Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#21

Post by keithpeter » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:27 AM UTC

secure wrote: post #4

Most computers with an Intel GPU are fine. The ThinkPad series is very popular and thus well-supported — note that I am only talking about the “original” series, i.e. ThinkPad X and T, e.g. the X230 or T430. Personally, I am running a ThinkPad X200 since 2008 with nearly no software problems.

Agreed. Recycled ThinkPad X200s with Intel on board graphics, everything works, I'm running Kubuntu 12.10 at present. This hardware has worked with CentOS 6.x as well.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#22

Post by vu3rdd » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:27 AM UTC

Thinkpads have worked extremely well for me. I hear a lot of great things about Dell XPS 13 Developer laptop which was recently launched.

My Thinkpad T510 has an nVidia chip but it is quite nicely supported by the Free nouveau driver.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#23

Post by ollyculverhouse » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:31 AM UTC

gioele wrote: post #12

How about a Samsung series 9? Has anybody on HN tested one of those? Searching around the net shows that there were small hw issues but they have been fixed in latest kernels.

I am typing this on a Samsung Series 9 (900X3C) with Ubuntu and it is pretty good. All drivers were preinstalled and it is a fantastic looking device. I had to fiddle to get a few of the fn keys working however other than that, it is fine. There is an issue with the battery status which is a bug with acpi (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi/+bug/971061). However I would highly recommend this combo and the Ubuntu wiki really helped (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SamsungSeries9).

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#24

Post by royunprofiled » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:31 AM UTC

As far as my experience is concerned, the graphics card drivers tend to give problems, irrespective of nVidia or AMD. The Intel solutions are stable, heat up a lot less and get the job done, in case you are not into some serious graphics processing. The wireless card may be another issue, Broadcom support has recently been built in into the kernel, but out of box support is still not there(you need to download the firmware, which is proprietary). Rather, go for an Atheros card, which has much better support. The rest of the hardware should not be an issue. Had experience with a lot of machines, including Dell, Acer, HP, Asus, MacBooks as well. Have found the systems with Intel graphics to be most stable and usable. One particular system you may want to look into is Dell Vostro, though am not sure of the Wireless Card in it.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#25

Post by ronreiter » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:34 AM UTC

Macs, the old Thinkpads and Samsung series 9 have very good hardware. I would stay away from the rest.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#26

Post by vassy » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:36 AM UTC

I'm quite happy with Ubuntu on my Lenovo X1 Carbon.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#27

Post by ratherbefuddled » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:36 AM UTC

eLobato wrote: post #8

I have an Asus as well, I'm on 13.04 and my card is a NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 635M with 2GB DDR3 VRAM. Bumblebee seems to work well with the latest nouveau drivers, I normally use the intel chipset for everything but playing Counter Strike. I spent a lot of time trying to fix this as well but nowadays it's pretty easy, for me it was just installing the xserver-xorg-video-nouveau driver from xorg-edgers then bumblebee and…

If only it wasn't limited to 768 vertical pixels.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#28

Post by Samuel_Michon » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:36 AM UTC

Derbasti wrote: post #20

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #17

Most people I know who use Linux on a notebook have a MacBook Air or a 13" MacBook Pro. Same for the tech conferences I attend. All Mac notebook models have Intel HD Graphics 4000, which performs well and has good support on Ubuntu. The other hardware in those notebooks plays nice with Ubuntu as well, like WiFi and sound – no hacks necessary. http://www.maketecheasier.com/install-ubuntu-12-10-in-macboo... http://www.…

Be aware that the multi-GPU models are not as great though, since BIOS emulation mode does not allow for graphics card switching and the bigger GPU uses a lot of battery.

True, having a second, dedicated GPU isn't as useful as it once was, given how good integrated GPUs have gotten. OP, take note: only the 15" MacBook Pros have dual GPUs.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#29

Post by mablae » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:39 AM UTC

I would say I current Intel based Thinkpads are great.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good laptops for Linux right now?

#30

Post by fdr » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:46 AM UTC

malteseunderdog wrote: post #6

Look at project sputnik from Dell

I would like to second this. It's imperfect, but a lot of the fiddly bits -- hot plugging monitors, web cams, et al -- work, and the bug reporting and fixing is tracked:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/dell-sputnik

That's also a reasonably good overview of what bugs are on the system. I recommend sorting by 'bug heat', which is probably the best idea in all Launchpad.