I am not qualified to answer your question, but I will throw in some vague opinions.

You probably do not want to be updating your system and packages every week.   Some packages you may want to never update:   systemd, mesa, glibc, kernel, plymouth, firefox.    You might not want wayland, pipewire, the latest Bluetooth, Gnome 40.

You may want to AVOID a laptop with an Nvidia card. 

You may want to avoid a laptop with any dedicated graphics card.

You may find your new laptop's internal wi-fi does not work.


Why use Fedora ?   If you are in USA, it is a good choice.    The forums are helpful - as long as you make a faithful effort to learn to fix things with some vague guidance.

You probably do not need Version 34.

Dozens of small but great Linux distros lack package maintainers and mirrors and developers.  A good example is Mageia and OpenMandriva. 

OpenSUSE Leap is popular. 

There are a lot of distros that are really just prototypes, or Alpha quality.   For example, Devuan.

Some fine distros are barely treading-water, like Peppermint, and Seduction.

Some distros are popular in a certain region.   For example, ROSA is an excellent distro, but most of the fan-base is Russian.   Similar thing could be said about Deepin being popular in China.

Since you are likely going to purchase a Windows laptop, then you should try to run one of the Linux distros offered by the WSL2.

Linux specific laptops are still to expensive for most users.  It is a risky investment.

Another idea, is since the market is moving towards ARM-based laptop's, you might consider a totally new platform.

A cheap option worth at least looking at is that with a good Chromebook, you can run Linux apps pretty good.  Unless you hate Google, it seems like an interesting way to learn Linux ( Crostini ?? )

You probably want Fedora 33 Xfce or Mate.

Feel free to correct me, shoot me, or enlighten me.

David Locklear
Arcola, Texas USA
Newbie Rawhide User
"Live on the Edge, Live in Rawhide on Metal"