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Comment by alex_smart | Hacker News Reader

> You first option is to buy a laptop with linux preinstalled

I have earnestly tried for >20 minutes trying to find such a laptop with any reputed manufacturer in my country (India) and come up empty-handed. Please suggest any that you can find. Even with Thinkpads, the only options are "Windows" or "No Operating System".

>Your second best bet is to read tech reviews.

Which tech reviews specifically point out linux support?

>Playing regular videos worked, and you can always lower the quality if your situation doesn't allow the higher qualities

The issue was never about whether playing the video worked. CPU video decoding uses much more energy and leads to your laptop running hot and draining battery life.

Can we at least agree to reduce the timeframe for things working flawlessly to "less than two years" instead of "a decade"? Yes you were able to go to the toilet downstairs but the toilet upstairs was definitely broken.

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"Thinkpad linux" with region set to India on DDG yields many results, including https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/d/linux-laptops-desktops/

If buying with Linux is not an option at your place, you can always buy one of the many models found with this search without OS and install it yourself. Most thinkpads should be all right. Most elitebooks should do. Dell laptops sold with Ubuntu somewhere on the planet should do. I'm afraid I can't help nore, you'll have to do your search. Finding out which laptops are sold with Linux somewhere should not be rocket science. I don't buy laptops very often, I tend to keep my computers for a healthy amount of time, I can't say what it's like in India in 2025.

> Can we at least agree to reduce the timeframe for things working flawlessly to "less than two years" instead of "a decade"? Yes you were able to go to the toilet downstairs but the toilet upstairs was definitely broken.

No. I understand that it can be a dealbreaker for some, but that's a minor issue for me on laptops, even unplugged, and I do watch a lot of videos (for environmental reasons I tend to avoid watching videos in very high resolutions anyway, so software rendering is a bummer but not a blocker). There are still things that don't work, like Photoshop or MS Office, so you could say that it's still not flawless, still, that doesn't affect me.

>many results, including https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/d/linux-laptops-desktops/

Many results, including a US-specific page of the Lenovo website.

>If buying with Linux is not an option at your place, you can always buy one of the many models found with this search without OS and install it yourself.

>Finding out which laptops are sold with Linux somewhere should not be rocket science.

It should not. Given the amount of time I have already spent on trying to find one, it is fair to say that there are none easily available in India, at least in the consumer laptop market.

> I understand that it can be a dealbreaker for some, but that's a minor issue for me on laptops

Stockholm syndrome.

> Many results, including a US-specific page of the Lenovo website.

Are you failing to see that this US-specific page gives you a long list of models you can consider elsewhere?

> Stockholm syndrome.

Yeah, no. It just appears I have different needs than you and value different tradeoffs. It appears that the incredible comfort Linux brings me offsets the minor inconvenience software rendered browser video playback causes me.

I'm done in this discussion, we've been quite far away the kind of interesting discussions I come to HN for for a few comments now.

> Stockholm syndrome.

Stockholm Syndrome was bullshit made up on the spot to cover for the inability of the person making it up to defend their position with facts or logic, and...that fits most metaphorical uses quite well, too, though its not usually the message the metaphor is intended to communicate.

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