Ask HN: Best GNU/Linux laptop as of March 2014? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best GNU/Linux laptop as of March 2014?

14 pointsmattl18 comments

Starting a new job, on the lookout for a new laptop.

Ideally it runs with Intel graphics and Atheros wireless, with no firmware required. It'll run Debian.

I'm leaning towards buying another ThinkPad.

I can tell you which one not to buy. System76. Horrible keyboard and even though they recently re-designed the entire keyboard, the mousepad is still so large that it moves the cursor while you type because your palm touches the wide mousepad while typing. And Yes, that even when you have enabled the option "disable mousepad while typing". Horrible customer service. They will not refund the laptop for any reason. That is their policy. I did not know that. Really disappointed with them.

I will look at thinkpad or even a Dell XPS to be honest.

One of system 76's employees was on reedit a while back telling people that their ultrabook's touchpad was 'hands down' better than Apple's.

From what I've observed, the only people who can use sys76's keyboards are those of us that can't type more than 40wpm.

Interesting - I'm the reverse. I was just mandated with a "thou shalt" a System76 (Galaga UltraPro) by a client. I really, really wasn't looking forward to it.

Now, there are a bunch of things I hate like the trackpad size/position, and cheap plastic exterior... but other than that I've been shocked at how well it's performing. I've typed a few rather long reports on it getting great key rates in both LibreOffice and Office (under Wine).

Now that being said, the trackpad is truly awful. My dream would be to replace that sucker with the placement on "Darter Ultrathin". That one looks like it has great placement.

I will look at thinkpad

Sadly, the newer Thinkpads have been changed to use the giant trackpad and dropped the dedicated trackpoint mouse buttons. Plus most seems to have the "adpative" keyboard. Lenovo seems to want to be HP.

I have a Dell XPS15, running Linux Mint (never even booted the stock Windows OS) and have had nothing but good things to say thus far. It's light, it runs quickly (playing a good bit of Kerbal Space Program with my daughter) and it was relatively cheap (I got mine for $1100 last year). I'd recommend it to absolutely anyone.

Newegg link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834300...

I've got a Dell XPS L502X too, running CentOS. I bought it from Dell's outlet over 2 years ago for £583 while the same spec was listed brand new for £1100.

Overall it's a great machine: really like the keyboard, multi-touch mousepad, screen size and resolution.

The only downside is that now I play a lot less Microsoft Flight Simulator since it keeps crashing under wine.

I have a thinkpad t430s that I love. I got an ssd, and traded the DVD drive for a bay battery. I run ubuntu 12.04, and the only issue I have is that sleep stops working every 10-20 days. I restart it about that often anyways, so I haven't even tried to diagnose the issue.

I had read complaints about the screen, but I do mostly web development and I like the screen as well as any other laptop I've had. I am not a gamer at all, if that affects people's evaluation of screen quality. I like the trackpad just fine, and don't have any issues with the keypad.

My worry about the T series is that its a bit of a heavy machine to lug around.

How did you swap out the DVD for a battery? Did you buy it like that from Lenovo?

I too have a T430, and love it. Can't imagine that a lighter laptop would be able to achieve 8-9 hours(largest battery 9 cell i think) in a text editor with a 14 inch screen. I also swapped out the HDD for an SSD and removed the DVD and put the HDD in it(they make special caddies for HDD in DVD drive) which I take out sometimes because I like to thow my laptop around and dont want to worry about breaking the HDD. Myne was $820 from lenovo. Edit: also runs Linux Mint like a champ, all hot keys keys(FN) work, but I too get the problem with putting my computer in sleep mode for more then a month.

I'm running an old Viao X that gets 10-12 hours on the big battery and weighs in at a couple of lbs. Running ubuntu, but the processor is too slow for me to recommend today.

I ordered it with the stock DVD in. I think I ordered the bay battery from amazon. I'll check when I get home. It was an easy swap.

If you haven't heard this advice, I highly suggest you order the cheapest configuration you can from lenovo. Then order memory from crucial or newegg. You can save upwards of $100 over upgrading with lenovo.

I like the t430s form factor much better than my wife's MacBook Pro.

I believe this is the battery I ordered from amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Ultrabay-Battery-0A363...

It's about $25 more expensive directly from Lenovo:

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPo...

I'm also interested in knowing how did you trade the DVD for a bay battery. What are the specs (RAM, Proc, HDD, SSD, etc)? how much did you pay for it? EDIT: Asking more questions.

I paid about $900-$1000 altogether. I ordered the cheapest ram and hdd from lenovo. I ordered 8GB of ram from crucial, a 128GB ssd from crucial, and a bay battery from amazon.

I have not maxed this out at all. I think I will be happy with it for a couple more years.

It's referred to as 'sleep of death', my debian-running x230 also has it. Do you at least know what 'layer' of the system can be attributed to causing this? I haven't spend much time researching this myself either.

Lenovo G series. i5-3230M + 8GB. No extra graphics. Bought it without any OS. Installed Ubuntu 13.04, everything worked without tweaking, including the Skype client for Linux. Great value for money.

I have a thinkpad x230 that I like a lot. Very small and light but fast enough for hard core C development.

I use it plugged into an external screen/keyboard most of the time but I do work on it directly when traveling.

I've got a larger thinkpad with 2x the cores/ram and I rarely use it. The light factor is compelling for me.

Thinkpad, W series preferably. My W350 is running Wheezy without any issues.

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