HP EliteBook: A friend to the User • Hacker News Board

Re: HP EliteBook: A friend to the User

#71

Post by madmulita » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:48 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #29

Does anyone know what the story is for running Linux on EliteBooks? For context, I'm in the market for a slightly older laptop for my daughter. Something that I could maybe pick up on ebay (in the UK) and upgrade some components would be ideal. Would prefer one I can put Linux on. The Chromebook route turned into a pain when I tried it so I'd like a machine I have some control over.

I'm running Ubuntu 17.10 on an EliteBook 800 G3. It works great until you try normal things with the docking station, the video drivers freak out. It's kind of random, but always happens when connecting it to the docking station.

Re: HP EliteBook: A friend to the User

#72

Post by brudgers » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #29

Does anyone know what the story is for running Linux on EliteBooks? For context, I'm in the market for a slightly older laptop for my daughter. Something that I could maybe pick up on ebay (in the UK) and upgrade some components would be ideal. Would prefer one I can put Linux on. The Chromebook route turned into a pain when I tried it so I'd like a machine I have some control over.

Generally, enterprise class laptops have reasonable Linux support, though it may take a few months for a new model to get sorted out and then there may be corner cases around weird hardware.

Some enterprise class laptops are available with Linux though not always through the website (about 18 months ago, I was required to phone call about a Thinkpad). Sometimes, Linux comes with a discount proportional to the Windows license (Dell was doing this at least as recently as last year).

Historically, Thinkpads are "the Linux laptop." The community of Linux on Thinkpads is very strong. https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

Re: HP EliteBook: A friend to the User

#73

Post by brudgers » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 2:45 PM UTC

pletnes wrote: post #66

aidos wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did have a look at Thinkpads but was somewhat overwhelmed by the number of models. Will have a look at the T series to see what's around. Thanks for the tip.

The W series are workstations. Solid, fast, heavy, expensive.

I think the workstations start with "P" these days. Good machines.

Re: HP EliteBook: A friend to the User

#74

Post by gattr » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 4:18 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #29

Does anyone know what the story is for running Linux on EliteBooks? For context, I'm in the market for a slightly older laptop for my daughter. Something that I could maybe pick up on ebay (in the UK) and upgrade some components would be ideal. Would prefer one I can put Linux on. The Chromebook route turned into a pain when I tried it so I'd like a machine I have some control over.

I ran Fedora on a ProBook 4320s (Intel GPU) in 2011-2015, no problems. The only inconvenience was the WiFi/BT adapter (Ralink, I think), which had out-of-tree drivers; I had to rebuild the interface after kernel updates. But a year or so later they added a driver in the kernel.

Re: HP EliteBook: A friend to the User

#75

Post by Nullabillity » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

c256 wrote: post #52

Nullabillity wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. It's also surprisingly hard to find a decent new laptop these days. About a week ago I started at a new company, and was asked to find a laptop that I wanted. The cheapest one with a 1TB SSD was ~$2000, and the cheapest one that would be decent out of the box was a $1300 Dell. Instead I ended up getting a $600 gaming laptoo with a decent CPU, and installed the RAM and SSD myself for $450, ending up with a far be…

The only gaming laptops I’ve seen that weren’t vastly inferior to both every Mac currently sold and also the EliteBook line from the OP in terms of battery life and portability costs between 3.5-5 times what you said you paid. Mind sharing what make and model you got? Thanks.

MSI GV62 7RD-2030NE.

The battery time seems to be ~3-4 hours, which is more than fine when it's connected to an outlet 99.9% of the time. I prioritize decent screen size and a comfortable keyboard far higher than "portability".