EponymousBosh

I use SpiralLinux (basically Debian with some tweaks). I like it a lot! If you want to stay in the Debian/*buntu lineage, consider it.

The “sticker” is actually an off-cut from a laptop skin from my other laptop (which also runs Linux, and also has a sticker over its Windows key :P), so it’s held up pretty well

I’m petty enough to put stickers over mine.

Maybe SpiralLinux? It’s basically just Debian with a few twealks, but the btrfs+Snapper might come in handy if/when you need to do tech support.

My current and previous laptops were/are Dell and I can count on one hand the number of hardware issues I’ve had with Linux (minus the Nvidia GPU but yknow. Nvidia.)

Same

NVIDIA

Welp, there’s your problem. I have an NVIDIA card as well and it’s been the source of at least 95% of my Linux headaches.

I’ve tried a few distros and Linux Mint was definitely the most “just works” for me. Make sure you’re using the proprietary NVIDIA drivers, regardless of what option you choose. Currently I use SpiralLinux (Debian with a few tweaks) because I really like the BTRFS snapshots and fell in love with KDE during my distro-hopping, but Mint is what I would recommend to the vast majority of people.

Seconding (or third-ing, or twelfth-ing) the recommendation for Linux Mint, but also gonna throw one in for MX Linux if the hardware is older.