dm3bits]

At it's current state don't trust AI to help you make decisions, from what I've seen it get a lot of it's answers about Linux from Reddit topics.

 

[giuseppe.rinaldi]

Welcome, LeanLux — and sorry to hear about your rocky start with Linux.
It’s totally valid to explore AI as a helper, but as many here pointed out, it shouldn’t replace your own judgment or the experience of real users. AI can suggest general ideas, but it often lacks context and precision — especially for complex setups like NVIDIA drivers or dual-GPU laptops.
That said, for your specs and goals, Pop!_OS (especially for NVIDIA) and Linux Mint LMDE (Debian-based, lighter, very stable) are great options. Just make sure Secure Boot is disabled for easier NVIDIA driver installs. And don’t hesitate to use forums like this — real user advice is gold!

 

[Trynna3]

I would add: once somewhat happy with the initial set up, before exploring tweaks further, make a clone of your new system. It proved invaluable to me when I broke my system and had it recovered in no time (under 10 minutes) with Rescuezilla. Not much data present yet, so it went fast.

 

[Mike-BTU]

At it's current state don't trust AI to help you make decisions, from what I've seen it get a lot of it's answers about Linux from Reddit topics.

I use AI in place of Google search. Three good ones are Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. They all usually blow Google out of the water.

However, you need to enter a good prompt. Simple short phrases like you would would enter in Google should be avoided if you want AI to deliver a good answer.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I use AI in place of Google search. Three good ones are Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. They all usually blow Google out of the water.

If you already know some about the topic you are searching for because I've gotten wrong answers before.

However, you need to enter a good prompt. Simple short phrases like you would would enter in Google should be avoided if you want AI to deliver a good answer.

As this proves my point. I wouldn't use AI to learn how Linux works or how to remove a kidney, better to just learn that by actually experience and the latter to to medical school

 

[LeanLux]

Thank you all for all your compassionate help.
I have to admit that I refrained from technical forums because nerds tend to mistake the field of binary black and white truths for the full reality; so some have a blindspot for emotional intelligence.
AI seemed to be the least aggravating choice but turned out to be the worst one - so I totally agree with Condobloke, MikeWalsh, Tryanna3, bob466 and f33dm3bits who are critical about AI.

Obviously Ubuntu-Mint was a great out of the box solution for normal things; and Zorin also worked great right out of the box. I could not really say which of the both were better.
Better in Zorin was that I could setup an own AI with UI straight away, and
better in Mint is the inbuilt hexchat support.
The huge problems occured when I wanted to setup a more flexible environment with AI which could aid me in personal tasks or connect to my own website for vocabulary-learning.

Just to let you know again what I tried to setup a productive AI environment (and which all failed in the end)
Linux Mint 22, NVIDIA RTX 2050, PyTorch, Transformers, BitsAndBytes, 8-bit quantization, Conda, Conda environment, CUDA, cuDNN, TinyLlama, Guanaco, Text Generation Web UI, CLI, multi-agent orchestration, Auto-GPTQ, Hugging Face, model quantization, llama.cpp, GGUF, LM Studio, systemd, initramfs, UEFI, BIOS boot order, kernel panic, GPU memory limits, symlink, libcudart, CUDA binary, peft, accelerate, optimum, tokenization, multi-AI roundtable, inference, offline model loading, chat orchestration, GPU backend, Python REPL, site-packages, CUDA 12.1, CUDA context, Makefile, torch device\_map, model checkpoint, flash attention, model config, HF Hub, dyndns, DNS, IPv6, ULA address, hostname exposure, port forwarding, Firefox sync, Bluetooth audio, GRUB, Live USB, Zorin OS, Linux Mint LMDE, Debian stable, MX Linux, Parrot OS, Arch Linux, Fedora, Ubuntu.

These are the questions which came up after your answers:
Brickwizard:
* What is a system 75 equipment? (sounds like a 70s standard ;-)
So do I tet it right that you recommend to
- refrain from POP
+ but advocate for Debian
- not Arch based and slack distributions
+ so you still would advocate for Mint 22/23 despite it having crashed in my attempts
(and what is with the mint 23, which I didn't see on the mint standard downloads)?
Tryanna3 & bob466:
By "GPT destroyed my system" I mean that I first could only blindly follow when GPT told me that it had to deinstall obsolete versions, and by doing that, or by freezing my system not to be able to update, it did change something so that I could still work for the entire time I was logged in, but as soon as I had turned of the machine, I could not get Mint to run anymore - same happened with Zorin before.
Tryanna3: You see, the joke is that I could not even recover the saved recovery point, because I can't log in anymore.
All I see now is Mint booting and then in the terminal
an initramfs shell appears when the root filesystem fails to mount.
Frankly this doesn't matter so much, because so far all I did with the Linux was to set up the AI engines in vain, so I can easily install Linux again, but this time I thought I start with the help of humans. After my withdrawal from disappointments I start to cherish humankind more again.
dos2unix:
Copilot without Edge: https://copilot.microsoft.com/
(basically it's GPT and you have to save individual thread-URLs to your bookmarks)
Giuseppe.Rinaldi:
So, like Brickwizard you distingish the Xfce from the LMDE version. Those are Cinnamon and Mate, right?
Mike-BTU and everyone:
Overall, while this was a terrible entire year I wasted my time with AI - also "pretending" to help me with a bandwidth problem; I learned that AI is very competent in for example knowing all about tunnels, IPv4&6, and different options; what AI can't do is to lateral think - meaning to take a step back from the picture and analyze it. It always instantly jumped into action, which was first very appealing for overriding my sluggishness due to lack of success- BUT it then went often in circles - installing, deinstalling and reinstalling the same components or procedures when the only times when we "snapped out" of its obsessive repetitions was when I put a hold to it and for example tell it that hundreds of ftp files weren't uploaded due to me having used Wifi from my phone Hotspot.
This is why you folks can handle AI, cause you have the knowledge to reflect upon its path, while I often was stuck in ignorant obedience. It's the same as programming with AI - it can spot some errors, but not think about different approaches.

 

[Brickwizard]

What is a system 75 equipment? (sounds like a 70s standard ;-)

Partial its a typo, should be system 76 , who are a long-standing manufacturer of machines primarily for the business market in the good ol' US of A who developed pop for their own machines [at one time you could only get it on one of theirs]

system76

system76.com

 

[craigevil]

Gemini and Perplexity run with no issues on my low spec pi 500. Of course I am not running the models on the pi. The new gemini-cli runs well also. https://www.npmjs.com/package/@google/gemini-cli
Ollama(installed thru pi-apps) uses all of the pi's resources so it is completely useless.

 

[LeanLux]

Ok, so after all information given by you I wanted a new linux I never tried (neither Mint nor Zorin); which is good for beginners who want to experiment a lot with linux. Hence, would you agree with me installing MX-23.6_x64 “ahs”, an “Advanced Hardware Support” release for very recent hardware, with 6.14 kernel and newer graphics drivers and firmware. 64 bit only which is for newer hardware?

 

[Brickwizard]

Mx-linux was on my suggestion list, it is a good bet for newer machnes,

 

[LeanLux]

Yes, Brickwizard, it being on your list is why I chose it. In fact I didn't even know it up to then.
So you would say that this will be a good other distribution to further grow into Linux?
My strategy is to install a new kind of distribution each time
(like on new computers or when I destroyed my Os by experimenting again).
This way I should slowly get to know it from different angles.

Yes, beginners like me usually want clear black&white answers, but I realized that there is no such thing as a clear winner
(which makes sense, considering that millions of people work in different directions)
Thanks for all your help.

 

[Brickwizard]

Thanks for all your help.

That's why we are here, we all use our computers for different reasons and have different priorities that is why there are so many distributing, a single or a group will produce their own distribution, many of which get released to the public, But also many users will download the same distribution but then customise it to their own likes and needs, in Essence creating their own distribution.

my best advice is to find and install a distribution that runs well on your machine, you may not like some of the included apps or even the GUI, but they are not fixed in concrete and easy to swap to one you do like.

 

[LeanLux]

This is one of those questions I never would have wasted your time in a forum with; but due to my bad experiences with AI I rather ask you before I go ahead:

So I downloaded MX-23.6_ahs_x64.iso and wanted to burn a startable usb-stick with Rufus on windows11, but it says:
I got the iso and rufus open and it saiyas.
this usage uses Grup 2.06-13-deb12u1 but the application only includes the installation files for Grup 2.12
As different versions of Grupb may not be compatible with one another and it is not possible to include them all, Rufus will attempt to locate version of the Grup installation file core.img, that matches the one from your image:
Select No to use the devault version from Rufus or selecgt cancel to abort the operation.

Not the file will be downloaded in the current application directury and will be reused automatically if present. If no match can be found online, then the default version will be used.

I purposely downloaded this version because it is one for newer OS.
Does agreeing to their download mean that I downgrade to a less compatible version?

Now I clicked yes and got the message:

This image uses Syslinux 6.03 but this application only includes the installation file for Syslinux 6.04/pre1

As new versions of Syslinux are not compatible with one another and it woudn't be possible for Rufus to include them all, two additional files must be downloaded from the Internet "ldlinux.sys and "ldinux.bss".
Select yes to connect to the internet and download these files,
select no to cancel this operation.

Not the files will be downloaded in the current application directory and will be reused automatically if present.

I chose yes for now to prepare the stick, but don't install anything until I got a green light from you.

Edit> I am setting up the stick but it complains of needing 500mb for the startup FAT32 partition. Since my former partition was 260mb small I took 140mb of my windows GB backup partition and now have 2 empty spaces, but I have no way to combine them into one new partition, whether I delete my former one, format both empty spaces as a FAT 32 partition or whether I try to resize one of both spaces to a larger new partition.
How do I get to create a new 500mb Fat32 partition to finally be able to install MX?