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

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#91

Post by jimmies » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

yathern wrote: post #85

jimmies wrote: post #78

I have a Dell Chromebook 13. Basically it is a Macbook Pro that happens to run Linux really well. I have used Thinkpads X (200, 201, 220) in the past, then switched to Chromebook C720, then this. After you install John Lewis' ROM (basically a Coreboot build), it is an absolute dream, and everything worked out of the box, wifi, bt, 3d acceleration, suspend/resume, audio jack detection, you name it. Trackpad is really…

Acer c720 owner here - people tend to mock chromebooks all the time as glorified web browsers. To some extend, that's true. Most things I do that aren't development related are done on a web browser. It's absolutely perfect for that. Starts up extremely quickly, very light, long battery, lovely. For very occasional dev purposes, I simply used crouton, which works insanely well. I can even use sshfs and go back to Chr…

Oh I wiped Chrome and installed Linux directly on the SSD (upgraded it to 128gb). It works well too, Chromebooks are designed to work well with Linux :)

Now mainline Linux kernel support is so good to the point that you don't need to hack on it to get it to work.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#92

Post by chimeracoder » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

vise890 wrote: post #71

glogla wrote: post #24

My advice: 1) If you're used to a retina macbook pro, you're doomed. There's nothing with as good display and touchpad. 2) If you can handle low resoltions (1920x1080 or even 1366x768) and generally lower quality screens, get a Thinkpad. New ones are very expensive but generally solid, while older ones are cheap and work well with Linux. 3) If you want a good screen, there's only Dell XPS 13. If you live in one of th…

Have you ever seen the screen on the new XPS 15? It's a 4k. It is absolutely gorgeous.

The XPS 13 (which OP refers to) has a 4K screen as well.

I agree, it's a gorgeous screen.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#93

Post by sandGorgon » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

A Thinkpad. However a Dell XPS will works just as well...but it doesn't have the Linux community that a Thinkpad has.

It's so cool that the Thinkpad Reddit has people asking "does anyone run Windows here" !

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#94

Post by zck » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

cfeduke wrote: post #9

I tried going with System76 after having a good experience with one of their earlier models. Unfortunately the keyboard experience was _terrible_ - so as a portable it failed hard. Everything else was stellar. By terrible I mean actually missing keystrokes noticeably often, even around 60wpm.

I just got a System76 machine (a Lemur; their 14" machine: https://system76.com/laptops/lemur), and I haven't seen any dropped keystrokes. I wonder if the keyboard problems are specific to one model.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#95

Post by nja4 » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

szatkus wrote: post #66

BenElgar wrote: post #23

My general advice would be to check the Arch wiki ( https://www.archlinux.org/ ), whether you intend to run Arch or not. It's a pretty good indicator to determine how much support you're going to get with the laptop and whether things generally work as they're supposed to. For example, here's the page for my laptop: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_%282015%29

I have Dell XPS 9350 and it's not that good. Hardware is cool, though (and only XPS 13 that has 16GB option). I have Ubuntu 15.10 and needed to install custom kernel to get everything working.

How is the battery life? I have this exact model, but I heard skylake had strange sleep or power saving problems under Linux. You have the 3200x1800 display too, and I am curious about scaling too. The drivers are terrible for Windows too. Been on support since November about the failing DPTF drivers.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#96

Post by ld00d » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #30

glogla wrote: post #24

My advice: 1) If you're used to a retina macbook pro, you're doomed. There's nothing with as good display and touchpad. 2) If you can handle low resoltions (1920x1080 or even 1366x768) and generally lower quality screens, get a Thinkpad. New ones are very expensive but generally solid, while older ones are cheap and work well with Linux. 3) If you want a good screen, there's only Dell XPS 13. If you live in one of th…

Nit: Some ThinkPads have 2560 x 1440 displays now (or higher, I think, on the big ones). And their keyboard and touchpad buttons are vastly superior than Apple (though some people have wrong opinions on this). They also don't overheat like Apple, generally speaking.

I don't think anyone is raving about the trackpad buttons on the MBP because there effectively aren't any. IMO, replacing them with multi-touch gestures is the way to go, and they've done that very well.

The new keyboard on the new(ish) MacBook is kind of a short travel that I'm not fond of (from my quick tests at the store), but I definitely prefer the "chicklet" keys to the right-up-next-to-each-other keyboards I've used elsewhere. I haven't used a Thinkpad in about 6 years now, so maybe they're better now. Looks like they have the chicklets now too.

Not sure what you mean about Apple overheating. Cupertino doesn't get that hot, and they probably have AC when it does get into the 80s. But, maybe you mean Macs, and I haven't had any issue with my Macs overheating. Maybe you got a dud when you were trying one out?

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#97

Post by nja4 » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

drakonka wrote: post #53

Ao7bei3s wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The X1 Carbon has a Skylake CPU, so the problem that Linux doesn't have support for the higher C-states resulting in reduced battery life and reduced total CPU lifetime should apply to you, right?? Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11492070 (I have tested the predecessor (gen3) and liked it. I'm waiting for the 16GB gen4 X1 Carbon to become available here in Germany, drop enough in price to…

I think an upcoming patch is meant to greatly improve this, at least judging by this, aside from solving the boot parameter requirement issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/4c6q6w/fixing_int... > I have finally compiled a patched kernel myself and couldn't be happier with results. Not only battery life increased (~1 additional hour), but what's more important, performance on battery improved significantl…

So, after this, my skylake xps 13 will be a better candidate for Ubuntu?

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#98

Post by fhood » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 6:06 PM UTC

I know a lot of people are suggesting MacBook pros and airs, which is great if you want both OS X and Linux, but.. apple = $$$. Part of what you pay for is OS X so if you want a Linux machine this is silly. If you don't specifically need Linux just Unix then I can't possibly recommend OS X highly enough. Also Linux distros and Mac hardware plays pretty well together but you WILL run into issues. My personal recurring problem is with graphics cards.

For a pure Linux machine the thinkpad is probably the way to go. They are cheap and powerful and most Linux distros are designed to work on them. Unfortunately it will feel like a cheap clunky pos next to any Apple computer and Lenovo may have put spyware directly in the bios where you can't do anything annoying to it........like get rid of it.

If you just wan't Unix go with a MacBook Pro. You do have to live with the price, and the fact that it is used primarily by hipsters and white girls for tasks one could accomplish on a raspberry pi (the new one at least). But the value of an OS written for the hardware is something that's hard to comprehend until you experience it.

Oh and get you one of them fancy new raspberry pi's as well. They're super dope, and they run Linux great.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#99

Post by ymse » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

drakonka wrote: post #6

I recently bought a gen4 ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Despite a couple of issues first getting started with Linux (I've been using OS X for years aside from running Ubuntu on my web servers) I'm now happily on Fedora 23. There was a kernel bug that I think is being patched atm, requiring booting with intel_pstate=no_hwp but no problems with Fedora other than that. When discussing this on the ThinkPad subreddit a Red Hat emplo…

The high-end Thinkpads are generally safe choices. I've been really happy with my Broadwell X250, although there were similar kernel issues when it was flunking new.

Still does ~20 hours with extended battery after more than a year of heavy usage. And they're some of the most robust portables available.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#100

Post by eximius » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 6:09 PM UTC

gshulegaard wrote: post #89

BenElgar wrote: post #23

My general advice would be to check the Arch wiki ( https://www.archlinux.org/ ), whether you intend to run Arch or not. It's a pretty good indicator to determine how much support you're going to get with the laptop and whether things generally work as they're supposed to. For example, here's the page for my laptop: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_%282015%29

I have written this elsewhere ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11492941 ), but I caution everyone away from the 13 DE and go with the Precision instead (15"). I could dig up the litany of Dell Forum posts I wrote and responded to for my XPS 13DE (9343), but it would be time consuming. They eventually sorted it out, but the issue isn't the Sputnik team, its the hardware in the 13" XPS. The Precision M3800 has be…

What issues did you have besides wireless? I just bought one and ordered an intel card to put in (now waiting on a torx screwdriver because I didn't noticed I didn't have one! XD)

I'm planning on Arch, but if I get sick of that or find my terminal-fu lacking, I'll probably go back to Mint.