Hey, I wanna know your preferred laptops, used is better and to run Linux on it. Something with at least 16gb and 512 SSD is good. Budget range. Thank you!
If you’re on a small budget, look for older ThinkPad laptops, you can get them for good prices and in good condition and Linux works very well on them.
For mid-range try to find an older Dell XPS 13, they sold those as certified Linux devices nicknamed “Developer Edition” and with an Ubuntu LTS version preinstalled. I have one of those and I run Arch on it. It runs perfectly fine. Also: superb build quality! It’s a very great device.
Thx
Not all Thinkpads work equally well. For the best experience, get an all-Intel one, from one of the more expensive business lines, like the T-series. Consumer models are definitely worse, because employees of big Linux-using tech firms are getting the pro models.
So it’s preferable to take a x, p or t series?
I personally went with a P15 model and have been beyond happy with mine. Got that numpad too 🙌
I bought an E595 back then and it works great. But I dont know how the actual E series behave. There werent also no problems at all with Linux. More important is the question which wifi module you choose, and mine had one from realtek (there were no Intel Option sadly) and the wifi performance wasnt that great because of that.
I haven’t kept up with all the various lines they’re up to now, but that looks about right. Also obviously doesn’t hurt to google the exact model. Someone I know got an old tabletty Thinkpad with a touchscreen (don’t know what model) and on that one the webcam doesn’t work on Linux, so something like that can happen.
What problems with AMD Ryzen? I’ve been happy with them, except one that had excessive power drain on suspend.
Maybe it’s fine with now, but I looked into a Ryzen Thinkpad a couple of years ago and Linux users reported problems with something (maybe power management?).
Also note that Thinkpads up to a couple of years ago (when soldering RAM became a thing) are mostly trivial to open and upgrade RAM / drives, so you don’t have to care about those and can pick up a bargain (look to T480 at the moment (not the TN screen tho), or whatever is 3 years or so old, as that’s the corporate fleets that are getting dumped onto the market).
And decently easy to repair / have repaired at a computer shop, wether its the battery, RAM, CPU, keyboard, screen, or any and I mean ANY of the external connectors!
A “factory seconds” framework 13 might fit your budget, and you get a laptop that is easily repairable and upgradeable. The 11th gen i7 version that starts at $500 is what I have been using for a couple of years now and still runs great.
They also have refurbished laptops, but those seem to start a little bit more expensive.
Love my 11th gen framework, but there is an issue with the 11th gens where the CMOS battery will die rather quickly. If it does die then the laptop needs to be plugged in to turn on, even if it is fully charged. Framework is aware of the issue and will send a free replacement battery or, if you can solder, a mod that will eliminate the issue for good.
Still love framework and would definitely recommend them - but the 11th gen line (their first product) has a few gotchas
I often skip first gens hence why I got a 12th gen and then upgraded it to a 7040 series. Super happy with the battery life and performance.
I’m thinking about buying a Framework 13 myself, but I worry the keyboard will be a huge downgrade on my current ThinkPad T480. Are the Framework keyboards any good?
I have no complaints with the framework keyboard, is there a particular issue you’re concerned about? The track pad is almost apple quality. Certainly better than most laptops I’ve used.
ams
No concerns, just that a bad keyboard can completely ruin a laptop for me (XPS being one). It’s all subjective I guess. After posting the above I came across an entire thread on the subject, most saying the keyboard is good enough. Anyway, I ordered a Framework 13 after reading those comments. Thanks for the reply.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but you can use pretty much anything you like, as long as it isn’t brand new or extremely old.
Even stuff with Nvidia GPUs and stuff.
Even MS Surface devices work decently.Thing is, for a really smooth experience, where you don’t feel like a second class citizen, and everything works ootb, proper support is advantageous.
I have a Dell XPS laptop, and it works fine. Sometimes, the WiFi switches itself off, and I have to restart the connection, but other than that, everything is flawless.
Thinkpads are great too, since they are also used heavily in offices, where they get thrown out or sold cheaply. Maybe ask there.I personally would recommend something that you can repair yourself, or at least change the battery and memory.
I wouldn’t recommend macs in general. Anything with a touch bar (intels from ca 2018-19 and on) are tricky to get to run Linux at all, anything with apple silicon is very experimental, and the older models have Broadcom Wi-Fi that doesn’t ship with drivers on any distribution I know of.
This is a pity because MacBooks pro from ca 2013-2015 are great; cheap second hand because they’re out of support in macOS, good screens, excellent build quality and fast enough for anything you want to do with them.
They’re cheap because the battery is just about old enough to become a danger pillow.
Sure, but a new battery isn’t that expensive
Not entirely true, I’m running Ubuntu on MBP 2017 (non-Touchbar). WiFi works out of the box, only touchbar models have problems. They are using another antenna. Only thing that doesn’t work out of the box are FaceTime webcam and sound. There are drivers for those. One thing to note tho, Intel MBP especially those thin ones can get very hot and fans might blast.
Thanks! I thought the problem was the T2 chip and I thought the non touchbar macs had them too, but it’s been a while since I looked into this. I have a machine with a broken touchbar that could plausibly run something that isn’t macOS and was very disappointed when I realised I essentially had to install special distros with some kernel patch or something on it.
Thank you
ThinkPads are my go-to. I just got an X1 Carbon Gen 9 (i5, 16GB) for $350 and put Fedora on it after upgrading the SSD to 1TB. It’s a beautiful laptop.
Of course, there’s the tried and true T480. Love that thing, especially if you get the right display panel and touchpad upgrades. Swappable batteries, upgradeable RAM. Those laptops can be had for cheap on eBay. Also check r/hardwareswap or the Discord for ThinkPad deals.
XPS 13 units can do well with Linux, too. I’m just a ThinkPad fan.
Definitely. I got a T470s that had barely been used for business purposes on eBay for 100€. It’s a great machine. Lots of I/O, great IPS touchscreen, great backlit keyboard, great trackpad, great build quality, awesome form factor, good battery life (about 6-8 hours). If you need a cheap laptop, get a used ThinkPad. They’re the best bang for the buck imo
I’ve been wanting to find an alternative to Thinkpads since Lenovo bought them, but despite them not being what they used to be, I just haven’t been happy with any alternatives. I’m hopeful for Framework improving on their modularity, and the System76 in-house design that’s in the works has me intrigued.
Right now I’m looking forward to their eventual redesign of the Z series. I doubt they’ll do it, but I’d love a light workstation class version of the Z16, with slightly higher end graphics, and a vapor chamber. I’m also hopeful that they work on Linux support for their ARM offerings, and bring back the X13s that they offered with Snapdragon 8 a couple years back.
I only had bad experiences with an XPS, then I found out that the Linux model was a cut down version so that Dell didnt have to support the fingerprint reader and other gadgets.
Lenovo at the time were working with Fedora to get all their fingerprint drivers upstreamed so the choice seemed obvious.
AMD T14 Gen 2, and it’s still great.
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What kind of battery life do you get out of it? I have the Gen 7 and from day one it’s been awful. About 4 hours brand new.
Few years old Dell laptop, they are incredible, even easy to open and repair, parts available everywhere, BIOS update even after 5 or 6 years.
You can buy a few years old Latitude for maybe $200, 14", i5 8th gen, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, wifi, bt, webcam, usb-c, name it.
Being 8th gen it runs win11, but they also run Linux pretty well, I’m running MX Linux (debian based) on them and everything is supported.
I’ve had good experiences with most modern Dell Laptops. Also Thinkpads. What’s “budget range” to you?
Wouldn’t go really beyond 600 bucks And old or new thinkpads?
New ish. My current Thinkpad is a P14s Gen 1 with a Ryzen 4750U 16GB of RAM, and it came with a 512GB SSD. I paid just under $300 for it on eBay and well worth the cost. I wouldn’t get anything that is still a TXXX variant anymore though (e g. T490), they simplified the product line. So T490 was replaced by the E14 Gen 1, and the P14s Gen 1 is an AMD variant.
Highly recommend. One thing worth noting though is to double check the fingerprint reader if you desire that, the E14 Gen 1 has a reader not compatible with Linux in a functional way. The P14s Gen 1 however does.
Fingerprint readers are definitely hit or miss… If you care make sure it was originally specced for linux (usually at least Red Hat), then you’re probably good for any distro.
They’re pretty insecure anyway, my current P14s Gen1 has a working fingerprint reader on Silverblue but I haven’t really used it.
And do you a t14 is worthing it?
I haven’t used a T14, just the E14 and the P14S.
HP EliteBook 840 G5 or other EliteBook models. Even on Debian everything works fine after a clean install (including special keys), they never die and have a pleasant design. You can get one second hand, modern i7 (8th gen +) CPU + 16 GB of RAM for around 500€.
My HP envy x360 AMD with Fedora here. Build quality is really good and the laptop has a nice design.
I’ve been a ThinkPad fan for a long time, but their new stuff bothers me. I picked up the HP DevOne which is essentially an Elitebook and I really like it. Very user serviceable and solid. The only think I don’t like is the glossy screen, and when playing around and configuring another model I think it was difficult to tell if it was matte or glossy through their marketing speak.
In the past, ThinkPads, but my next one will probably be an ARM-based one for the performance and power efficiency (e.g. Snapdragon X Elite).
there is a x13s arm thinkpad that can run pmos and other distros
its also snapdragon based
i like my laptop cause i already have it, and have gotten to know it quite well over the past 16 years, but i wouldn’t recommend it. it would be nice to have more than 4gb of memory these days, cause i can’t have too many tabs open on firefox without it bogging down.
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In a similar vein, I went with a Framework laptop. Expensive, but 100% modular and repairable, with an in-house secondhand marketplace. I have a gen 1, batch 2, and the thing is stunningly manufactured for a startup. Can’t say enough good things. Happy hunting!
I have heard mixed opinions about this brand, are they really that good?
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i bought the tuxedo nano (a mini pc but decently powerful), and its not 100% linux compatible. i imagine its better if you install their own distro (maybe) but running arch linux with the standard kernel on it, i’ve had issues with HPET/TSC (some cpu timekeeping stuff, ruined performance when it happened), the wifi card it came with is known to have issues and i’ve had plenty (usable, but super slow bandwidth depending on what AP i connect to, and no its not the AP all other devices work fine on it), and some lockups when my usb microphone is connected (sometimes it only crashed the usb hub which i could reset).
NONE of these issues are present running arch linux on my old desktop and 2 work laptops. Support wasnt helpful either.
However, its still my main device, i just had to work around these issues.
edit oh, and the fan is not controllable from linux at all, i’ve spent hours trying to find a way. i do not know if it’s controllable from windows either, maybe it’s just the mainboard that doesn’t allow fan control at all outside of the UEFI settings.
I bought a tuxedo laptop about 2 years ago. I’ve only had one issue with it, where it would go to 100% fan speed for about 2 seconds after turning it on. Other than that I’m really happy with it ☺️
I did have a couple of issues with a model with an nvidia video card, but the tuxedo tech I got in contact with took great care to troubleshoot the issue with me and report the issue up to the Dev team that works with nvidia. So compatibility may not be 100% but the service is great. Now I got no more issues with it.
My “budget” until my new laptop was “hey you just got a new pc? What was wrong with your old one? Slow as hell? Can I buy it cheap and tinker?”
Friends/family always give me the best price especially when they think it’s just “too old” and think I’m crazy, they don’t know the problem is windows.
When it comes to expensive laptops, there are plenty of good options for Linux. But for cheaper stuff, your best bet might be a second hand DELL, a model that specifically says that it supports Linux (newer models use some new Intel webcams etc that don’t have support on linux yet).
I bought a ThinkPad new in 2014 for my study for like 1200 euro’s. She’s still happily purring today. Around 2019 I made the mistake of emptying a cup of tea into the ThinkPad accidentally and then holding it upside down to get the water out. I think I should’ve just let it leak out of the bottom since the laptop has holes for that, but I panicked. This broke the keyboard, but not the rest of the laptop. I got an official new keyboard for like 100 euro’s which came with a tool and the simple instructions, and since then everything has been working flawlessly.
So I recommend ThinkPads, although I can’t really say anything about compatibility of new models
Anything that’s not an HP…
I don’t know what it is with them, but I always have problems with their hardware - generally. Printers, laptops, anything…
But I definitely +1 all the Dell comments
Did you ever try an EliteBook? Even on Debian everything works fine after a clean install (including special keys), they never die and have a pleasant design.
Dell Latitude 5000 series are usually bought by corporations for employees. They are made of sturdy metal, and have features like backlit keyboards and physical trackpad buttons. Then, after 2-3 years, or if they have some minor problem, they end up in a giant stack that either never gets diagnosed, or just gets sent to recycling.
I have had fantastic luck getting a couple of these either direct from the company I’m working for, or from ebay or a company that recycles laptops. They usually don’t actually have a problem, and if they do, parts are readily available on ebay. You can end up with a high-spec laptop from just a few years ago for practically nothing.
