I have a System 76 Gazelle(https://system76.com/laptops), which I use as my travel machine. It runs Ubuntu 14.04. Very nice machine.
Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
41–50 of 87 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
#42I can endorse the Dell XPS13 9343: small, light, great battery life, great screen/keyboard. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. Some folks decided to replace the Broadcom wifi with Intel, because it's not ideal for linux. I believe that the newest XPS13 uses Intel instead.
What about the surface finish, isn't it prone to fingerprints etc?
The soft-touch carbon fiber finish can hang on to a smudge, but the aluminum outer shell is very smudge-resistant. It's much better than plastic.
Re: Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
#43Chromebook Pixel 2 users, i5 or i7?
Re: Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
#44Chromebook Pixel has been an awesome sometimes-Linux laptop for me. I'm still spending most of my time in ChromeOS, but the crouton project/extension allows me to have another linux chroot running for when I need to do work. There's a number of supported distros, although I've stuck with Ubuntu and XFCE, mostly because it stays out of my way. The fact that you can have the entire chroot or an individual app run in a…
Does the pixel do the thing where your linux partition gets wiped out if you ever run down the battery? Because that scares me.
Can't say that's ever happened to me, but I don't recall how many times I've ever let my Pixel completely run out on battery.
Re: Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
#45Here's my take on it:
- Macbooks
overall good, decent battery(if you configure it right), but terrible wifi and broken cam(some fiddling required, possibly unstable hibernate), no sysrq
- Thinkpad X1
Probably the best support good battery, but no thunderbolt 3, so no external graphics, 16gb ram
- X260 Awesome battery, slower SSD than its competitors 16gb ram, good cpu, mobile broadband, only HD520 graphics(if it had thunderbolt 3 you could upgrade it with a discrete external GPU, shame really ...)
- Dell XPS 13, overall good up to 16 gb ram, Iris graphics, thunderbolt 3, so you could use a razer external discrete GPU(priced at 500 USD though). worse battery than the macbooks
- Surfacebook/Pro probably my favorite device, but linux support is flakey see:
https://github.com/jimdigriz/debian-mssp4
https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/48dly5/is_the...
Personally i'm still holding off i have a macbook retina 2013 and an air mid 2013. the retina screen died and i'm aching for a replacement but i want both graphics and battery, but that seems to be a no go. I'm leaning towards the x260, unless surfacebook magically starts working by the time i'm getting a new device.....
Re: Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
#46I use MacBook Air and Vagrant to run Linux (Ubuntu). Everything I need from Linux is a shell :) For other things OSX is enough.
I was played on MacBook and everything run fantastic.
Re: Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
#47I'm running Debian Unstable on a Macbook Pro Retina 13. Easily the best Linux box since the Thinkpad era.
curious to know the 'what works / what doesn't work' here.
I truly believe this battle to be between xps13 / retina 13.
Re: Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
#48It's a year old but I'm still really happy with the ASUS Zenbook (UX305FA) I got: http://neugierig.org/software/blog/2015/07/linux-zenbook-ux3...
If you're not trying to do anything too taxing (not planning on playing games):
ASUS Zenbook UX305FA-ASM1 model M (the fanless processor) gives me great battery life, and works nicely with Arch.
Re: Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
#49I'm using a Asus UX305L with Ubuntu/Gnome and very happy with it.
I went with 2015 model because I wanted the 1920x1080 non-touch screen to save battery.
Ubuntu on the XPS 13 was unavailable in the time period I made the purchase and I didn't want to deal with the wifi hardware issue.
One advantage of the XPS13 is a PCIe connection for the SSD.
You didn't mention cost, but the Asus will generally be a little cheaper.
Re: Ask HN: Best ultrabook for Linux?
#50The 4th Gen X1 Carbon looks pretty awesome http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-ca... $1857 gets you: i7 6600U processor 16gb ram 512gb SSD 2560x1440 WQHD Screen WiGig OneLink+ Mini DisplayPort™ HDMI™ 3 x USB 3.0 microSD™ Weight Starting at 2.6 lbs (1209 g) Damn I think I might have just convinced myself here!
I wonder what the heat is like. All these slick looking things seem to get rather hot. Real X-series with throttling seems OK.
It's rather absurd. Even the Nexus 9, doing light tasks, gets uncomfortably warm.