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Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

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Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#131

Post by blacksnowden »

fhood wrote: post #98

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…

LOL. You said " hipsters and white girls " still cracking me up. I use an Asus g60vx gaming laptop for linux. Been running Ubuntu with gnome desktop on it for years. Ive tested alot of linux live boots with that laptop and they all work. I would recommend getting any laptop with nvidia gpu. Linux has a apt-get install driver for most of nvidia gpus if not working after desktop environment installation.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#132

Post by wprapido »

guys, don't you find a 13in or even worse 11in screen too small to code on? regardless of resolution and DPI. i've worked on pretty much any screen size between 10in and 32in and anything below 15in is way too small to code comfortably. for office, communication, everyday use, 13in is just fine though

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#133

Post by gshulegaard »

eximius wrote: post #100
gshulegaard wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

sethish has some comments about the Precision M3800 I think (he mentions Thunderbolt and the 13 only has mDP), but here is a short list:

- Keyboard drivers (phantom keys, double key registers, no registers). Keyboard was basically unusable until kernel 3.19. - Synaptic PS/2 mouse drivers. Like keyboard, mousepad was unusable until 3.19. I still can't use it with tap-to-click because palm detection is so bad. But that is ok for me since press to click is my preferred anyway. - Power management was awful (again until 3.19) - Misc. usability problems - mDP/external display connectivity issues - Suspend/resume issues

Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. At this point I think I have a stable machine, but with some quirks...but as a Linux user I sort of expected quirks so they aren't deal breakers for me anymore. Still, I would recommmend M3800 over the 13" DE.

Oh one more:

- Sometimes PS/2 drivers report mouse movements as touch movements (I have touchscreen)...this means using Chrome is impossible since moving the mouse "scrolls" as if you were on a touch screen.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#134

Post by alfiedotwtf »

izym wrote: post #58
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. My Dell XPS 15 is running at 3840x2160. Unfortunately, there's a few quirks: - Wireless drivers broken in Jessio (unless you build your own kernel) - UI elements are EXTREMELY small (you have to set DPI before window manager starts) Apart from that, it's an awesome machine

How well does the touchpad work under Linux? Also, how is the battery life and GPU switching? I'm currently deciding between the XPS15 and waiting for the rMBP refresh, and the XPS15 is seriously tempting.

Zero issues with the touchpad. It just works.

Battery life is awesome. I could probably go 6-7 hours, haven't tried though as I'm mostly connected.

As for graphics drivers, it's shitty at the moment. There's no native acceleration is I haven't bothered to recompile kernels as it doesn't concern me (it's a work machine).

Someone else will be getting the same machine soon, so I'll wait for him to be my guinea pig.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#136

Post by bpizzi »

sampo wrote: post #117
bpizzi wrote: post #38

My Thinkpad T440S from 2014 works almost great under Ubuntu 14.04. Everything's going properly (keyboard, battery, etc) but the Wifi is not. Seems like a RTL8192EE isn't a linux' first class citizen :/ Btw I tried different distros before sticking with Ubuntu 14.04: it really the most finished (at least on my t440s).

Realtek RTL8192EE was the default wifi card in T440s. It would have been clever to choose a configuration with an Intel wifi card, which was also available. The current model, T460s, comes with a Intel card by default. The driver for the Realtek card may have improved by now: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1239578 Another solution is to buy a suitable Intel wifi card from ebay for $10-$20, open…

Yes that was also my conclusions afterwards...

But things have improved thanks to https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new (I stumbled upon that while doing a quick search after posting here yesterday...). Looks like my wlan is finally stable :)

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#138

Post by phatmanace »

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.

Does anyone have one of these? - I've been thinking about getting one as a slightly "occasional" larger laptop for longer trips - I have an 11' air that I take to work every day thus I don't really want to shell out for a macbook pro just to get the 15inch screen

Speccing up the triton with the HD screen and a bit more Ram is GPB500, which seems quite reasonable for a decent machine for programming and the odd bit of web surfing.

The review linked here looked quite positive, but I'd been keen to here from someone that actually has one.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#140

Post by Raed667 »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #25

My Asus UX305 (I have the previous Broadwell based model) was able to install Ubuntu with no extra configuration. The battery life, storage, and matte IPS screen are excellent and the device is extremely thin and light. The overall build quality is comparable to the MacBook Air but it costs half as much. The trackpad works very well. I bought it a few months ago for $600 from the Microsoft Store (irony acknowledged).…

How long does the battery last in moderate use ?
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