
What are good linux laptops for 2018? - reconbot
I&#x27;m a developer who&#x27;s getting a bit sick of the high price of apple laptops. Their hardware used to be more reliable and I could justify the price for a great trackpad (the best I&#x27;ve ever used honestly), good battery life and OSX. I realize though I spend most of my time in chrome and the terminal and in theory I could be spending a lot less for something almost as good. (Maybe something with a better keyboard?)<p>It&#x27;s been years since I&#x27;ve looked at the PC ecosystem and I frankly it scares me. I have no idea what&#x27;s a marker of quality and what I can trust.<p>What are good linux laptops for 2018?
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meguest
I have a Dell XPS 15 and to be frank I would advise against it.

Good points:

\- Strong hardware

\- Looks nice

Bad points:

\- M2 SSD requires changing some BIOS preferences to work on Linux

\- Nvidia graphics card is a pain on Ubuntu. Do a Google search for
nouveau.modeset

\- The fans are on most of the time, even during idle. The machine isn't hot
either - it just likes to run the fans

\- The 1920x1080 screen isn't that great and a "4K" option is quite expensive

\- The carbon-fibre looking plastic looks cheap and is a magnet for finger
prints. It does not look good and is difficult to clean

\- It's not a great machine to move about with. Mine weighs almost 2KG

\- No Ethernet port unlike a T470. You need a USB adapter

~~~
dozzie
My company-supplied Dell Latitude 7480, running Debian stable with its stock
kernel:

> \- M2 SSD requires changing some BIOS preferences to work on Linux

No BIOS fiddling, except for disabling Thunderbolt security for docking
station to work (external monitor, network card, USB ports including keyboard,
second sound card (though no volume control here)). But this is because Linux
kernel doesn't support it yet.

Or maybe I did change its "RAID" to something that's not a lie, I don't really
remember.

> \- Nvidia graphics card is a pain on Ubuntu. Do a Google search for
> nouveau.modeset

Mine has Intel. I had no problems with running it.

> \- The fans are on most of the time, even during idle. The machine isn't hot
> either - it just likes to run the fans

Quiet most of the time.

> \- The 1920x1080 screen isn't that great and a "4K" option is quite
> expensive

1920x1080 gives way too small bitmap fonts on a 14" screen. I'd rather have
1280x800 or similar, but nobody ships that resolution anymore.

> \- The carbon-fibre looking plastic looks cheap and is a magnet for finger
> prints. It does not look good and is difficult to clean

The plastic seems OK, but maybe I don't know what to look at.

> \- It's not a great machine to move about with. Mine weighs almost 2KG

1.5kg

> \- No Ethernet port unlike a T470. You need a USB adapter

Ethernet port present.

~~~
meguest
7480 looks like a much better Linux machine than the XPS I have. I should be
switching to a ThinkPad next week!

------
frankensteins
Here's my experience. If you develop everything locally, get a decent laptop
with Ubuntu or Windows 10 Pro.

Windows 10 Pro Edition comes with WSL, a Linux subsystem which is pretty
decent for my deep learning implementation and small scale test. With Xming, I
can do some visualization as well. There will be downsides. If you get a
laptop that just comes with Ubuntu or any Linux distro, you are good to go.

If your development is cloud based, Google is push Chrome OS into a Linux
friendly direction. Chromebooks are pretty good choices, price-wise,
functionality-wise and portability-wise, you name it. At the time of writing
(July 20s, 2018), Pixelbook and a few more Chromebooks receive the support of
Linux container. More will be supported.

~~~
ddp
I haven't used it enough to know what its limits are but there's a lot to like
with Windows Subsystem for Linux running either Ubuntu or Debian. Compared
with macOS, it's current (apt-get to your heart's content), as opposed to
macOS' terminal environment, which is hopelessly out of date. I really like
what Microsoft is doing here.

~~~
rahulroy9202
What do you mean by macOS' terminal environment is hopelessly out of date?

~~~
acoard
Not OP, but guessing it's things like having Python 2 instead of Python 3
installed out of the box. It took them forever to update to Git version >
2.0.0 too.

------
nieksand
I'm typing this on my Lenovo T480 running Ubuntu. Here is a little review I
wrote after a couple of days with the machine:

[https://reprep.io/writings/20180621_lenovo_t480_linux_review...](https://reprep.io/writings/20180621_lenovo_t480_linux_review.html)

I ended up installing NVidia's proprietary driver which let me disable the
MX150 and use the Intel video card instead. Machine seems to run a little
cooler since.

I was pleasantly surprised that Ubuntu auto detected my network printer. It
also played nice the first time I plugged into the RJ45 port.

I'm still underwhelmed by the audio quality of the built-in speakers. It's
sufficient for video conferencing, but it's a little sad when playing music.

Another minor annoyance is that when restoring from suspend, the laptop
briefly flashes the previous desktop before showing the lock screen.

------
stevesimmons
I bought the new Dell XPS15 with 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and Nvidia GPU the week it
was released, and straightaway installed Ubuntu 18.04. It is powerful enough
to last me three years and the price was good.

I am mostly happy with it - superfast, great screen. The two problems I had
were when installing the Nvidia drivers, plus the fans stay on more than I
think they should.

Rather than waste hours trying to solve these, I have decided to wait
patiently and see what the community and Nvidia come up with.

Would I recommend others to buy one? Yes, though perhaps wait a while if any
of your key requirements are not yet fully supported.

~~~
nvr219
I went from Latitude E7200 series to XPS15. I love it except for:

1\. The webcam placement is terrible. If I'm taking notes during a call,
everyone else gets a great shot of my fingernails.

2\. I have to carry dongles for Ethernet and HDMI.

~~~
bhouston
You can get a combined dongle like the Dell DA300 that combines Ethernet with
VGA, HMDI, and DP (if you are doing customer presentations you need all three
unfortunately.) That is what I use rather than carrying around a couple
different dongles.

------
brianolson
Pretty happy with my System76 Galago Pro with high-dpi display. It's small and
light and has a really crisp screen.

That's my home machine. At work I have a 2015 MacBookPro. Comparing the two
the only downside of the System76 is a trackpad about 70% as good and heat
management design isn't so great so the fan spins up more and louder. (and the
fat bezel around the screen, but whatever, the pixels that are there are good)

------
eat_veggies
I put linux on my x1 carbon (gen 5) and it works well enough. Some notes, in
no particular order:

* great keyboard

* kind of shit trackpad

* trackpoint is pretty nice at least

* hidpi is a pain in the ass to set up

..* looks great once you get it working

..* some apps like Zoom refuse to scale up, so the buttons are tiny

* light weight

* really long battery

~~~
spleeder
Setting the QT_SCALE_FACTOR=2 env var does the trick for Zoom on my end.

~~~
eat_veggies
Thanks, I'll try this out next time I need to video call!

edit: good stuff, it works!

------
benbenolson
Buy a T-series Thinkpad. They're sturdy, have really good Linux support, and
even the older ones are extremely robust. Look for an older one, such as a
T420; or, if you want a newer one, the T480. Those are going to have easily-
replaceable memory, battery, and storage.

~~~
yoz-y
T series Thinkpads only come with U class processors. This is fine for many
usages but depending on what you want you might need to go for the P-series.

~~~
noir_lord
T470P didn't, I'm typing this on a Core-i7-7700HQ w/32GB RAM and the
2560x1440@14" screen.

Cracking little machine for massively less than an Apple machine with a faster
processor and until recently twice the max RAM the 'Pro' could have.

~~~
yoz-y
It looks like Lenovo did not make the T480P models. Hopefully they will still
get to it. I am in a similar situation to the OP. Currently it looks like the
only option is the Lenovo P51, however it has a numeric keypad on the
keyboard.

~~~
noir_lord
The i7's available for the T480 are quite different to the ones in the T470 so
perhaps they don't need to.

The i7-8550U benches about equal to my i7-7700HQ in real world use at half the
TDP (so better battery life) though I'd be curious to see how it holds up
under load for my workloads so perhaps they won't bother with a T480P, I've
not seen any rumours so far.

------
syntaxing
I have a x62 and it's an all around great Linux laptop for development (but I
only code for fun, YMMV but I read good reviews using it in professional
environment). I built it myself and it honestly was one of the funnest hands-
on project I had in a while. Reminded the fun I had when I first learned how
to built my own desktop.

------
Phrodo_00
I haven't tried them personally, but there are linux-specific vendors puri.sm
and system 76.

~~~
bo1024
A vote for Purism's Librem line. Not for all use cases, but great if the specs
fit what you're looking for and your support of freedom and control makes it
worth a bit of flexibility.

------
cyberprunes
System76. I have a 2017 Oryx pro. Its fantastic. Not perfect, nothing is but
as a developer it’s the best laptop I’ve owned. The specs trounce anything
Apple.

System76 is also one of the only companies that sells machines that is
committed to Open source, linux and hardware. They recently released their own
Linux distro Pop_OS!. Its a really well put together Ubuntu based distro.
Great design and continuity.

They recently opened a factory and are designing and building their machines
in house. You get lifetime support.

I don’t work for them but I really can’t say enough nice things about them.

They are worth a look.

1.

~~~
Gys
Thank you for this. Looks very interesting !

------
Nelkins
I use a Thinkpad X1 Carbon as my daily driver with Ubuntu and it works well.
My main advice is whatever laptop you choose, make sure there is good driver
support (unless you really like tinkering).

------
zwarag
Hands down: T,W,X,L-ThinkPad-Series from Lenovo are IMO still the sweet spot.

The keyboard is the best, the trackpad is ok but far away from macs, the
battery life is meh but good enough with an extended battery.

But what I value most is: it's a sturdy thing. You will not break it as easily
as other laptops. It will not get hot and burn your legs. Most models can be
opened, cleaned and upgraded. Depends on the Model, but you can get ALL the
ports you need! And, AND the freaking docking station. I have one at home and
one at work and I just put the Laptop in the Docking station and I get all the
ergonomics of a desktop Computer (because of external screen and so on). It's
true, they are not what IBM used to build. But as I said IMO still the best
for people who want to get stuff done and value hipness very little.

XPS are cool and all but for me it's more for people who value the hip parts
of a mac, like shiny and cool, but fundamentally they only got the better
looks.

------
kabdib
I've been using an Dell XPS-13 with the Dell-provided Ubuntu for about three
months and it's pretty nice. The trackpad is the best I've used on a Linux
machine (still not as good as the Apple trackpads, but lots better than others
I've used). Everything (sound, wireless, etc.) works across a system sleep. I
still find the UI janky compared to MacOS or Windows, but it is bearable.

A year ago I tried setting up a vanilla XPS-15, wiping the Windows install and
doing my own Ubuntu setup, and gave up hope after a couple of weeks that I'd
be able to make the trackpad not suck, or for sleep to not screw the system to
the point that it was easier just to shut the machine down every time instead
of sleeping. That machine was also fairly heavy (normally I don't care much
about that, but it was definitely noticeable).

------
pixelmonkey
I wrote a blog post about my (good) experiences with the Lenovo x220 and the
more modern Lenovo X1C 4th Gen / 2016 edition here:

[http://www.pixelmonkey.org/2017/09/01/lenovo-
linux](http://www.pixelmonkey.org/2017/09/01/lenovo-linux)

Hope it helps.

------
totalperspectiv
Any of the Chromebooks that have gotten linux app support. I have an ASUS Flip
and it's fantastic.

------
diyod
Apart the Thinkpad and the XPS lines already mentioned there (almost
exclusively), don't put aside the laptop line of Xiaomi (specifically the Air
and Pro models).

They are suprisingly well supported on linux, in addition to being very good
all-around ultraportable at a small price.

------
ioddly
I bought a refurbished Thinkpad X230 earlier this year and I'm very happy with
it.

What tipped me over the edge is the repairability and modifiability of the
laptops. After an ASUS laptop broke and I was only able to fix it because some
random eBayer was selling a working keyboard, I swore off non-business
laptops. There's a whole community of people who do nothing but mod Thinkpads,
and companies that just refurbish ones (which have often been sitting in some
office somewhere and are in great condition). Linux runs fantastically on it
as well.

As for the trackpad...well, it's not great, but I use the trackpoint which
I've always preferred. The keyboard on the other hand is amazing.

------
godot
I recently set up a personal use Linux laptop. I picked the Lenovo Ideapad
720s. There was a good price and I really like lightweight and thin laptops. I
set up Antergos on it and am a very happy user now. I run VS Code to work on
side projects and work in both nodejs and php/apache and everything works
flawlessly.

The setup itself involved a lot of gotchas, I wrote a post about it:
[https://medium.com/@bigilui/installing-antergos-linux-on-
a-l...](https://medium.com/@bigilui/installing-antergos-linux-on-a-lenovo-
ideapad-720s-amd-ryzen-dual-booting-with-windows-10-1ac8e2bd94a6) Hope it
helps if you decide to do it.

------
bubblethink
*30 series Thinkpads (ivybridge) have the broadest support across all OSes (windows, Linux, BSDs, even some hackintoshes). If you don't want a new laptop, you can get one of those for cheap. General advice: Don't get anything with nvidia.

------
orteam
I'm quite happy running ubuntu on hp spectre x360 15 2017. Good build quality.
I was surprised that the rotating touch screen and the tent/notepad modes work
so well with ubuntu. Had to fiddle with bios during install to handle the SSD,
ended up removing windows. The MX150 graphics card is not in use, but I guess
if I were gaming I would find a way to use it. It's not a cheap option, but
was way cheaper (roughly half the price) than the equivalent MBP.

------
hbogert
T480s. No weird issues with the laptop itself. The Thunderbolt dock can be
finnicky. It loses USB of the dock sometimes; that's about it. Kernel patches
are underway I believe. Thing is an absolute joy under linux. Don't get me
wrong, it excels in nothing. But it's 4 out of 5 for everything.

\- Battery is fine

\- Weight is fine

\- Dimensions are fine

\- You can add a ram stick for 24GB total (8GB is soldered on).

\- Thunderbolt

\- Fan management is fine.

\- Thermals are almost fine.

\- Exception: The speakers are embarrassingly bad.

For context, I came from a Macbook Air 13.

------
tartrate
Another few weeks old Lenovo T480 user here.

What I like: 32GB RAM option. No dedicated GPU. Good trackpoint and great
keyboard. Arch runs like a charm.

Note regarding the batteries: Internal and external battery, both easy to
exchange. It however drains the most healthy battery first (down to 5%) before
it starts draining the second one. I'd rather have it always drain the
external battery first since that one is easier to replace.

------
Lordarminius
They hardly get any credit, bit HP laptops are cheap, sturdy and play very
well with Linux (or at least Ubuntu)

~~~
Shelnutt2
I just got a HP x360 15z, AMD Ryzen 7 (2700U), Vega 10 GPU, 16GB ram, 256gb
SSD and its working great so far. You'll need ubuntu 18.10 or some other
distro with kernel 4.16 or newer for GPU support. Wifi is in kernel 4.14 LTS.
I've got gentoo running with sway and its quite swell.

I have a very minor cosmetic defect from manufacturing, but HP is allowing me
to send it off for repair or get a complete replacement. I choose a repair
since it can be done in under a week compared to 2-3 weeks lead time on a
replacement.

------
eplanit
I have always used Thinkpads without issues or regrets. Very reliable. I have
a P70 now that's great.

------
a-saleh
Ever since I have worked with RedHat, I really like the standard-issue lenovo
ThinkPad. I am writing this from Fedora linux on T470s.

But the best idea probably is to just get what your friends/coworkers are
using :)

------
ishbits
I currently have Fedora 28 installed on a T470 and a T480s and it’s pretty
flawless. Not the sexiest laptops out there, but they seem pretty good for
Linux.

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kaffee
I've been really happy with the Lenovo X260 and, were I in the market today,
would get an X280.

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imauld
I have a System76 Lemur and I love it.

I imagine the other models are also pretty good.

------
TheSmoke
everybody is asking about linux laptops but i do really would like to switch
to freebsd. are there any good laptops that work well with freebsd?

~~~
earenndil
Not directly an answer, but you'll find a lot of stuff on the internet
suggesting that intel integrated graphics don't work; as of freebsd 11.2,
almost all of them do! Specifically, support was added for broadwell and
newer, through drm-next-kmod.

------
vimcat
How about Surface pro? If you are interested in AI, reading Math book many
times, surface helps you a lot. I think its for Math/AI laptop

