by Nib on 11/29/14, 1:41 PM with 80 comments
So, what is the best laptop that runs Linux natively, or after modifying. Plus, try to make it a little more affordable($200 - $850).
P.S. Nobody mention the Mac, it's a beauty in itself, and I won't be able to replace OS X by Linux emotionally.
by josephkern on 11/29/14, 2:00 PM
The Dell XPS Developer Edition[2] comes with Linux installed, and has supported binary drivers from Dell. Just a little outside your price range.
[1]: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki [2]: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd
by tdicola on 11/29/14, 8:21 PM
Right now you can get a 13" MacBook Air with good specs for $800: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-macbook-air-latest-model-1... IMHO this is the way to go. No $800 Windows laptop is going to come close to the build quality of the MacBook Air.
by CraigJPerry on 11/29/14, 2:18 PM
I got an M$ Surface Pro 3 last month (don't laugh) but its actually first rate, hardware wise.
Fedora doesn't quite work perfectly yet but its pretty close.
High DPI touch screens rock!
by CoffeeDregs on 11/29/14, 2:30 PM
I would strongly recommend the last generation Lenovo X1 Carbon, but I would strongly recommend against the current X1 Carbon for a few reasons:
- They merged the trackpoint's buttons into the trackpad's and now it's very difficult find the middle chord or to select text using the trackpoint.
- They merged the function keys with the utility keys (e.g. volume control) into a single, dynamic row, so closing a window (Alt-F4) often requires you to toggle from utility to function key. If this sounds confusing and useless, it is.
- Worst, because of the doubled-up row (fn, utility), Esc and ~ wound up overlaid. So they moved the ~ next to the LOWER RIGHT Alt key. I hit Esc every time I try to reference my home directory...
Other than that, it's a lovely laptop.
Oh and don't get a HighDPI display unless you want to deal with funky application layout issues...
by wanda on 11/29/14, 2:19 PM
Of course, there is always: https://system76.com
but I've yet to give any of their gear a spin.
by keybits on 11/29/14, 4:44 PM
The new E7440 is very nice and can be had for great prices on eBay. I tried one of these with the Full HD IPS screen. Unfortunately I couldn't get HiDPI to work to my satisfaction (even with latest Gnome and KDE). Having said that, I couldn't get Windows 8.1 to work to my satisfaction either.
by larzang on 11/29/14, 3:28 PM
This summer I bought a W670SZQ from AVADirect, with an i5 and SSD it was just under $900. For a full size 17" laptop the weight is very reasonable, and it's a great system that Xubuntu and Mint worked fine on with zero tweaking.
by sampo on 11/29/14, 3:39 PM
Pros: Thinner (1.59 cm vs 2.06 cm) and lighter (1.49 kg vs 1.58 kg) than ThinkPad T440s. Everything in Ubuntu works.
Cons: The keys are flat (like in Macs), I'd prefer some contour like in ThinkPads. Touchpad has no mouse buttons: 2-finger tap on the touchpad (for right-click) is quite easy, but 3-finger taps (for middle-click) is a little tricky. Also selecting text by pressing on the pressure-sensitive touchpad while moving the cursor is a little tricky. Personally, I always use external mouse, so I don't care.
by loudmax on 11/29/14, 3:13 PM
I wanted an SSD, but I found it was cheaper to select the cheapest hard drive they had and then buy an SSD from Newegg than to get the SSD from Lenovo. Replacing the drive was quite easy, not like a tablet or cell phone. It goes without saying, but you should do the same for RAM.
A month or so after I bought it, the fan stopped working. Their customer service was quite good. They sent me a box so I could return my laptop, and they fixed the fan and shipped it back at no cost to me.
by lsiebert on 11/29/14, 9:18 PM
Also after christmas sales are often good for tech, if you can wait. You can often get refurbs from returns for great prices.
I'm on a thinkpad T530. added an aftermarket SSD and 16 gb of ram (You need a W system to get 32GB, but it's possible). Note, get an intel wifi card that supports 2.5 and 5.0 channels. a T540 is a substantially better machine, both with haswell getting better power managment, and the ability to hotswap batteries because of a smaller internal battery.
I also have an hp chromebook 14 running crouton lubuntu 14.04 I got for $236 on woot. It's fine as a secondary laptop, and seems to have good battery life. I do occasionally miss having a meta key. I run xfce, not unity, and I'd recommend a light-weight DE. It is notably slower compiling (things like YouCompleteMe's C++ code for vim).
The other thing to consider is a cheap foreign made computer, like Sager or Clevo. They are bare bones systems, but that's often better for linux support. I'd also look at resources from reddit's r/SuggestALaptop like http://www.reddit.com/r/SuggestALaptop/comments/2448oy/guide...
by nickysielicki on 11/29/14, 6:39 PM
The Toshiba CB35 that recently came out is my current laptop. Don't buy that right now, though. We don't have the coreboot situation worked out, although we're close. Currently hating myself by using crouton every day... But its still a great machine for the price.
For me, and probably you too, nothing matters more than display quality, keyboard quality, and battery life (in that order.) I do most everything remotely, so power isn't even a part of the question.
by dandelion_lover on 11/29/14, 5:02 PM
by simonblack on 11/29/14, 11:59 PM
I have kept it as a Linux-Win7 dual-boot, but Windows is restricted to 50 gig and I'd boot this maybe 4-5 times a year, while the other 1950 gig is in use with Linux.
by spectre256 on 11/29/14, 2:22 PM
The wifi drivers are the only area that doesn't have perfect linux support, but the 3.18 kernel is a drastic improvement, and more are coming.
Also, the price is right, mine was only $1000.
by scalesolved on 11/29/14, 2:08 PM
The specs are below:
- Intel Core i7-4510U Processor - 15.6" FHD (1920x1080) Anti-glare Display Black - AMD Radeon HD 8670M Graphics 2GB - 16GB RAM - Keyboard Backlit - UK English - 256GB Solid State Drive Serial ATA3 OPAL2.0
I managed to get it for just over $1000 dollars yesterday so I know it's a little out of your price range but I find the keyboard solid, screen is pretty good and I don't notice any performance issues. (I mainly do Java development and that can be resource intensive).
Perhaps you could pick one up on ebay even cheaper, happy to answer any other questions you've got about it!
by gvb on 11/29/14, 2:40 PM
Downsides: It is a heavier machine at 5.5lbs. Battery life is good but not great. The display is decent resolution but not great.
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t540p...
Make sure you pick the best deal. :-)
Processor: 4th Generation Intel Core i5-4300M Processor( 2.60GHz 1600MHz 3MB)
Operating system: Windows 7 Professional 64
Display: 15.6" FHD AntiGlare 1920x1080
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4600
Memory: 8.0GB PC3-12800 DDR3L SDRAM 1600 MHz
Hard Drive: 500GB 7200 rpm
Optical Drive: Multi Recorder
Network Card: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260
Bluetooth: Bluetooth Version 4.0
Warranty: Three year
Pointing device: Clickpad
Battery: 6 Cell Lithium-Cylindrical
by jqm on 11/29/14, 2:18 PM
I just picked up two oldies (core2 duo) for less than $100 apiece on ebay. No hard drives, but I had some laying about. Although the tech is old, the machines are in amazing shape (they are so well built). They do everything I need with full Linux installs for less than the price of a chromebook.
by bluedino on 11/29/14, 3:17 PM
The best part is you don't have to run it inside ChromeOS, you can simply remove ChromeOS, enable the legacy boot loader, and use a regular old Ubuntu USB installer.
Of course, the models with more RAM are ideal, as well as being able to upgrade the M.2 SSD, but even a 2GB RAM/16GB SSD model will run pretty good, especially if most of your work is remote or on the cloud. Ubuntu 14.04 takes up about 7GB of storage.
I love older Thinkpads but these are cheaper, slimmer, and have more battery life.
by cjbprime on 11/29/14, 1:55 PM
by jebediah on 11/29/14, 2:33 PM
by jessaustin on 11/29/14, 3:14 PM
by nostromoa on 11/29/14, 7:06 PM
by erkose on 11/29/14, 4:03 PM
by bufordsharkley on 11/29/14, 3:02 PM
by jhwhite on 11/29/14, 2:56 PM
by clarry on 11/29/14, 3:01 PM
by lucb1e on 11/29/14, 2:42 PM
by pXMzR2A on 11/29/14, 7:50 PM
by umrashrf on 11/29/14, 2:13 PM
by foolinaround on 11/29/14, 2:59 PM
by hjwp3 on 12/2/14, 6:03 PM
- probably the most sensible choice would have been a fully specced-up Galago from System 76: 16GB ram, core i7, space for two (!) SSDs, etc etc. On the pure specs, it's the clear winner -- it's practically impossible to find an i7 in 13 inches with 16 gigs of RAM. And it's great to support a Linux-friendly company. One minor problem was that I do occasionally need Windows (for Powerpoint), but I guess I could have installed it. The real reason I didn't go for it (and I'm about to betray a character weakness here) is that I saw it in real life and... I thought it was too ugly. Didn't suit my vanity. And I couldn't get on with that weird screen hinge. Still, my mate Hansel wrote an excellent review of the Galago, check it out here: http://aychedee.com/2014/01/04/galago-ultrapro-review/
- the other sane choice would have been a thinkpad. As this thread overwhelmingly proves, they have an excellent reputation, and should work well under Linux. My dad has one, and I can confirm that they feel really well built, and are nice and light. Only real tech problem is the X240 is limited to 8GB. That and the seriously weird touchpads, which depress down about 5mm with a big ker-chunk, they feel like they were designed for use by children on a button-bashing arcade machine to launch nukes or something. But I can imagine getting used to them. Also briefly considered getting an X230 off ebay, because 16GB, but screen resolution was seriously weak.
- another option would have been a Dell. They have a good rep, and good linux support, but the XPS13 suffers from the same problem of the 8GB limit, and the XPS15 was too big -- a friend of mine tells me it feels a little heavy, and that the lid feels a bit feeble -- so the build quality isn't as good as the thinkpads. The 15 would be a good option for someone prepared to carry something a little heavier tho, 16 gigs and excellent resolution.
- at this point I started casting around for other solutions, and in the end I did something completely irrational. I came across the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus, and despite its stupid name I kinda fell for it. So I've impulse-bought one on ebay for about $1000 (new). And this despite the fact that Ubuntu is absolutely not ready for HiDPI screens, and that all the info on getting Linux installed on them sound like it's a nightmare, and that it's just never going to work. But, heck, I feel like Linux on the Desktop is meant to be hard, and not quite work. And it's SO SHINY! http://www.mobiletechreview.com/notebooks/Samsung-ATIV-Book-...