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

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#71

Post by vise890 » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

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.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#72

Post by INTPenis » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

nxzero wrote: post #46

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…

>> "Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, who uses Fedora on all of his computers." Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_(operating_system) Be interesting to know what hardware Linus use, though given security is a low priorty for him, not sure what this would mean. Personally, I would like to know if the gen4 ThinkPad X1 Carbon (hardware, bios, firmware, drivers, etc) have any know exploits or notab…

I think Linus switches semi-often because as others have pointed out I've seen him with MBA's and OpenSuse.

I however enjoy Fedora very much and part of why I made the switch from Debian fanboy to Fedora convert was because I learned how to use SElinux and found it absolutely charming. ;)

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#73

Post by neverminder » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

Google Chromebook Pixel 2015 LS. If Linus Torwalds himself choose Pixel at some point - it cannot get more linux laptop than that. I understand Pixel is getting some (minor?) upgrades this year as well.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#74

Post by INTPenis » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

I get an unlimited supply of thinkpads from work as it's our defacto laptop given to employees. I still bought my own personal X230 though because I think the Thinkpad is a great format for work.

However, it cost about 1354 USD here in Sweden and I'm not too happy with the resolution. It's enough for two vertically split python files, but it could be much better.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#75

Post by lake99 » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:38 PM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #64

ericlee4 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More recently a Sony Vaio Pro according to this interview. http://www.businessinsider.com/linus-torvalds-qa-2014-6

He had a Chromebook Pixel before the Vaio. Wonder what made him switch.

I bet people give him tons of stuff for free.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#76

Post by 0x006A » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:40 PM UTC

glogla wrote: post #70

99182912912 wrote: post #47

Does OS X have decent virtualization? I want the Mac book displays but I only need OS X to run a Linux VM.

Yes. Look up vagrant for nice and easy virtualization management.

compared to the options on linux its rather limited.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#77

Post by erelde » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:40 PM UTC

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).…

I have the same and concur no issues with debian, and about the HDMI, it's infuriating because on the same chassis last year, it was a full size HDMI...

Someone just chose to change that particular port.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#78

Post by jimmies » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:41 PM UTC

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 smooth, 1080p resolution IPS, the battery lasts 10 hours, never gets hot, fancy back-lit keyboard, has 8 philips screws in total to take it apart. Hell, it even has a TPM module so I can do those fancy ssh password-less logins (https://github.com/ThomasHabets/simple-tpm-pk11). If you really like the clit mouse, then this machine wouldn't cut it though. The speaker is kinda iffy and doesnt sound very nice, but nowhere bad.

It is also only 500USD, so that's another factor.

Pic: http://imgur.com/FRynGSw

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#79

Post by smacktoward » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

I've been carrying a 2013 ThinkPad X1 Carbon for a few years now, running whatever version of Ubuntu is current at the time.

Overall it's been a great machine; most everything Just Works™, and in the rare cases where something doesn't the large community of Linux-using ThinkPad owners has made it easy to find out how to fix it.

There is one absolutely glaring exception to this, though: power management. For reasons I've never been able to figure out, and despite what feels like endless tinkering with power management settings, I've never been able to get more than 2 hours and change out of a full battery charge, which is (IMO) unacceptable.

Now that it's getting on three years old I've been thinking about replacing it, and the natural thing to do would be to buy the newest X1. But I'm worried that I'm just going to end up with another machine that's constantly needing to be tethered to the wall again.

Re: Ask HN: Best linux laptop right now?

#80

Post by Kalium » Fri, Apr 15, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

I've got a Dell Precision 5510 with supported Ubuntu that's been good to me so far. I had to argue with a keymapping or two, but it's been solid otherwise.