Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#11

Post by bobfromhuddle » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

I'm running Arch on a Dell M3800, most of my colleagues are running various Ubuntu flavours on the same hardware. Works well, up to and including the touchscreen.

Battery life is poor compared to a Mac, but it's really light given the compute power.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#12

Post by brickmort » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:19 PM UTC

I've had excellent experience with Dell Latitude laptops. I was using a Dell Latitude E6420 running Linux Mint for about two years until it stopped charging completely and I had to keep it plugged in for it to work. I ended up replacing it with a refurbished E6420 with almost identical specs for a little under $300. It's my primary computer and, with the 9-cell battery, can hold a charge for about 8 hours.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#13

Post by JonFish85 » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:19 PM UTC

Personally I really like using a MacBook Pro running Linux via Parallels. For me, it's the best of both worlds. Obviously it wouldn't work for everyone, but I think it's worth consideration.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#14

Post by delineator » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:19 PM UTC

Entroware UK have an Ubuntu laptop range. Anyone had experience with their 13.3inch Apollo laptop? https://www.entroware.com/store/laptops/apollo

I've thought about buying that as a replacement for an old Macbook pro.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#15

Post by jordigh » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:20 PM UTC

mataug wrote: post #10

gargravarr wrote: post #3

ThinkPads generally run Linux very well. I use an old X220 with Mint 17 and it fits my needs. ThinkPads are also well suited to business use and will last many years. X series for ultraportables with small screens, T series for high performance machines. This site collects info on people running Linux on their ThinkPads: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

Came here to say this. My thinkpad works great with Linux mint. Planning to switch to Ubuntu 16.04 when it comes out.

I'm having trouble with the graphics acceleration with an intel graphics card on Debian. This is on an x250. I'm kind of surprised, because it's the first time that the intel chipsets fail me. Usually they work the best because the drivers are free.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#16

Post by alex_duf » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:21 PM UTC

I have a Thinkpad X1 carbon gen 2 and have absolutely no problem with it. In fact it's an amazing little laptop that I highly recommend if it's in your price ranges. I believe the latest generation of that laptop have a few minor issues with linux that are easily fixable.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#17

Post by bradleypowers » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:21 PM UTC

We use Dell's Precision 15 5000 laptops. We get them with a Xeon E3-1505M and Quadro M1000M, which performs great in what we're doing (simulation, extremely multithreaded sensor processing, etc.). They're not cheap, but if you want "the best", I'd say they're a good candidate.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#18

Post by nextos » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:22 PM UTC

All Intel (but not Skylake) tends to be pretty good.

My old MacBook Air 11 2012 (which Linus himself used to use) is almost perfect. It's only missing ACPI events for battery discharges (something I've only seen in x220, but I hated its fan noise).

I'd like to point out that some very cheap Chromebooks that are getting Libreboot support (not ready yet for prime time though):

https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/index.html#supported_laptops_...

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#19

Post by bischofs » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:22 PM UTC

I just got a Dell precision 15 with ubuntu 14.04, $2K after tax - I returned it because the wifi rarely works, The gpu switching makes the gpu basically unusable because of screen tearing ( X.org sucks), and the battery life still is terrible( without some heavy optimizations). In 2016 it is sad that there still isn't a good seamless hardware/software linux laptop out of the box, It could be a great OS for day to day laptop use.

I would recommend just buying a cheap dell or hp with an intel wifi card and no dedicated gpu and install ubuntu on that - at least you wont feel cheated after spending $1.5K+ on some nice hardware, and your battery life will be tolerable. I have heard macs run linux fairly well too.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#20

Post by ukdm » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 1:22 PM UTC

delineator wrote: post #14

Entroware UK have an Ubuntu laptop range. Anyone had experience with their 13.3inch Apollo laptop? https://www.entroware.com/store/laptops/apollo I've thought about buying that as a replacement for an old Macbook pro.

Not the Apollo, but Linux Voice did a review of their Proteus. Worth a read (PDF) https://www.linuxvoice.com/issues/011/laptop.pdf