Laptop buying

[DisappearingOak]

hi, so been looking to buy a laptop this month but all the information online seems confusing, especially about linux support.

i'm new to laptops, only having used desktops before, so pointers would be helpful. i've read that lenovo/ibm laptops are better than dell, asus, hp so i'm leaning towards those. but i need everything functioning correctly under linux. but my budget is somewhat limited since i recently bought a desktop and i'm frugal too. i can spend 500 usd= 25000 indian money.

my needs are - should be able to handle many firefox tabs, heavy flash games, would be nice if it was powerful to handle accurate snes games with real high hq filters, don't do any other gaming otherwise. i plan to run ubuntu so intel? maybe 3rd gen? i would like nice display and build and don't mind slightly lower specs to get it.

if a pc box (like a ready to use tower system without monitor) with great specs can be had for cheaper like 400dollars cheap, please recommend some also.

thanks

[mips]

Your best bet is to find a few laptops you like and then to go google linux compatibility for that specific model to see what other peoples experiences are.

In the mean time have a browse here,
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops?action=show&redirect=HardwareSupportMachinesLaptops
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki
http://www.linux-laptop.net/

[911insidejob]

I bought a $300 Gateway at Best Buy. Walmart had the same one for $330 with a slightly larger hard disk. Dual core but it's the latest generation, so it runs faster and cooler than the older dual cores, also has the new UEFI BIOS. Disabled secure boot and let Ubuntu blow Windows 8 away. Works great! I couldn't get dual boot to work though, plus preinstalled version of Win8 had MP4 playback crippled, so just Linux on it.

[mastablasta]

i'm new to laptops, only having used desktops before, so pointers would be helpful. i've read that lenovo/ibm laptops are better than dell, asus, hp so i'm leaning towards those. but i need everything functioning correctly under linux. but my budget is somewhat limited since i recently bought a desktop and i'm frugal too. i can spend 500 usd= 25000 indian money.

my needs are - should be able to handle many firefox tabs, heavy flash games, would be nice if it was powerful to handle accurate snes games with real high hq filters, don't do any other gaming otherwise. i plan to run ubuntu so intel? maybe 3rd gen? i would like nice display and build and don't mind slightly lower specs to get it.



so basically you want it to do plenty but would like somethign cheap :-)

go for business desktops as they are usually better built (some even have aluminium or if not they will have hard plastic). you should get some good Lenovo (with A4 and A6)and HP probook (with i3 )in that price range. go for mate screen definatelly. if you are not afraid of AMD chips you will get decent GPU acceleration in that price range. Lenovo are usually compatible and HP probooks often come linux preisntaleld here.

[drawkcab]

Lenovo usually has very nice 12" 14" and 15" thinkpads available on their website and, if you're patient, they periodically run very nice sales on their gear.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Perhaps a bit out of your price range, but worth considering nonetheless. Both designed for Linux (Ubuntu in particular)...

Zareason (http://zareason.com/shop/Laptops/)

System76 (https://www.system76.com/laptops/)

[mips]

Perhaps a bit out of your price range, but worth considering nonetheless. Both designed for Linux (Ubuntu in particular)...

Zareason (http://zareason.com/shop/Laptops/)

System76 (https://www.system76.com/laptops/)


Not everybody lives in the USA, there are countries outside of the USA contrary to popular belief. The OP is based in India.

[azangru]

The OP is based in India.
System 76 ships to India :)

[odiseo77]

As suggested above, find a laptop with the specs you like and google its brand and model to figure out if it works fine with Linux. That's what I do with every piece of hardware I buy (not only with laptops).

For the record, I bought a Lenovo G460 last year and absolutely everything works out of the box with Debian which sometimes requieres installing certain drivers after installing the OS. Not sure about the price in USD, though.

[mehaga]

Be careful :) I bought a Dell laptop with Ubuntu installed, and one of its two GPUs doesn't work in Ubuntu. ATI driver issue, and there's nothing you can do about it. They say they support Ubuntu, but that's a lie. For anything Linux related, their support page just redirects you to manufacturer's page - AMD in this case, who don't have a Linux driver that works with newer GPU's...

[mips]

System 76 ships to India :)

Was not aware of that. Anyway their cheapest option is $180 above his budget and that does not even take into consideration the cost of shipping.

[kc1di]

if you want to be 100% sure it works with ubuntu go to Zareason (http://zareason.com/shop/Laptops/)or system 76 (https://www.system76.com/laptops/)
I currently use a Dell 1564 that works well but you have to install propitiatory drivers for wifi to work.

[mastablasta]

Be careful :) I bought a Dell laptop with Ubuntu installed, and one of its two GPUs doesn't work in Ubuntu. ATI driver issue, and there's nothing you can do about it. They say they support Ubuntu, but that's a lie. For anything Linux related, their support page just redirects you to manufacturer's page - AMD in this case, who don't have a Linux driver that works with newer GPU's...


If the GPU doesn't work in preinstalled Ubuntu, then how does it dispaly anything on the screen?

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Not everybody lives in the USA, there are countries outside of the USA contrary to popular belief. The OP is based in India.

Anit-USA, eh? I just offered up a couple suggestions. I know where the OP is from. No need to get testy. I've noticed a lot of anti-Americanism of late. It needs to STOP.

[mehaga]

If the GPU doesn't work in preinstalled Ubuntu, then how does it dispaly anything on the screen?

It has two GPUs, an Intel GPU for simple stuff and an ATI GPU for more demanding things. The Intel one works flawlessly...

[mastablasta]

so it's hybrid graphics. you need to install proprietary AMD drivers then. there is a thread titiled ATI hybrid graphics - it works. and also a description on how to install tweak etc. Point is ATI hybrid graphics should work as they decided to give Linux support. Nvidia on the other hadn doens't support it so instead there is community project to support it and form what i read they did a preety good job (though swtiching is manual not automatic).

[Roasted]

Beware of the Lenovo comment in my signature.

[mehaga]

so it's hybrid graphics. you need to install proprietary AMD drivers then. there is a thread titiled ATI hybrid graphics - it works. and also a description on how to install tweak etc. Point is ATI hybrid graphics should work as they decided to give Linux support. Nvidia on the other hadn doens't support it so instead there is community project to support it and form what i read they did a preety good job (though swtiching is manual not automatic).

Thanks. I tried all that and it didn't work. The thing is, ATI Linux driver doesn't support all ATI cards. Even the beta driver doesn't support latest cards, mine included (I have no idea exactly which model I have. I'm in Windows right now, and it reports it as 8730M, but I'm pretty sure it's 7xxxM).

[jonnyboysmithy]

I would avoid:
Hybrid graphics/switchable graphics (mine has this and it ran super hot until I just used the intel integrated gpu. A bit useless paying for it and then not using it.)

AMD Radeon graphic cards (unless you're sure it works well, the radeon card in my machine won't work with the proprietary drivers. I tried for more than a week but that was a year ago, things may have changed. My card runs hot when using the opensource drivers although there's a power management patch that was released for the opensource driver so this may change)

Make sure it supports linux and you'll be fine.
Good luck :)

[mips]

Anit-USA, eh? I just offered up a couple suggestions. I know where the OP is from. No need to get testy. I've noticed a lot of anti-Americanism of late. It needs to STOP.

No. I love people from the US, they're generally nice when not flying the flag (it's an outside expression). I just get tired of people asking for advice and then people hop in with US only suggestions and completely ignore the OP's location or budget for starters. I mean the countries that use Rupees you can count on your 10 fingers.

I'm sorry if I offended you, I really do promise you I have nothing against the people of the USA (government is a different issue thought). Apologies.

[mastablasta]

Thanks. I tried all that and it didn't work. The thing is, ATI Linux driver doesn't support all ATI cards. Even the beta driver doesn't support latest cards, mine included (I have no idea exactly which model I have. I'm in Windows right now, and it reports it as 8730M, but I'm pretty sure it's 7xxxM).

don't worry they might support it a bit later if they don't do it now. although i find it strange it doesn't work.

i remember Dell used to have soem special remoxes. it would also be interesting (if you have time) to search the web and see if they actualyl sell this mashcine with Ubuntu preinstalled. For example as i m,entioned HP only sells some business models with SUSE preinstalled and those seem to work rather well in ubuntu. if not i am sure they would work in OpenSUSE. Though SUSE itself is not so bad. they have nice intuitive UI, but they do miss repositories for packages easilyl available in Ubuntu or even OpenSUSE. Some packages are a bit older, some are kept up to date. A nice stable system. another drawback is ofcourse the payment for updates :-) though from business point of view it shouldn't be an issue.

[vasa1]

OP is apparently from India and there was an announcement of Dell tying up with Canonical to sell Ubuntu-loaded computers. Wonder what came of that.

[DisappearingOak]

Hello, people. Thanks for your suggestions. My desktop CPU came back from AMD's RMA pretty quick, and I think I will hold off on buying a laptop right now. :) But I'll keep your suggestions in mind for the future. Thanks.