If you're in Europe, I can recommend Tuxedo Computers. They specialise in making Linux based computers, and are highly configurable.
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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The Asus Vivobook is a good deal.
But as an American you might be able to afford the Framework.
Buy a used Dell Latitude. They are business laptops that often get put up on eBay, so you can get them for $200-$750 depending on how old you're willing to buy.
I’d say Framework, but I don’t think they have stuff under $1000 unfortunately.
I'm relatively happy with my System76, but based on your needs you could get a lot of value from a $500 used ThinkPad on Ebay.
Ooo, what do you like about System76? I know they're well respected, but I'd like to hear about it from somebody who actually uses the hardware, especially since Pop!_OS has caught my attention more than once
The main thing I like is the hardware support. I knew before purchasing that everything would work, and that helped me feel okay dropping a pretty penny on a new laptop. Besides that, I'd say they're fine. They aren't designing and manufacturing their own hardware (at least not back when I bought one); the laptops are pretty standard off-the-shelf stuff. System76 just promises that it'll all work out-of-the-box. I've never used Pop!_OS, so I can't speak to that. Arch and Debian work great, though.
The only negative I can think of is: once the battery started to go after several years, they didn't have a replacement in their store, but because it's a generic laptop, there were new ones available on Amazon. It just would've been nice to get it from System76.
All-in-all, I'm a happy customer. I'm keeping my eye on Framework, though. The MNT Reform is also interesting. I don't like how thick it is, but that's because it uses 18650s for the battery, which would solve the problem of buying a new battery just to find that all the batteries were manufactured at the same time, so there are no working replacements.
Their battery can be replaced with any battery? How to do that? Other manufacture OEM battery?
@letbelight
18650s are a standard size. Several companies make decent ones.
It's like taking AA cells, but lithium.
@delial
My laptop still runs Ubuntu. But the 500 mb boot partition is basically now non functional and since I use luks on the main partition and hate snap I’m just strongly considering moving to pop. I also use an egpu quite frequently.
Ahh, I see. Well, what's your experience with the hardware itself, then? Specifically the durability, weight, etc.
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I've been running Debian 11 and now 12 on an HP EliteBook 840 G5 (i7 8550U) and everything works out flawlessly out of the box. When I say everything I really mean everything, even special keyboard keys for brightness, volume working after install. Battery lasts way longer than under Windows and the computer runs much colder.
I have been using a framework 13 for a year now, happy with it so far.
I have a Darter from System 76 with Pop!_OS as my personal laptop that I code on and I absolutely love it. It runs extremely smoothly and I've not had any crashes with it.
I also have a Lemur from them with Ubuntu for work and it's kinda meh. Is difficult to say what causes the issues I have. It may just be the corporate tools but I end up having hard locks that require a reboot.
If you go with them I strongly suggest Pop! The distro is built for their hardware and works really well.
I bought a new thinkpad t14 for $900. I have arch and windows 10 dual booted and it's doing great
Any will do, just make sure it has Intel WiFi.
Eh, I run Ubuntu on my newish XPS and it has issues I've never seen with using Linux before. If I knew ahead of time I would've gladly paid a few hundred extra not to have these problems.
Specifically, sometimes the keyboard just stops working (after waking from sleep) and I'll need to restart once or twice to get it working again. Also, 5G wifi loses its shit when I'm at home due to it randomly switching between my main AP and the extender. I only use 2G at home 😔.
Just get whatever. Part of the fun is hacking it to get it working.
Maybe a slightly controversial stance, but consider straight Debian. With flatpak support in both Plasma and Gnome being stellar, you can have up-to-date apps with a rock solid base that runs on almost anything.
Novacustom looks pretty good. Wish it had amd GPU options but other than that the prices are right for the hardware.
I'm fairly new to Linux, but I quickly learned that AMD based stuff is better for Linux.
Oh, really? I knew AMD was more popular among Linux users, but I never really made the connection that it was better, lol. Thanks!
nvidia drivers on linux is troublesome. They don’t support their own proprietary drivers well and don’t share with the devs working on open source ones. As expected, you end up with two different feature incomplete drivers and it’s a huge hassle.
iirc you should be fine with an intel or and cpu and it’s just the gpu you need to be careful with, but my experience is with an amd cpu and nvidia gpu so I may be wrong
Im happy with my ROG Zephyrus G14, which I only chose because of decent linux compatibility and a sale at Best Buy.
I would say when judging the price of a laptop, whether it is Windows focused or Linux focused, make your decision based off of mainly hardware specs (and that hardwares linux compatibility). For example (assuming same price), if a Windows laptop has a great AMD CPU and GPU, I would take that over a Linux laptop with an equivalent CPU but an NVIDIA GPU.
My best advice is to read posts / watch videos of people using / installing / reviewing Linux on said hardware before you buy it. For instance, Asus ROG laptops (like I have) require a program called asusctl to control certain aspects of the machine that are usually controlled by Asus's proprietary software. I would not have known this if not for researching beforehand.
EDIT: I agree with another comment, used Thinkpads are awesome and usually old enough that there will be next to no compatibility issues with Linux. Also, they're tanks!
Ooo, nice! And yeah, buying a laptop without knowing for sure Linux is compatible would be a very bad idea, lol. As for ThinkPads, I'm highly considering getting one simply because of the price point, but used/refurbished stuff can be a bit of a gamble if it's from somebody who isn't credible
Thinkpads are a particularly solid option for used, as a lot of businesses buy them in bulk and they end up on resell sites (in better condition than most consumer used models). Like you said, just has to be a credible reseller.
They seem pretty nice, and I'm pretty sure it's the best route to go down for now. I'll probably look for some credible sellers later and make my decision then
Don't get an HP. Had one for work that I had to change to Ubuntu, and I couldn't find any compatible WiFi drivers somehow.
YEAH it sucks when drivers for hardware aren't Linux compatible (my current drawing tablet doesn't support it... RIP). I'll be sure 2 head ur warning about HP!