
Best Ultrabook for Linux? - chashaz
Hello,<p>I'm a programmer and I'm looking for some recommendations as to what type of Ultra-book I should buy for myself. I use Sabayon Linux (Gentoo based) and I would mainly use an ultra-book for programming and perhaps some light gaming.<p>I'm looking for hardware that is fully supported / compatible on Linux &#38; I'm interested in hearing more about your suggestions.<p>Kindly note that I'm willing to make sacrifices regarding hardware incompatibilities with stuff like fingerprint reader, etc. as long as most stuff works fine on Linux.<p>Also I'm on a limited budget so I would prefer if the ultra-book doesn't come with a high price tag.<p>Thanks.
======
lordlarm
I see a lot of comments here recommending a Macbook Air and I wanted to inform
you, just so you are perfectly aware, that this computer does not even have an
ethernet input. Perhaps not a game changer, but it gives a picture of what
kind of features Apple has scraped away in order to reduce it's size.

Personally I would choose a Thinkpad, were I you.

~~~
pudquick
In addition, most non-OS X operating systems boot on Intel Macs using their
EFI BIOS emulation layer, which doesn't quite give you the native hardware
control that booting straight EFI does.

I work with enterprise deployed Macs and I'll tell you that most Linux
distributions, when booting Macs via EFI BIOS emulation, do not properly
control CPU and GPU power and tend to run them at full tilt. Apple's Bootcamp
drivers for Windows address this issue but Apple hasn't released equivalent
drivers for Linux.

The end result is that, if you intend to use Linux multiple hours a day,
nonstop, on a device as space-constricted as an Air, with CPU and GPU running
full tilt - yes I know when running in BIOS mode a Mac's fans stay permanently
at max speed - you are going to COOK that little unit.

I've seen it more times than I care for.

I'd -really- suggest looking at a different machine if this is your use model.

~~~
count
There are still linux distributions that don't do EFI? Arch and Ubuntu, at
least, run fine on intel macs, without the whole crazy power problem issues
you're talking about.

------
aeeeee
Last December I bought a ASUS U31 (U31SD-A1 Intel Core i3 2310M 2.10GHz 13.3"
4GB Memory 640GB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M) and I absolutely love it. I don't
know if the same model is available but I would definitely look into it if you
can find it. For Linux I use Mint and you although it uses the Optimus stuff
for video bumblebee works great. You don't need to run in NVidia mode to get
3D effects either I only use bumblebee to turn it off. I get 10hours+ of
battery life, the keyboard is awesome (chicklet style). I did replace the
internal drive with an SSD drive which makes it boot _much_ faster, less than
5 seconds. Also dual boot windows for games and the NVidia graphics are great
for that.

EDIT: removed some of my !!!!s since they made this sound like it was written
by a teenage girl. (I really do love this laptop)

~~~
maxs
Another vote for ASUS U31SD!!! (I am also excited like a teenage girl about
this laptop!)

I bought it for $650 from Amazon almost a year ago. It is not really an
Ultrabook. But, I think it is perfect. The screen size is a 13", it is
incredibly light, yet still has a full-size keyboard, all ports you will ever
need, and quite A LOT of power (4Gb RAM expandable to 8Gb, 2 cores, 4 hardware
threads). I use Ubuntu with Unity, with a lot of browser windows, a
heavyweight IDE (NetBeans), lots of terminal windows and it works very snappy.
It also never gets hot. The battery life is terrific.. 7-8 hours!

I didn't buy an SSD yet, but I intend to, in a few years when they get
cheaper.

I dual boot Windows for gaming, and I've even played some relatively recent
video games (like Just Cause 2, Mass Effect 3), with maxed-out resolution on
an external monitor. Works like a charm.

~~~
aeeeee
Nice! Happy to hear that there is another person running Linux. I honestly get
a good 10 hours (or at least that's what the power manager reports). It boots
so fast with SSD I don't think I'll ever go back :)

------
traxtech
The Lenovo ThinkPad X220 is really great, and it's also Ubuntu certified since
a long time (10.10) so it should be okay with others distros.

~~~
zdw
The X220 is the nicest non-Apple small laptop I've seen in a while.

It can also take an mSATA SSD, so you can load it up with a big spinning disk
for media storage, and a small boot SSD for the OS/apps/etc.

~~~
gcb
Every notebook in the planet can. You don't have to a) wait the manufacturer
to offer you b) pay the amount they ask

~~~
SamReidHughes
This isn't true. There are notebooks that have the slot inside but not the
mSATA support.

~~~
gcb
didn't know that. what do they have instead of SATA?

~~~
SamReidHughes
It's just the usual mini PCI-something slot that would hold a WWAN card.

------
bergie
MacBook Air (I have an early 2011 11" with Ubuntu and GNOME3) works pretty
well, though sometimes I have issues connecting to WiFi access points that
work fine on my other Linux devices.

Some notes about the setup: [http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/11-macbook_air-
the_best_computer_i...](http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/11-macbook_air-
the_best_computer_i-ve_ever_had/)

~~~
gcb
He mention price. Didn't he?

No matter how much you downvote me, it still will cost 3x more than another
model for the informed consumer. I know because all notebooks i have costs at
least 1/3 of the apple equivalent.

~~~
masklinn
> He mention price. Didn't he?

He also mentioned ultrabooks. Last time I checked, all ultrabooks are in the
Air's price range (give or take 10%, and not necessarily in the Air's
disfavour).

> I know because all notebooks i have costs at least 1/3 of the apple
> equivalent.

It might just be that none of your notebooks are in the same category.

~~~
gcb
Ok just read wikipedia to know that ultrabook is a Intel trademark. And that
it's not a beefed up netbook as i assumed.

So none of the 3 i have are ultrabooks.

And neither is the apple stuff according to wikipedia, so off you go
downvoting all apple suggestions here on the same base.

~~~
masklinn
> And neither is the apple stuff according to wikipedia, so off you go
> downvoting all apple suggestions here on the same base.

Feel free too, don't be surprised if you are badly received considering the
very blueprint for the "ultrabook" classification if the second-generation
Macbook Air.

------
eof
Not an ultra; but I was looking for something similar, I think to what you
were looking for.

Small, but still useable, light, fast, good build quality and hopefully cheap.

I did a alot of research and watched slickdeals.com regularly for deals and
ended up with an Asus 1215b with an E-350 processor. It comes with 2gb of ram,
but I put another 4gb stick (22$) to bring it to 6; and replaced the hard
drive with an ssd ($100).

all in all I have about 450 bucks into it and it's great. Everything works in
linux; but graphic drivers aren't quite upto snuff. With windows 720p played
fine; on linux it is sometimes jumpy; even with hardware acceleration.

It has no optical drive (a feature for me). It also has usb 3.0 which was a
must-have for me.

Main downside is that the touchpad has a flaw and you have to fix it yourself.
If you are going to put in an SSD anyway (and you should/have to) you will
beable to fix it while you are doing that. Otherwise its like a 5-10 minute
fix depending on how comfortable you are taking apart laptops.

The other big downside is that replacing the hard drive voids the warranty (or
at least, you have to break through a sticker that says if tthis sticker is
broken the warranty is void).

But all in all I am super happy with this laptop. The function keys work, the
wireless is solid; with an SSD it boots up in seconds; everything is lightning
fast. Only a dual 1.6 ghz so if you are doing lots of heavy compiling it isn't
probably not for you.

I have not done much gaming on it; I have played a little bit of heroes of
newerth on ultra low settings and it was playable.

~~~
keenerd
Odd. I have the Thinkpad equivalent (x120e) and I agree on almost all your
points except performance. 720p plays fine in linux, 1080p plays fine too but
only with vaapi acceleration. Have never booted windows on it, so I can't
compare there.

Gaming wise, it can handle Xonotic at native resolution (1366x768) with most
of the effects cranked up at 30 fps.

Did I mention changing the hard drive does not void the warranty?

~~~
eof
I would buy that in a heart beat over what I have. Not sure what is wrong with
my video.

Nor why I ended up with what I have. I honestly thought I looked for something
just like that. I really like the nipple; but all the Thinkpads (i thought)
were out of my price range.

------
m0nastic
Dan Bernstein recently posted a page on getting Ubuntu working with a current-
gen MacBook Air: <http://cr.yp.to/hardware/air.html>

Some of that information might be useful.

------
kijin
Beware of touchpads with multi-touch and integrated buttons (a.k.a.
"clickpads"). A lot of laptops nowadays seem to have these MacBook-esque
touchpads, and especially ultrabooks since they're often trying to mimic Apple
products. But driver support for PC clickpads in Linux is hit and miss. Often
you'll find it very frustrating to perform right clicks and drag-and-drop
operations. Cutting-edge distros like Ubuntu 12.04 finally include rudimentary
support for clickpads, but my experience in a non-ultrabook clickpad-enabled
laptop was far from ideal even with the 12.04 beta.

~~~
tdoggette
I could never own a laptop without 3 hardware buttons, ideally set up like a
thinkpad:

[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nVGyx975u38/SkzCHnkMbAI/AAAAAAAAGg...](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nVGyx975u38/SkzCHnkMbAI/AAAAAAAAGgo/UY8y_368acw/s400/lenovo+thinkpad+t400s+trackpad+touchpad.jpg)

~~~
HackR
You realize Macbook touchpads are buttons right?

They have left click and right click with button action. It's just as
intuitive as having 2 separate buttons, and even more so because of how
customizable it is.

~~~
glesica
Not quite the same. For example, what happens when you run out of room on a
drag-and-drop operation? You're holding down the whole track pad so you have
two options: add a second hand to hold the button, which can make the cursor
do weird things, or start over giving yourself more room. With a hardware
button this isn't an issue.

That said, the Apple track pads _are_ incredibly high-quality and I generally
like them. I do miss the hardware buttons from time to time, though.

~~~
tel
I lay my thumb on the bottom of the trackpad and hold it down, then my pointer
is free to drag, lift away, reposition, and drag more. It's extremely
convenient and certainly one-handed.

The trackpads are also multitouch, so they handle multiple hands as sensibly
as you might expect.

~~~
dpark
> _I lay my thumb on the bottom of the trackpad and hold it down_

That's an awesome tip. I didn't know that the Apple trackpads would do that.
They're less reliable if you just try to throw a second finger into the mix,
which seems to generally lose the drag and turn it into a secondary click
scenario. The bottom of the pad seems to be special-cased to avoid this.

------
kamechan
See if you can find a special on a thinkpad x220 if you don't want to go the
air route. Unlike the air, you can max it out at 8GB of RAM and it comes with
full voltage processors rather than ULV processors like in the MBA.

I was running gentoo on my x220 (have since gone to a T420 on mostly for the
higher resolution screen) and getting 11 hours battery from the 9-cell. Also
would recommend the IPS option, though they've had some quality control issues
with those screens. I had problems with mine and Lenovo replaced it, no
questions asked. One of the best screens I have seen on a laptop. For the
wireless, I found the intel 6205 to work best with gentoo. The hardware on the
thinkpads is generally really Linux friendly.

It's worth noting that there's an impending ivy bridge refresh. I'm thinking
an x230 might come out in the next few months.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Speaking of X230, it's worth noting that you might be able to get 1600x900 in
the next version. Other laptops are offering higher resolutions, including
1080p in 11-12" in one ASUS ultrabook, and there's at least one 12.1" 1600x900
panel floating around. So that's another reason to wait.

~~~
kamechan
Exactly what I'm hoping for, actually. X220 was perfect, except 1366x768 a bit
harder for me to be productive on.

For most programming I do it's fine as I use vim and don't need a lot of real
estate...but for large projects for which I use eclipse, it was a bit painful.

Also on the way is the T430U, the 14" ultraportable version of the T420. Might
be nice too. Would take a 1600x900 x230 over it any day though.

------
whalesalad
One thing that has always killed me in regards to non-Apple laptops is the
touchpad. Everyone does it wrong. By this I mean that they're small and not
very sensitive, the attempts to integrate scrolling are janky. Anyone care to
comment on the current status of that?

A lot of people dislike Apple but the subtle things like this are what keep me
here. It's so simple to scroll and click and right click with just light and
simple taps.

Is it primarily a software issue? OSS hasn't caught up?

~~~
raphinou
But then the keyboard on Mac laptops is a hell to work with. The | character
is not even represented on the keyboard, and requires the combination alt-
shift-L.

Edit: this is on a non-US keyboard, belgian or french azerty layout.

~~~
Ogre
I think your character must have come across wrong, or you're referring to
non-US MacBooks? | is shift-\ just like everywhere else. alt-shift-l gives me
a Ò.

(This was typed on a MacBook Pro)

~~~
raphinou
It must be on Azerty keyboard then. Each time I have to work on a mac I need
to ask how to type the pipe character.

~~~
masklinn
Yes the AZERTY Apple keyboard is full of suck (then again, so's the base one —
at least the french layout, AltGr + 6 for a pipe? How about no?)

------
spindritf
I'm not aware of any fully supported ultrabook. Something always seems to be
unsupported or not fully supported but usually inessential, like a fingerprint
scanner, or an accelerometer.

A friend of mine is using a Zenbook but it takes some serious efforts to get
it to run properly <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbook>

It's also a matter of what you consider an ultrabook. I have a Dell V131. It's
a laptop IMHO but it has a 13.3" screen, weighs 1.8kg, gets 6hrs of battery
life (with wifi on a 6 cell battery) and works under Ubuntu 12.04 OOTB (except
for the fingerprint scanner :)

~~~
balac
I'm using a zenbook and with the 3.2 kernal (included in ubuntu 12.04beta)
almost everything is working great. There is a small change that is needed to
enable suspend, but otherwise everything works out of the box with no extra
drivers needed (including wifi, two finger right click, camera, 3d graphics,
etc.).

~~~
asdfpoiu
Can you tell us how the battery life is?

~~~
balac
Under linux (normal web browsing, coding, etc.) I get around 5 1/2 hours. With
windows that goes up to around 7 hours. I think much of the windows battery
saving comes from the very low power mode it switches into automatically when
you unplug the laptop. This mode can be a little annoying though as it powers
down the cpu and you can't do basic stuff like watching a high quality video
smoothly, etc. As far as I can tell under Linux the power saving mode is much
more conservative.

------
phunehehe
You can get one of those from System76. The 14" Lemur Ultra looks like what
you may want, though I'm not really sure if that's an ultrabook. Their price
is among the best (if not _the_ best).
<https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/lemur>

~~~
chashaz
I haven't heard of System76 before but their pricing is pretty competitive not
to mention they claim to officially support a linux distro. Thanks for sharing
:)

------
jurre
Not sure if this is helpful but I was looking for the same thing about six
months ago and ended up buying a macbook air, decided to give OSX a chance and
stuck with it. As far as I'm aware most of the things are compatible but
trackpad support isn't quite there yet.

~~~
ansgri
How do you deal with absence of PgUp/PgDn and Home/End? I've honestly tried
for 2 weeks to get comfortable with MacBook, but feel that the keyboard is
simply bad.

~~~
zimbatm
Me too until I found that Fn+Up/Down,Left/Right do what you want. Also
Fn+Backspace to delete.

~~~
lamnk
Tip: You can use KeyRemap4Macbook [1] to map the stupid eject button on MBP to
delete. And if you use vim, you can map Escape to Delete and vice versa. Very
useful.

[1] <http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/>

------
btipling
The various warnings about drivers, touchpad and wifi in these answers is
almost amusing if not a little depressing. Remember the promise of the Linux
Desktop? I remember giving ubuntu a good try in 2006, but after nightmares
with xorg configs, flash, audio drivers and a clipboard that couldn't copy and
paste across different applications I eventually switched to mac. It doesn't
look like things have changed much in the last five years.

~~~
icebraining
If you're willing to restrict yourself to a couple of models like you have to
with the Mac, then you can get a laptop that comes with Linux, like those from
System76[1].

The only reason you have warning is because people want to use Linux on
machines not supported by the manufacturer, but guess what: the same thing
would happen with OS X.

[1]: <https://www.system76.com/>

~~~
rbanffy
I just got myself a Dell v131. Very happy with it. Small, slim and fast
enough, with easy access to expansion. Not a Macbook, of course, and not an
ultrabook, but half the price.

------
chimeracoder
I honestly don't understand the driver issues - I've installed Linux on a
number of different machines, and I've never had any driver issues myself
(certainly not when using a preconfigured DE).

That said, I don't think the MacBook Air is the only (or even the best)
solution for an Ultrabook. I've heard good things about Lenovo's series, and
while it's not an Ultrabook, my HP Envy has always run Arch Linux splendidly -
I couldn't be happier with it.

------
tribaal
I use a Toshiba z830, and it works brilliantly under Ubuntu, I can assume it
does as well with other Linux distributions.

~~~
mbq
I have r830 with Arch, so a less-ultra but quite similar stuff -- everything
works, after some tuning it can eat only 7.5-8W during normal activity (with
Compiz).

~~~
tribaal
Nice, what kind of tuning did you do? I hover around 9W, which is already
really good... A link to share for your tweaks, sir?

------
brains20
I got a Thinkpad x301 (if you can get one) using Arch Linux and newest KDE. I
am completely in love. Everything works lovely and fast with its 128GB SSD
except for the fingerprint reader (haven't bothered to check if I can get it
to work).

It has modest battery life but you can replace the DVD drive with an extra
one. Amazingly light, perfect wifi and a light that illuminates your keyboard
from the top.

I can do light gaming (age of empires 2, or America's Army 2.5) with
integrated intel. KDE just flies.

I set circular scrolling and high sensitivity in touchpad, that way I can
scroll without ever lifting the finger and work faster than with a mouse.

------
LarryMade
Well most of the issue I have with Linux is graphics compatibility, that being
said, I'd recommend any with an nVidia GPU over one with an ATI one. With that
you will certainly have a much better experience.

~~~
orlandu63
On the contrary I suggest either Intel or ATI graphics because unlike nVidia,
Intel and ATI actually contribute to their open source drivers.

~~~
4ad
On the other hand, NVidia proprietary drivers actually work better than ATI
drivers.

I suggest Intel because of the lower power consumption.

~~~
glogla
On the other other (third?) hand, sometimes you want GPGPU which even in
laptops can give some speedup, not to mention not having to debug it on large
computer. With intel, you're out of luck there.

But I think they promised OpenCL for Ivy Bridge.

------
andrix
I own an HP dm4 (<http://goo.gl/uCRa>) running Ubuntu 11.10, it's not an
ultrabook, but everything run out of the box and all working (except
fingerprint device - which I don't care a bit about it). HP in my case has
been always a choice, their products work excellent with linux and just right
out of the box. I recommend you also, that you make sure that everything is
Intel (including the wifi card) because previoulsy I had another HP laptop
with Atheros wifi that was unusable!

------
rbanffy
Considering the price ultrabooks are being sold for, I'd suggest a Macbook
Air. From their spec sheet, they should be well supported and they are
exceedingly well built and the screen is the best 13" out there.

I must admit, however, I'm not convinced by this ultrabook "trend". It looks a
lot like PC makers got tired to compete in price in the netbook range and
wanted to beef up the hardware a little and increase their margins. For that,
however, they had to invent a new category.

------
k_bx
Since this is a notebook-thread, I would be interested in 15" thin and beauty
notebooks for linux. They are not ultrabooks because of 15" screen, but I
really can't stand <15".

Thank you.

~~~
nyc640
<http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/laptops/NP900X4B-A02US>

------
edtechdev
It's not an ultrabook, but the dell 14z is only 4 lbs and thinner than any
laptop I've owned before. I got it for around $400. It was the only black
friday sale laptop that had an i5 but not a dual graphics card (such as nvidia
optimus, which you can get working in linux, but sometimes is a pain).
Everything worked flawlessly with ubuntu, and when I dual boot to windows,
plenty of games work fine, too, including the new microsoft flight simulator.

------
alFReD-NSH
I have a dell Inspiron N4010(intel cor i3, 4GB ram), with Ubuntu 11.10. Was
using Ubuntu on it since 10.10. Works like a charm, just sometimes the
wireless(broadcom b43xx) doesn't work, which will work again by just turning
off and on. It was shipped with windows at first. But it even works smoother
under Ubuntu. Though I don't suggest you to buy Dell. I can see a fan problem
with most Dell laptops that I've see and also cheap hardware.

------
jdost
I use a Macbook Air (Mid 2011) and run Arch Linux on it. Works fine, only
thing that doesn't work is the Thunderbolt port. I picked the Air because the
model was on its second year and had a history of people having Linux run on
it. The touchpad works fine with xf86-input-mtrack, which lets you customize
some of the finer details on the trackpad. ... Just my two cents.

------
FreeKill
I bought an Asus Zenbook. It works pretty well, I installed Ubuntu on it using
these instructions <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbook>

There were some manual configurations, as you can see, but for the most part
everything works fine...

------
JAlexoid
In general, ThinkPads are the way. Business line Dells also are quite well
supported. (This has to do with the user community for those machines. And
that community keeps their software running well)

I am as well looking for a Ultrabook, but I decided to wait for the ThinkPad
T430s.

------
ootachi
I like the Lenovo U300s a lot. You need a tweak to make suspend work (search
for "suspend ubuntu lenovo u300s" and look at the bug report).

Also, the amount of totally-off-topic non-Apple-product bashing in this thread
is making me incredibly sad at what HN has come to.

------
zmanian
I've been fairly satisfied running Ubuntu on my Zenbook.

Everything doesn't work out of the box but the wiki has fairly detailed
instructions on resolving most issues.

<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbook>

------
jk
Slightly off-topic - a laptop and not an ultra book. I use Toshiba satellite
C640-X4012. Fedora runs smooth. It has Intel core i5-2430M @ 2.4GHz and 4GB
ram. It has only 2 USB ports - the only drawback I have felt.

------
jetsnoc
I've been interested in purchasing a Macbook air for some time. The hard edge
of my Macbook Pro is really uncomfortable and it looks like the Air may have
this same comfort flaw. Does it?

~~~
ambiate
Borrow a dremel. Tape down a cloth to cover the keys, ports, fan exhaust, and
the monitor. Go along the edge with a grinding tool on low speed. Go along it
again with a sanding tool. Finally, buff it. (All cheap parts in the default
kit).

Wear a mask.

Also, the amount of grinding necessary to get a smooth edge is not much at
all. This is a quick job, and leaves the same grey color.

Finally, there are covers that remove the hard edge.

~~~
nkurz
Wow, that's tempting! Have you done this? Any downsides to speak of? How deep
did you go? This seems like a great mod.

~~~
ambiate
I followed the steps mentioned at <http://dustwell.com/macbook-pro-sharp-
edge.html>

I basically just gauged it by eye. Light, slow, take your time.

------
chadillac
not technically an Ultra book but I've been a huge fan of the Thinkpad X
series for sometime.

Currently have an X220, works great, the X1 is also nice and some of the
Ideapads are more "consumer grade" but would fit nicely into the "Ultra Book"
territory. With Thinkpads you never really (or I haven't ever) run into issues
with *nix due to the amount of love they seem to garnish from the tech
community in general.

Between the cozy keyboard and the overall durability of the Thinkpad line I
keep coming back to them year after year.

~~~
hbien
I'll second this. I'm currently using the X220 with Gentoo and it works
perfectly except for the trackpad (which shakes the cursor in some areas). I
have to use the keyboard mouse pointer. I was also concerned about price and
managed to get mine used on Craigslist.

------
lucian1900
I have a 13" Thinkpad Edge E325 and it's great. I use Ubuntu on it and
everything works, 7h battery life. Cost me £350.

------
sparticvs
I picked up a Acer Ultra-book. Fedora supports the entire thing short of the
multitouch on the touchpad...

------
nottinhill
It doesn't matter what Computer you throw against Linux - it will just work
(with tinkering of course). My prefered setup years ago was Gentoo on a
MacBook (the black , plastic ones fom the 90ies).

Today I would recommend a MacBook for its display. You can then wipe the disk
or swap them, as I did with my work notebook from Lenovo (x201) - running
FC16. I heard Mint and Ubuntu is great too.

~~~
ansgri
Just work = without tinkering.

------
_mayo
I'm not sure if it helps but I head the HP Folio 13 support Ubuntu well out of
the box.

------
batista
This, guy, Linus Torwalds, uses a MacBook Air for Linux.

He even says on his Google+ page that he couldn't find anything better, and
that even Lenovo stuff is crap.

Just sayin'.

~~~
ciupicri
The MacBook Air was for his kids: "if you have anything to do with security in
a distro, and think that _my kids_ (replace "my kids" with "sales people on
the road" if you think your main customers are businesses)...".

P.S. Out of curiosity, could someone explain me why I'm being downvoted?

~~~
batista
No, it's one he uses. He talked about it several times. Here's a photo of his
desktop: [http://micro.dentarg.net/post/18516355410/linus-torvalds-
has...](http://micro.dentarg.net/post/18516355410/linus-torvalds-has-a-
macbook-air)

And here's a quote of his in his G+ blog: "Point me to a better laptop. Trust
me, I tried. They don't exist. It's sad. They are all big and clunky."
(Someone suggesting Lenovo) "no, Lenovo doesn't. I have the Lenovo X1. It's
bigger, plasticky, and has worse battery life."

(As for above, probably he has one for his kids too or his kids also use his
--or he just mentioned it in the example above to refer to a usability issue
for the "common user").

In the past he also had a G5 (Linux) as his desktop machine, and an iBook with
OS X for writing his autobiography.

