Driver problems with most distros
 

I am having some sort of driver issues with each and every distro I try. Could you suggest anything?

How much do you know about GNU/Linux? About average

Preferred Desktop Environment?
I have used these environments in the past-
Unity - Really liked the workspace switching.
Cinnamon - It was okay.
Gnome - No.
Plasma - Graphics Driver problems.
Xfce - It was okay.

Hardware
Processor - i5 4200U 1.6GHz-2.1GHz
RAM - 8 GB
Graphics Card - Nvidia Geforce 740m 2 GB
Storage - 200 GB HDD
WiFi Adapter - Ralink RT3290

What will it be used for?
Daily use.
Programming(Running several resource-intensive IDEs)

Previous distros I have used and do not want to go back to
Debian - Had issues with getting Nvidia drivers working
Linux Mint - Had WiFi problems(I had opened a thread on the official forums and after 5 pages of comments, no solution could be found)
Ubuntu - Unable to solve "system is running on low graphics mode" and occasional WiFi issues.
KDE Neon - Unable to solve lagging block around mouse pointer issue(Probably graphics driver issue).

Preferred package manager
I have only ever used apt(.deb).

Other preferences
Do not want a Arch Linux-ish tough to install distro.
I need the distro to have a good driver manager.
Must have a live mode so I can test it.
I need the distro to be more focused on being stable than bleeding edge.

Distro Chooser Results:
Scientific Linux
Fedora Workstation
openSUSE
elementary OS
Ubuntu

Video and wifi are common problems across the distros.

Centos/Scientific/Oracle are basically the same. Problems with Fedora tend to mirror in those.

OpenSuse may also be considered.


I suggest the top names if you wish to do programming.

Thinking of either Fedora, OpenSUSE Leap or Manjaro. Thoughts?

If you have an i5 processor and an Nvidia chip, does that mean you have a laptop with Optimus? If so, that too will need sorting with Bumblebee( or just turning off the Nvidia, unless you want to play games). If you opt for the Bumblebee option, you will need a proprietary driver. Searching with duckduckgo for "linux driver nvidia geforce 740m" got quite a lot of answers on where to download and how to install: tiresome but not, it seems, impossible.

Searching similarly revealed a lot of people who'd eventually got the Ralink working.

The basic problem is that you chose the wrong computer for easy Linux usage!

If you want stability, then you don't want Fedora! If you go for CentOS, then install the Gnome version, add a different desktop, and switch to using it. You need the Gnome environment available for ann the features to work well. OpenSUSE generally copes well with modern hardware. Mint is often more reliable than Ubuntu.

I crashed my Debian installation into a black screen which took me a lot of effort to get working again when trying to get Bumblebee working. Which is why I stopped trying and moved onto other distros like Mint and Ubuntu which had better graphics driver support.

I had a 5 page thread on the Linux Mint forums trying to get my Ralink Wifi driver working unsucessfully.

I know. Sadly when I bought this laptop about 5 years ago, I had no idea I would be booting linux distros on it some day.

I don't really like the Gnome move mouse to upper corner to use other applications thing. And that issue with Mint and Ubuntu still rests. So.. OpenSUSE or CentOS with something other than Gnome?

Usually pretty easy to use OpenSuse or Centos with a different window manager. Plenty of them available from very basic to KDE/Gnome.

You have to select a desktop environment when you install CentOS with anaconda (the installation program for CentOS).

There is still some GNOME packages installed, like gdm for one.

As an aside, the issue is not that Linux does not support certain hardware components. It's that manufacturers of certain hardware components, especially certain wireless chipsets, graphics cards, and printers, do not provide good support to Linux.

The point about CentOS is that Red Hat is so geared to Gnome that many of the configuration tools were designed for that environment. Most of them need Gnome's yelp to display help and some things just don't work properly without the Gnome environment. You don't have to actually use it.

After a lot of deliberation, I went back to the distro I used the most in the past - Debian. I got an external wifi adapter to solve the WiFi issues. Now just need to figure out a way to get Bumblebee configured.