Hey all.
I’ve booted Linux Mint Debian Edition and Arch on to a couple old machines including my old laptops. The performance is still rather brutal because these machines are so old and their battery lives are rough. They are also bulky and uncomfortable to carry around.
So, I’ve been thinking about getting a more modern laptop and putting Linux on it but I’ve been out of the laptop market for so long now I have no idea what’s good and what’s not anymore. Any recommendations?
I think I’ve heard decent things about Chromebooks but how’s the hardware of those? Are they relatively locked down and don’t play nice with Linux? I’m just looking for a machine for daily use (browser, light coding, remote connecting to my desktop for heavier stuff)
Thanks in advance
Framework. Check the refurbs shop and get a great deal.
Stay away from Chromebook anything unless you get it for free.
Seconding Framework, they make great laptops.
Highly recommend getting one with an AMD processor, as AMD drivers are built into the Linux kernel updates. Driver updates will just work without you having to think about them.
This is the same for Intel variant Framework boards.
+1 for the framework laptop. Have had zero complaints with mine. Framework also has some guides on their website for specific Linux distros if an issue comes up.
And just echoing another user here: AMD is better supported for the Linux kernel. Speaking from personal experience, I have used both an Intel based and AMD based system with no real issues
The one single thing I can’t stand about my Framework is the lack of S3 suspend, meaning I regularly have my laptop completely run down in situations my old one never would, even with its worn out battery. Unfortunately that’s not Framework’s fault and there’s nothing you can get with S3 if you want a newish CPU
Came to say this. My 13 amd is a champ. Got my refurb and it’s brand new, I see literally 0 scratches or blemishes on it.
chromebooks are often well built with good keyboards at prices monumentally lower than comporable laptops, whilst being powerful enough to run linux well
you can quite easily get linux on almost all chromebooks, even arm ones (mrchromebox and postmarketos are references to look into for that) (postmarketos for arm stuff)
I have an hp chromebook g7 that I paid less than 20 dollars for, which has a good keyboard and is performant enough for firefox and typing on swaywm. it’s worth so little and is so light that it can just live in my backpack without worry. it’s also able to be charged from a normal usb c phone charger, supports usb c display output, and has a low power celeron that absolutely sips power
you can get much nicer chromebooks for cheap too if you’re into that, including some with unibody aluminum chassis and high resolution ips displays, all at prices less than even bottom barrel pc laptops
Used thinkpad is an easy choice. If you want new, I’ve been very happy with the framework 13
Old ThinkPads
My old Thinkpad from work runs Linux Mint like a charm. I tried dual-booting with Windows 10/11 for awhile and it was soooo sluggish. I deleted the windows partition entirely. Any use case I needed Windows for I’ve either run successfully on Linux or found a significantly better alternative.
Stay away from Chromebooks. Even if you get a Chromebook that is reported to play well with Linux, there can be issues. I have/had two different Linux Chromebooks. They both had unique pitfalls.
I had an arm-based Chromebook that was actually the development target of a custom distro. At its best, it still required a fairly specific wifi dongle to work without kernel hacks. Even then, the processor was slooow and storage was a bit of a problem if I was using it for anything other than text editing.
I’m running an intel-based Chromebook these days with Arch. The biggest bottleneck is the built-in nonupgradeable storage (16gb). Most of my home folder is symlinked to an SD card that I keep in the slot at all times. It works well and has great battery life, but there are easier ways to play with linux on a laptop.
Frameworks are the best modern laptop by far imo.
I use Framework 13 with AMD for my Linux laptop, love it. I do not want to go back to any other brand.
I would go for Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 AMD or System76 Lemur Pro. Not a cheap option, but supports Linux well.
Only thing I dislike about the T14s is that you have to dissassemble everything to replace the keyboard. On the T14 it’s so much easier.
My daily driver is a 10yo Dell business laptop. Before that I ran a similarly aged Lenovo. I run mint.
In my experience, the amount of ram and an SSD are the biggest contributors to how good the performance feels. Running mint on 4G is possible, but performance is comprised. 8G is perfectly fine most of the time. 16G (my current setup) is peachy keen. I’m astounded what I can do in blender on a 10yo machine.
That said, if you can afford one (and they operate in your country - they don’t here), then grab a framework, like others have said. If that’s not an option, then add some ram and an SSD.
My 2c.
A refurbished Lenovo T14 or T16 should do it.
Loving my T480 I got recently. Performance is meh but upgraded the memory to 32g and works good enough. Plus it was cheap on craigslist so I don’t have to worry about it too much.
Gonna have to anti-recommend tuxedo unfortunately. Never had a “Linux” laptop before and never had any issues, but two of the newest Infinitybooks have a number of issues with fan control, clock sometimes stuck at 800MHz, weird-ass Ethernet NIC with no upstreamed drivers and so on. It’s like a trip to 15 years ago in terms of weird little issues popping up every now and the .
The tuxedo kernel modules are a mess and not currently upstreamable, their interfaces are inconsistent across lineups/generations which they solve by building a unified Electron monstrosity “control center” on top.
The idea is nice but any mainstream manufacturer works pretty well these days, and the Schenker laptops with tuxedo software not up to par :/
I’ve Pulse 14 with plain Debian installation and so far didn’t notice any issues. Though admittedly, I’m not a heavy laptop user. Your mileage may vary I guess.
Were you using it with their custom OS, or did you try to install something else like Linux Mint?
Not often mentioned, but Surface Laptops run Linux thanks to Linux Surface on Github. I’ve been running Mint on a Surface Laptop 4 13.5" for years with zero problems. Used and refurbished models are much cheaper than the other options mentioned here.
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Positives - Excellent display and keyboard, nice form factor, very light and thin, comfortable fabric cover on keyboard bezel.
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Negatives - Smaller SSD (256g), limited ports, larger display bezel, reportedly somewhat difficult to disassemble, initial Linux installation a bit of a pain.
13.5" models with I7, 16g and 256g ssd are going for around $300 on ebay.
I have a Surface Go 1 and I’m really happy with it.
But, I have to admit it was tricky to boot Linux on it and the blutooth doesn’t always work. The cameras too, but I don’t care.
Still, it’s a great device that you can attach to a big screen to get the best of both worlds (easy to transport and useful at home).
Some Bluetooth/wifi adapters are a real[tek] pain in the ass. The adapter in my HP laptop is constantly trouble and well known for it, but the Intel adapter in my Surface works without any issues at all. At some point I’ll replace the Realtek in the HP with an Intel.
I agree it was somewhat cumbersome to set up Linux initially, but the excellent guide by the Linux Surface folks on Github made it just a matter of following the directions. For me the biggest annoyance was having to use a USB keyboard and mouse until the Surface kernel was loaded. The good thing is once the kernel was loaded everything just works and has for years.
What is the battery situation like?
The older, cheaper devices are obviously, well, older and thus the battery degraded a bit. Linux isn’t exactly optimized for these things either. I would expect less than great battery life.
The battery on my 3 year old AMD model lasts 6+ hours on a full charge.
I have a surface pro 6 and I love it.
You should, however, mention that the cameras do not work (yet), which makes this a no-go as a full laptop replacement.
It wasn’t mentioned because the camera works on the Surface Laptop 4.
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Installing Linux bare onto a Chromebook involves unplugging the internal battery (or buying a cheap special USB thing) to disable the hardware write protection and flashing a custom BIOS. Some models have issues with basic things like sound output not working through speakers or headphones or both. From experience I don’t recommend.
If you still really want to though there are two websites that are really useful and should have up to date information.
I have a Thinkpad T480 that I’m very happy with. I believe it’s around 7 or 8 years old, but it works great. Unlike most laptops, it doesn’t have soldered RAM, so it’s easily upgraded. One downside is that most units don’t come with a lot of storage, so you’ll probably want to get a larger drive. I spent around $200 on mine plus another $100 for the SSD. It’s a great inexpensive laptop that’ll last for years.
I’ve shopped around for a 12+ hour Linux laptop, I think you should wait a little while to pull that trigger, Qualcomm isn’t exactly great /w Linux, RISC is currently tripping on its own laces and people just aren’t interested in making this kind of thing exactly, yet.
I’m guessing that in a few years a lot is going to change with low power laptops that can still compute efficiently.
I have a 5 year old laptop that when I set it to highest efficiency can get almost 4 hours as long as I’m not doing 200 things, which is fine most of the time.
Plus I’ve read in a bunch of places that putting standard Linux on Chromebooks is way more complicated than it ought to be, so I’m not sure I’d pull the trigger on that without first researching the specific laptop you’re looking into.
Not that I’ve tried personally, just the Internets.
Framework
Yeah, I am thinking about getting one of those too, but I’m probably going to wait for the next generation before I buy one.
Unless they have a flash sale before the next release ;-)
Check their Refurb store.
