Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 71 posts

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

#31

Post by raphman »

microwise wrote: post #3

Personally I've found that HP and Dell laptops have good support for Linux, almost all the PC's I have tested have run just fine without any major pains

I agree. I have a Dell Latitude E6420. With its all-metal case it feels even more sturdy than the Thinkpad T-series. Like most Thinkpads, the E6420 has is easy to disassemble and upgrade. Except for the fingerprint reader, everything works out of the box on Debian. The laptop also ships with a pre-installed Ubuntu. Acceptable keyboard and display, touchpad+trackpoint, optional built-in Smartcard/RFID reader, VGA and HDMI port. It is also very silent and cool most of the time.

At first I was sad that I couldn't get a Thinkpad at work. However, after having spent one year with the E6420, I definitely prefer it over any Thinkpad and Macbook Pro I previously had.

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

#32

Post by girvo »

I've been on the hunt myself. I've decided upon the Dell XPS 13, because of Dell's Project Sputnik.

I'm picking up the older generation, can be found brand-new in-box for around $800AUD here in Australia.

Gorgeous laptop to be honest, perfect ultra-portable for my needs.

It's main con is that the LCD panel is a bit average. The new generation has a better 1080p panel, that is apparently brilliant, but I don't do enough graphics work or watch enough video for it to matter for me.

Hope it helps!

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

#34

Post by jnamaya »

I have a Lenovo W520 and its horrible for Linux....the dual card setup is crazy, I'm running Fedora 18 on that thing right now with the nVidia proprietary drivers, and has many issues but is the most stable setup I have gotten from Linux on this laptop..I also have a Lenovo T420 and no issues at all with any distro...please stay away from nvidia crap.

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

#37

Post by DArcMattr »

jnamaya wrote: post #34

I have a Lenovo W520 and its horrible for Linux....the dual card setup is crazy, I'm running Fedora 18 on that thing right now with the nVidia proprietary drivers, and has many issues but is the most stable setup I have gotten from Linux on this laptop..I also have a Lenovo T420 and no issues at all with any distro...please stay away from nvidia crap.

I have a T520 with the Nvidia graphic chips on it, and I have had an even worse time of trying to get the thing to work up to its supposed potential. The proprietary driver won't even work on the thing. Fedora/OpenSUSE is about the best I can do for it, with Bumblebee working. I can't even get PC-BSD to run on the thing, even with the Nvidia chips turned off in BIOS.

I'll make my next Thinkpad Nvidia free.

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

#39

Post by ciupicri »

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.

Speaking of Thinkpad http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki
Post reply on HN