Buying a new computer to run Linux on - suggestions?
Buying a new computer to run Linux on - suggestions?
Hello. I have never used Linux before in my life, but this post isn't really about the software. I know there are many guides and threads out there explaining how to set up Linux for beginners.
My question is more about what computers you guys suggest for Linux. I don't have any old computers lying around at home, I only have a computer assigned by my school that I'll turn in next year. To my understanding, Linux should be able to work on almost all computers, so I haven't thought about a specific brand.
My top priorities are (in order):
- good/great battery life
- quiet
- compact and lightweight
Preferably a 13" or 15" screen, though I prefer the former. Just a small machine with a great battery life that also doesn't make much noise when several apps are open at once. I have looked at Asus before, but I'm not sure what the general consensus is of this brand, so I was hoping to get some suggestions. I've also looked at Framework computers, but honestly it's a bit expensive for me. My budget is ~1000$ (10 000 SEK).
Might be unnecessary information, but: I will be using this computer mainly to write documents, make the occasional presentations, browse the web, and watch videos and movies. So no photo- or video editing nor gaming at all. Like everybody, I hope to buy a computer that will last many years and survive many student theses. Cheers and thanks!
I will say that a second-hand ThinkPad is a great option. They can be real cheap, but you can also get a pretty decent new one for your budget.
You can likely find great T480-T495 that fits your needs really well.
I HIGHLY recommend against the T495. That thing has a great keyboard, fingerprint sensor, okay camera and mics, okay ports. But it is underpowered af, and Thinkpads always have the Thinkpad price.
It has a great chassis, but my coreboot Clevo NV41 has double the performance and kinda same battery life.
I'm farting around on a T480 for school and light retro gaming. Works great! Super easy to upgrade too
Another vote for the T480. I have a T480s running Mint and it's been lovely. No driver issues and for office/light media creation/consumption it seems to work without a hitch.
Agreed, I love mine.
A T460 is good as well.
I would vote against getting something like a T490 as it has one memory slot soldered onto the motherboard and it has the same processor as the T480 anyways iirc.
Look at frame.work they have good documentation about various Linux distros on their machines
I have, unfortunately they're too expensive for me.
Permanently Deleted
Their firmware updates are pretty late and they ditched coreboot.
But I guess the hardware is awesome. Keep in mind that these thunderbolt adapters suck quite some battery, so having a laptop simply with the ports you need uses up less battery. Also, the modularity may not be needed and causes it to be less stiff.
Used ThinkPad or Framework laptop should be a copypasta at this point.
If it were me, I'd first be looking at used Thinkpads (with the caveat to make sure the specific Thinkpad has hardware which is generally supported). I'd also look into Linux-friendly manufacturers, like frame.work or System76.
Ive had great success with their all amd systems, and older machines go on sale often, so you can score a Ryzan 6850 w/ 16GB of RAM for 700-800CAD if little else matters.
System76 or Framework
https://www.asus.com/us/laptops/for-home/zenbook/zenbook-14-oled-um3402/
22 hours battery life.
AMD.
Slim, gorgeous. Runs Linux like a champ.
I have bought only Asus for my last 4 laptops (previously I was Thinkpad), and I have never regretted any of them. Since switching from Windows to Linux earlier this year (Aurora-DX) I have had no issues.
If you want to go even smaller and lighter, this one is awesome but is Intel and doesn't have as long battery life.
Unrelated question: I like Bazzite, but I would really like to also have the Dev tooling of Aurora DX. Does Aurora use the same fsync kernel as Bazzite? Have/do you do any gaming on Aurora? If so, how has it been?
22 hours battery life
Not even Macs M series are getting that much.
That depends on where you live.
In europe I recommend Novacustom or 3mdeb if you want coreboot, Starlabs too.
In the US System76.
No Tuxedo?
Tuxedo has coreboot in some of their laptops afaik.
Their chassis' are waay better than the clevo garbage I currently have, but
coreboot >> design
Tldr Amd & amd
My mantra with Linux hardware is "as normal as possible."
I make sure it doesn't have certain brands of Wi-Fi card in them :/ miserable times with broadcom leave me wary
Buy a laptop from a vendor that preinatalls Linux. Not because you need them to do that for you, but because it means its more likely to work on Linux without issues.
I run Qubes, but I think this is a great list of Qubes-certified hardware
https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/certified-hardware/#qubes-certified-computers
To have one ready out of the box with linux maybe look at the System76 offerings? https://system76.com/
Edit: just got a chance to check and they are slightly above your $1000 criteria. So maybe on his recommendation.
Refurbished ThinkPad. The answer is always a refurbished ThinkPad
I've been thinking about this for a while, what's a good place to buy them, ebay? I'd be using it mainly for web browsing and playing sames through moonlight
I'm not sure, I got my current one through our tech guy at work, not sure where he gets them
Depending on your budget, I would suggest tuxedo‘s aura 15 gen 3. starts at around 800 bucks and is linux first and made in germany.
If you have a lower budget I would go used as someone suggested since a new laptop is nice but unnecessary if you have budget constraints.
Wish you tons of fun.
I've got a similar use case and went with an X13 Thinkpad (AMD). It's good for hardware support, but if you want a good experience for watching videos, I'd look somewhere else. The display and audio are not that good.
Permanently Deleted
Used/off-lease ThinkPad T-series.
I've just been through the process you've described and bought a laptop. Your budget is way overkill for your use (documents, browsing, video watching).
I recently bought myself a "like new" second hand Dell Latitude (5300, I think), 8th gen i7, 16GB Ram for £150 and it is amazing with OpenSUSE.
I got my wife a new HP Aero 13 (Ryzen) a couple of years ago and even that was £580 brand new and has been great.
Consider the secondhand market. A lot of laptops will meet your criteria.
You're right. I actually bought my current Pixel phone secondhand, so I'll check out the market for computers. Do you know of any red flags to watch out for in secondhand computer ads?
I used eBay so I could get a refund if the laptop wasn't as advertised. I spent weeks looking at new listings looking for a good deal. I eventually found an amazing deal from a hospice that was selling excess stock. I've worked in a hospice before and know this would have only ever been used sparingly in an office and be very well looked after.
On eBay I would avoid anyone who hasn't written out a complete description and detailed pictures of condition and specifics. Like the other comment says, the BIOS being unlocked is very important. Read descriptions carefully. People fall victim to buying expensive things that can't be returned because it was mentioned in the listing (e.g. buying a box only for a very expensive price). For any laptop I find, I search for forum posts from other users about how that model works with Linux and videos for a teardown to make sure that RAM, WiFi module, etc can be upgraded. Make sure the charger is included.
Search eBay for "8th Gen 13 inch 16GB", then sort by lowest price for buy-it-now. That's what I did for a number of weeks. Got one for myself and a great one for my dad as well. Good experience both times.
I wouldn’t buy a used MacBook from an individual seller unless I could meet in person to verify there’s no BIOS/TPM lock going on that would prevent me from doing a secure erase and wiping the SSD to start fresh. A laptop with a replaceable ssd is probably less of an issue, but I’d still feel more comfortable having a picture of the BIOS showing no password set or anything, and a picture of it booted to desktop at minimum so you know it isn’t a stolen laptop that has a password no one knows. If you’re buying from like a second hand recycler or something, anyone that sells through significant volume of devices, I’d be much more comfortable just pulling the trigger sight unseen.
If money wasn't an object I think I'd get a Framework but I've always had a good experience with Lenovo for a more budget-friendly option. My last two laptops have been Lenovos and have both worked super well with Linux.
System 76
Their laptops ain't as good as their Desktop which are premium from what I gathered from comments
The laptops are Clevo devices. However, Clevo does make good hardware and most models run coreboot.
If you can afford it they are a solid devices. I like the metal body.
If I had to replace my Linux laptop right now, I'd probably go for a ThinkPad T14 AMD. They also sell them with Snapdragon ARM chips now, which is a very interesting option, though I'm not sure how viable as a daily driver.
You could run Linux on it with no issue ofc, but I wonder how good the support for ARM arch from common Linux software is nowadays...
If there's a decent (even online) used market where you live buying a refurbished computer that's just a few years old can be amazing bang for your buck. 9th-11th gen Intel or Ryzen 2-4th gen. Any of the more business focused lines tend to be fairly well-built and are designed to be relatively long lasting while being relatively well-maintained during their service life. HP Elitebooks, Dell Latitudes, Lenovo Thinkpads, etc.
Check out https://laptopwithlinux.com/ - new or used.
I've had a lot of thinkpads and currently use an ideapad flex 5. I prefer the smaller form factor for a portable machine I take travelling or out to biz meetings etc. The autorotate and touchscreen work great in Debian with gnome-shell out of the box. No pinch-to-zoom but I believe that works on KDE plasma out of the box.
ideapad flex 5
Like this one?
Same shell, mine has Intel CPU though
I love my dell 5300 latitude with fedora. Touchscreen, 13 inches, super compact. And a dime a dozen as you can find used enterprise laptops on eBay/Facebook market.
Slap a large nvme in there and you're good to go for like, under 300. With the leftover cash, you can even get a docking station and monitor if you wanted a dank setup at home.
I'm a thinkpad guy but how are these dells for everyday use with Linux?
Dell Latitudes and Precisions support Linux pretty well.
Ya, like jolly rouge said, they're pretty good. I have had an occasional issue where the track pad didn't want to work after waking the PC up. But otherwise it's been bullet proof. All the hot keys work no problem. I haven't had any of the weird "can't wake from suspended state" issues I've had with older PCs. I basically leave my laptop plugged in next to my desk and it's ready at a moments notice. I use Windows for gaming and work btw. But I've even installed Valheim on my laptop just to see if it would work and it totally does. No complaints on fedora. I used endeavor on it as well and I want to say even pop is. Just a bit of distro going there, no reason I ditched the other two other than just preferring fedora in the end.
Go team red would be my advice.
Old Intel systems are solid as well. Something 2022 or older
I would get a Thinkpad, either used or new, with that budget. Generally all the hardware will work out of the box, with the possible exception of the fingerprint reader if it exists. RAM and SSD should be replaceable, so if you purchase new just do the upgrade yourself to save some bucks.
Sounds like you need a higher end chromebook. I used Mr. Chromebox to load linux onto my Lenovo.
I personally love my Framework 13. Not sure if the battery life is up to your standard, but the new models are plenty enough for me.
Get a Librebooted Thinkpad T440p or similar and then upgrade it (SSD, 16gb ram, etc).
Get an Apple, thinkpad or dell.
The main thing that determines if a computer can be repaired is parts availability. Those three have great parts availability almost universally.
If you wanna run macOS you need a Mac. The t480 is a good recommendation for thinkpads, but don’t worry about ssds or ram yet, just get the one with the processor and display you want (it’s the midrange 8th gen ones). I don’t know the dell world enough to make a recommendation but someone will do so.
Use the gentoo and arch wikis to check what problems people have out of the box with whatever model you’re looking at.
People will say you need amd. This is either paranoid or based on recent events. Neither apply to you.
People will say to get a framework or some equivalent. They’re expensive and a moral/ethical statement. This doesn’t apply to you.
I can reccomend huawei laptops with metal chassis. I've had my matebook x pro for around 6 years. My past laptops made of plastic disentegrted over time
I will be using this computer mainly to write documents, make the occasional presentations, browse the web, and watch videos and movies. So no photo- or video editing nor gaming at all.
Then go for a Raspberry pi 3. (No, not rpi 4 or the rpi 5 one). It's cheap, with a power draw low enough to leave it running 24/7 (it will not increase your energy bills by the slightest). Downside is that you'll have to learn some Linux "tricks" that will (definitely) "grind your gears", but eh.... it'll be a fun ride if you are willing to lose some sanity for the sake of enjoying a "It's like nothing is happening to my power bills at all!" power of the convenience it'll bring to your life and your lifestyle as well.
I think its reasonable to assume that they'll want to easily be able to take it and use it in different rooms
Rpis can be as mobile as (or even more than) a laptop.
That's not a laptop and even if it was the raspberry pi won't work with stock Linux. You need a custom kernel.
Ummm, good luck. When I tried to use Linux on a new machine I built and had a bunch of problems, people on the forums told me to wait six months for someone to write drivers for the components.
I built an amd system with Nvidia graphics card in 2019 and it works fine. Wi-Fi Bluetooth Ethernet 144hz display etc all work fine.
LOL. Got totally down voted for simply explaining what happened. Glad it worked for you. It didn't work for me. This was probably 10 years ago. I made a dual boot system and the internet simply wouldn't work in Linux, so I had to keep booting into Windows, research, then switch to Linux to implement. Lather, rinse, repeat.
If Windows 11 is as bad as they say, guess I'll be experimenting with it again.