Linux

Distro choice matters less than it looks like, and it's fairly subjective. As long as you stick to a serious and newbie-friendly distro, you should be fine - for example, you could simply keep using Pop!_OS, why change it?

That said, a few distros you might want to try:

• Mint - another newbie-friendly Ubuntu derivative. If you feel like you must try something else, but you don't want it to be too far from your comfort zone.
• Debian - because it's the grandfather of Pop!_OS (and Mint); it has some rough edges, but it'll be a good learning experience. Note Stable tends to stick to really ancient packages.
• Fedora - it's also newbie-friendly, but from another different family. If you feel like stepping outside your comfort zone.

Also note you can dual boot different Linux distros, just like you're dual booting Pop!_OS and Windows. Or even multi-boot.

Arch is sweet but you'll want some miles under your belt first. Pop is great, if you want boring but just works debian is the goat

I'd recommend you stick with Pop, since you're already familiar with it.

Endeavour is a great introduction to the Arch world if you're interested in trying it.

Bazzite is a popular recommendation if you're going to be gaming.

I always recommend Mint to wundows converts. It looks like the windows UI, just works out of the box 99% of the time, and has a huge user base that is happy to provide assistance

Bazzite is stable and "just works" but it achieves that by being a bit less conventional under the hood. Great for gaming and general computing.

If you like tinkering around, you might want to pick something else though.

The best answer is always Ubuntu (Mint or Kubuntu). They just work. And they're and they're récent enough without running into problems. They have high compatibility and they have a lot of quality of life improvements.

Fedora is good. It gets regular updates and all the new tech. Once you set it up make sure to enable the non foss repos if you want stuff like discord

I have an ASUS ROG laptop with a dGPU and the dGPU is damaged, making it not run at all with Windows.
I used the Arch ISO, booted up with the "new nVidia..." option and installed it using the most straightforward process^[OK, maybe not "most". I installed dracut at first but then switched to mkinitcpio] as given in the Arch Installation wiki page.

Works well. I use it for testing changes I make in KDE apps.

If you're willing to run arch-based but not vanilla arch cachyOS is amazing in my experience.

If not that fedora is pretty ok. Could just run PopOS too if you like it.

My experience is very dated, but I bought a used windows Asus laptop in 2013 and put Ubuntu on it and experienced no problems. I had been using Linux for a long time, so maybe I remember this with rose glasses, but it was very straight forward. Also an integrated GPU, but of the 2013 era. I think the laptop was a 2012 model.

Config isn't hard, it just takes time 🙂

I expect a certain level of weirdness and quirks.

Me, every time I switch on a Windows machine. 😉

My list to try would be Debian, Fedora, or OpenSuse. I'm partial to KDE.

Arch feels more like windows because I like keeping everything up to date, cachyos because I dont want to spend an hour finding the gaming packaged and I like the preinstalled apps + de options. Plus aur is great just need to add flathub support real quick and its great.

Lot of bootloader options too, I like limine since its clean and easy to swap lernels, also one click to setup btrfs snapshots after install which also show up in limine with no extra setup.

recommend me a distro that runs well on an Asus laptop with an Integrated and Discreet GPU.

FWIW, Bazzite offers dedicated images for a bunch of different hardware including ASUS laptops.

Note, however, that Bazzite works a bit differently than your average distro. Though you should be more than fine as long as the means to address your needs are contained within its pretty good documentation. For all else, first try if the conventional method used on traditional distros works. If for whatever reason that doesn't yield, then consider reaching out to one of their community channels.

What is it you use your laptop for?

I happen to have an Asus laptop with an intel igpu (one of those flippy 2-in-1), and Fedora Workstation works for me since I like the look of GNOME. Fedora also has a KDE version if you prefer that. Keep in mind that Fedora uses “dnf” and “.rpm” instead of “apt” and “.deb”. Lots of people also like to use Mint (which is based on debian like Pop_OS) but I haven’t tested that with my laptop.

As you already use Pop, why change? Is there something bothering, or something does not run well? How old is this laptop?

If you don't feel like continuing with Pop, I'd try Debian as you value stability. It may be a slight pain to set up initially, but when it's done it should generally Just Work until eternity. The expert installer allows you to enable non-free repos for any proprietary drivers by default.

Well, if you're not going to go with Arch, might I suggest Gentoo?

(kidding... mostly...)

On a more serious note, Mint will run on most systems well, and Just Work for the most part, with the caveat that if you have really new hardware you might need to use a version with current Linux kernels (if they're still doing that, I'm not seeing it at the moment though).

The main downside is they keep to stable LTS builds, which means software is often a bit behind, but for most things, if you need the most up to date, there's always flatpak. The upside, though, is updates tend to not be as big or numerous or frequent as in a more up to date distro like Fedora or a rolling release like Arch. It also means updates are less likely to cause issues and your system is less prone to developing quirks.

Anyway, Mint is what I've been using, though I've also been using Fedora some at work... Both are solid, but I like Mint better. Could just be personal taste though so take that for what it's worth.

I've been a Pop stan since I started using Linux so I'll always recommend it, and it helps that you already like it. But if you specifically want something different (and that isn't arch), I'd say Fedora KDE

I landed and Pop OS and love it.

I went to Pop_Os! From Arch after running it for a decade so I support not running Arch. I prefer the simplicity of Pop.

I was trying to make the leap but I'm now stuck without sound on Linux Mint. Just be aware that if you have some critical need (I'm job hunting and need to do some video conference interviews) that things can and do go past shaped and it's not always straight forward to fix it.

Go dual boot until you're confident that you can rely on it.

I'll try to find some time to fix the sound and I'll switch back to it or another distro.