
Best Linux laptop for web development? - thinkhuman
Looking for a solid recommendation of a reasonable, reliable laptop for daily development work in Linux (any distro). 15&quot;+ screen, 16gb+ RAM, good keyboard, good trackpad. Preinstalled Linux or Linux-compatible--basically, looking to move on from Macbook Pro and fully embrace my Linux love.
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snehesht
I'm using Archlinux on Thinkpad T440s with 8Gb ram and i5-4300U processor. It
usually gives me on average 5 hrs of battery and it's lightweight to carry
around.

The primary factors I chose thinkpad was due to 1. Battery backup 2. Awesome
Keyboard 3.I wanted 14inch screen size.

Answering your question, Even a chrome book would suffice for web development,
all you need is a browser and editor. It's really upto you to see which laptop
suits your need.I suggest you do this.. 1\. Write all the specs you think you
need like screen size, battery life, if you need a GPU or not, weight of the
laptop... 2\. Check the top brands (Lenovo t,x series, Dell xps, HP,
toshiba...) using those specs as filters and make a list of laptops you want
to finally choose from 3\. Go to a store and try those laptops out firsthand,
see how comfortable you're with the keyboard etc..

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vmasto
A browser and an editor is far from enough for web development. At the very
minimum you will need node.js at the very least for task managment and build
process, all the browsers and VMs to load IE and Edge testing plus maybe
Photoshop, or at least some kind of industry acceptable image/design software.

~~~
snehesht
Yeah definitely, but it's not really necessary to run them on your laptop. You
could simply vnc into a remote machine to use tools like photoshop etc. As for
nodejs or any other building tools they don't affect your choice of laptop.

If you need performance then you may have to sacrifice battery and weight. if
you need something you can carry around you have to give up performance as
your primary choice.

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pmags
If you're willing to give up a tiny bit of screen size for portability, I
highly recommend the Dell Latitude E5450.

* 14" 1920x1080 screen * Excellent keyboard (better than my 13" Macbook Pro) * Very usable trackpad * 6-7 hr battery life * RAM and Hard Drive easily upgradable * Works great w/recent Ubuntu-derivatives (probably other distros as well, but I haven't tried 'em)

I recommend you try and pick on up via Dell Outlet -- with an occasional 40%
off coupon (e.g. there's such a discount available right now) you can get one
for less than $450.

~~~
nickysielicki
I was just about to pull the plug on an E64XX laptop on eBay. Thanks for the
tip about Dell Outlet.

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thinkhuman
Reading through HN, I can see I'd better clarify: I'm looking for actual
recommendations of _specific_ laptops--not "buy a Dell", "Buy a Thinkpad",
etc. There are hundreds of each of those kinds, for example. I don't need a
brand recommendation.

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jdietrich
The Dell XPS 15 is one of the nicest PC laptops available. Thin, light,
powerful and available with a 4k display. Linux support is apparently very
good, with the caveat that there's an Optimus graphics chipset.

[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/)
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA_Optimus](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA_Optimus)

~~~
thinkhuman
Thanks, man. First link broken, though.

~~~
joombaga
[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd)

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erans
Most Thinkpads will work just fine out of the box. The hardware is great (I
specifically like the keyboard and the little red point mouse).

The T series (and W series) are the work horses here with various screen
sizes, disk options and RAM.

I personally use the X1 Carbon 3rd gen (X series) as it is comparable in
specification to a Macbook Pro 13" (I have the one with the 16GB of RAM). It's
a little costly but its worth while and will probably serve me for the next 2+
years.

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planteen
I use System76 though mine is a bit lower end than your specs. Their machines
come pre-installed with Ubuntu. The company is headquartered in Denver but I
think all manufacturing is in China.

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dragonorta
I'm curious about what is making you want to move away from a MacBook to a
linux laptop. I've been using a Lenovo G580 with Ubuntu for about 3 years for
web development at home, and a MacBook at work. I vastly prefer the Mac to my
personal Ubuntu laptop.

One of the reasons that I prefer the Mac is that the dev tooling is fairly
effortless to get set up and use. On Ubuntu, I'm often spending MUCH more time
getting tooling set up than on the Mac.

~~~
thinkhuman
I'm curious about your tooling issues. Anything specific you can share?

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gravypod
There is a good thing to remember about buying laptops: the more powerful the
CPU and GPU the less battery life.

If you want a good laptop, you can never go wrong with a thinkpad.

~~~
maxaf
+1. Also goes without saying that Amazon has lots of quality refurb ThinkPads.
They're priced accordingly but are solid machines nevertheless.

~~~
gravypod
Honestly you can't go wrong with buying some off craigslist. The same if not
better price.

~~~
maxaf
I do a lot of craigslist deals, and it's not for the faint of heart. Here in
NYC one has to be a bit street smart to avoid getting robbed or worse by a
craigslist buyer or seller.

Amazon is probably a safer place for most people.

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drakonka
I've been happy with my X1 Carbon running Fedora 23. I tried installing Ubuntu
first and ran into a bunch of problems. So far all good with Fedora aside from
having to add a boot parameter (intel_pstate=no_hwp), until there is a kernel
patch.

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edimaudo
I believe the DELL XPS line has what you are looking for.

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scriptstar
I would recommend [http://www.ubuntu.com/tablet](http://www.ubuntu.com/tablet)

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wprapido
i'm a happy dual-boot (win10 + ubuntu 14.04) lenovo W520 user. tried other
linux distros as well as freeBSD, PC-BSD, openBSD. never had any (at least
seriously work impacting) issues with hardware compatibility

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zumu
Google Pixel might be a good choice.

I currently develop in Linux on a much cheaper chromebook, and it's great.

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josemrb
I'm also looking to upgrade later this year, I suggest the Dell Precision 5510
or 3510

