5
Danacus
6y

What laptop should I buy to run Linux?

My experience on my desktop with Nvidia is just horrible, so I'm considering to buy a laptop with the new AMD Ryzen when I go to university next year. I'm a little bit unsure about the compatibility with Linux though. Should I go for AMD, or buy a laptop with Nvidia graphics and pray everything works fine?

Do you have any suggestions? I would like to be able to do some light gaming, but I don't want it to be to heavy and I don't want to spend to much money either (around €800).

Do you have any good or bad experiences with running Linux on a laptop?

Are there things I should be aware of?

Comments
  • 1
    Anything can run the Linux kernel. What distribution do you want to use?
  • 1
    I have a Lenovo y50-70 with Kubuntu, and have also used Ubuntu GNOME. Both works amazing, but it was like 900 euro
  • 0
    @joas Arch Linux
  • 0
    @inaba that one seems a little old, but I have considered Lenovo. It seems to be a decent brand.
  • 4
    I've heard Lenovo Thinkpads are reliable and last long, but you do you
  • 0
    @joas I've heard many people like them, but aren't they heavy? Or is that a misconception of me?
  • 1
    @Danacus It just depends on generation I think. Newer ones are lighter, if they are even made anymore.
  • 0
    @joas I took a quick look, they seem expensive for what they are IMO. I might have to look a little more.
  • 0
    I'm really not the person that should know about these since I'm not an sys-admin
  • 1
    @joas that's okay, thanks for the suggestion anyway
  • 1
    Friend of mine got a pretty powerful dell laptop that is like 13” and out Linux in that and has had 100% functionality edit: Ubuntu I should clarify
  • 0
    @jeeper I would love to buy a decent Dell laptop, something like the XPS. But I'm afraid these are above my budget. And there doesn't seem to be a lot of cheaper Dell laptops available in Belgium, but I'm not sure.
  • 0
    @theKarlisK Thanks for your advice!
  • 0
    @Danacus it was right at 1k usd. It was a 2017 model the brought in March 18. Not sure exactly what the model is
  • 0
    @jeeper 1k USD is easily around 1.2k here in Belgium due to taxes. That's a little too much for me unfortunately.
  • 2
    @Danacus you could probably do it for less. He wanted to dual boot and run visual studio on the Windows side and do it all locally, reasonably fast. So it’s probably over built for most needs
  • 1
    you can also buy secondhand refurbished notebooks.
    much cheaper
  • 0
    @stop Hmmm.... I think I'm to paranoid for that. I'd rather be sure when I spend my money.
  • 0
    Asus Zenbook can be cool aswell. I have one and it is perfect for linux. ( Excluded the auto light sensor which is suck on linux)
  • 0
    @dcode I found a zenbook, but people were saying it got very warm and that the fan is very noisy. Some vivobooks seemed interesting as well though.
  • 0
    @Danacus
    Sounds strange. Mine is cool thick and quiet like a macbook air, except it got an i7 and 940mx in it and supports linux well. ( Ofc it heating up while you play some game for an hour but nothing extreme. ) ux303ua is the model if you want to check it out.
  • 0
    @dcode hmmm yeah I might be wrong about that. There seem to be some great zenbooks available. Nice suggestion!
  • 1
    I bought a refurbished Thinkpad X1 Carbon for 600€, and it runs Linux very well!
  • 0
    @fthielen the x1 looks really nice! But it's to expensive and I don't like refurbished laptops
  • 0
    @theKarlisK No, I haven't, but I don't think I will. I just want a powerful machine
  • 0
    @zlice for games I'm mostly talking about stuff like Factorio.
  • 1
    I owned a Thinkpad E470 with i5 7200u and Nvidia geforce 940mx and everything worked well on Arch Linux. Earlyer with Ubuntu I had problems with drivers due to fking outdated software, but with Arch it was as easy as read the bumblebee wiki article, install some packages, set driver to nvidia, add myself to bumblebee group and nvidia optimus was working fine. Drivers hell is history (except you use debian and can't install latest drivers manual)
  • 1
    @git-fuckyou oh I got it for 700€ due to student discount and it has 8gigs of ram and 256gb ssd
  • 0
    @git-fuckyou I've found a Thinkpad I could buy today. Similar to yours. It's definitely one of my top. Just the fact it has an Ethernet port :D. No, it has an i7 and an AMD GPU. Looks really interesting, but I'm still not sure.
  • 3
    With a little effort and some understanding of computers, a Chromebook is great for Linux.
  • 1
    Don't bother with a GPU if you arent going to work with modelling or something similar, waste of money. Buy a lightweight laptop, after the first year you will hate walking around with a 4kg laptop everywhere.
  • 0
    @Stocken I know, but I think 2kg is fine, I just hate the idea of having to use Intel graphics, but I get your point. Maybe I just go for Vega. And isn't the Nvidia MX150 just a lightweight chip?
  • 0
    @Danacus okay, I don't get the logic of Belgian webshops. They claim that the same laptop with an RX 550 is just as lightweight as one without a dedicated GPU...
Add Comment