u/neretu

I'm in a total rabbit hole of indecision and need some outside opinions. I'm daily-driving a ThinkPad T14s Gen 1 with a Ryzen 5 Pro, and I just can't settle on a setup.

For context, I don't mind fixing minor issues or messing around when things break. I generally avoid random third-party repos and mostly stick to official ones or Flatpaks.

Basically, I'm torn between two paths:

Option 1: Fedora

The sheer convenience is super appealing here: Secure Boot out of the box, LUKS2 unlocked via TPM (so no typing long passwords at boot, but my data is safe if my backpack gets stolen), and SELinux doing its thing. Packages are fresh enough and maintenance is basically zero. On the flip side, it's just a generic kernel with no aggressive compiler optimizations.

Option 2: Arch + CachyOS repos

I'd go full raw performance mode here: pure rolling release, CachyOS optimized repos, and a custom CachyOS kernel to squeeze every drop out of that Zen 2 chip. But I'd have to kiss Secure Boot goodbye (setting up custom keys on a rolling distro is a pain in the ass), figure out disk encryption manually without a proper seamless TPM integration, and lose SELinux.

Here is my dilemma: Is the actual performance gain from CachyOS repos and custom kernels on a mobile Ryzen actually noticeable in daily use (browser, IDE, occasional compiling), or am I just overthinking it and should stick to Fedora's secure, hassle-free setup?

Let me hear your thoughts.

Hey everyone,

I'm setting up a Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 1 (Ryzen 4000) as my daily driver and I'm a bit stuck finding the right OS and DE combo. I know what I want, but I also know my requirements kinda clash with each other, so I'm hoping to get some advice on what to prioritize.

For the base OS, I'm looking for a completely clean start. No preinstalled bloat, no heavy office suites, and definitely no background daemons I didn't ask for. I'd really prefer something compiled for modern CPUs (like x86-64-v3) rather than generic builds, with packages that are fresh (need good Wayland support) but not pure bleeding-edge where things break randomly.

The catch is that I'd like to keep Secure Boot enabled. I know this usually forces you into corporate-backed distros (if I have to go corporate, I'd slightly prefer a European one, but it's not a hard rule), which goes against my preference for independent, community-driven projects.

As for the desktop environment, I'm looking for a sweet spot between tiling efficiency and normal usability. Gnome is just too rigid for me and I hate relying on extensions that break on updates. KDE Plasma is great for customization and scaling, but it usually drags in so much bloat (Akonadi/PIM) unless there's an easy way to get a barebones install. I really like Niri and the scrollable tiling concept, but I honestly don't want to spend hours messing with dotfiles just to get a status bar or bluetooth working. COSMIC looks super modern and has native tiling, but I'm not sure if it's stable enough yet for a daily driver.

Right now, my theoretical compromise is Fedora + COSMIC, but I'm not totally convinced it's the right move.

Based on all this, which requirements should I realistically drop, and what OS + DE combo would you guys actually run on this hardware? Thanks!