Any tips on buying a laptop?

**sofasurfer** · June 23rd, 2014

I have never purchased a computer. All of mine have been home built. Now my wife wants her own. She wants a laptop and I have convinced her to use Linux, NO MICROSOFT! She wants me to help her pick one out. Woops! I have NO knowledge of what to look for.
Do I have to buy a Windows or a machine with no os and install Linux myself?
Any tips?

**-Marco** · June 23rd, 2014

I do not think there are many. Dell and Asus made it in the last few months, but mountain hardware from gaming and are very expensive.
Buy a laptop with Windows and remove it, simple is not it?

**LastDino** · June 23rd, 2014

It will be better if you can list the possible usage its going to go through and then lock down on particular model/series and then look if it has any troubles with Linux or not by googling. There is also system 76. Some other provide Linux pre-installed lappies too. Your location kind of plays major part here.

Either way, googling for problems of others who used the same Lappy as you intend to buy is always the best way to check if it will work with Linux nicely or not.

**slickymaster** · June 23rd, 2014

Check out these:

https://system76.com/laptops/
Ubuntu Desktop certified hardware Dell
Ubuntu Desktop certified hardware HP

**fyfe54** · June 23rd, 2014

Bought a Gazelle Pro from System 76 a couple of months ago. Nice. Very pleased with it.

**cranerja** · June 24th, 2014

If you buy a windows laptop, check what kind of graphics it has. I've bought a few laptops I've had to return because many new laptops have odd dual graphics that typically don't work in Linux without a lot of configuring. All my laptops with Intel graphics work amazing but my laptops with a discrete AMD card have been underwhelming. Plus, Intel graphics work out of the box with Linux.

**Michael_Papili** · June 24th, 2014

What do you think she'll be using it for? What's your budget range?

I also agree with cranerja but in a broad sense. No science behind it on my part; I love my AMD components for my desktop, but for some reason every laptop with an AMD processor I've had ran into issue after issue.

**kurt18947** · June 24th, 2014

If you choose to buy locally, check on their return policies. Make sure there's no restocking charge. You should be able to determine within a week whether a given model is penguin friendly or not. I have two Thinkpads from the mid-late 2000s and both are plug 'n' play. I've never tried getting a store to let you try booting a display model with a live USB or CD, some people have reported success doing that. Staples & MicroCenter both sell Refurbished T61 Thinkpads for around $200-$250 but that might be high for an older refurbished model. I installed Xubuntu dual boot on a Friend's HP DV5 something with an AMD processor. No issues, what I tried on it worked. But yeah, Intel processor/chipset/wireless probably has the best chance of being painless.

**varunendra** · June 24th, 2014

Originally Posted by LastDino

It will be better if you can list the possible usage its going to go through and then lock down on particular model/series and then look if it has any troubles with Linux or not by googling. There is also system 76. Some other provide Linux pre-installed lappies too. Your location kind of plays major part here.

Either way, googling for problems of others who used the same Lippy as you intend to buy is always the best way to check if it will work with Linux nicely or not.

+1.

Buying a laptop with Windows preinstalled means trouble in my opinion. Even if you ever needed Windows, buying it separately seems better to me for multiple reasons that I don't want to discuss here.

If you would be dual booting, the pre-configured UEFI BIOS+Windows8 (which is what you'd get with ANY new model) settings may be a problem, sometimes a big one.
If you would be using ONLY Linux, why pay extra for Windows only to remove it as soon as you get the lappy? Besides, here in India, some authorized dealers of some brands (have two brands in mind, but won't name any, since it might have been the dealers' unwillingness to cooperate) even consider the warranty void if you tamper the preinstalled Windows.

So in my opinion, buying a machine with Linux pre-installed is the best idea. It'll ensure that all the hardware is compatible with Linux (even if with some tweaks), and all kind of hardware is already designed to work well with Windows, in case you wish to use it as well.

If the above option is not available, or the available options are not interesting, buy a model with no OS preinstalled (or with 'Free DOS' or something similar), but with some research, and install Linux yourself later. Many dealers here allow me to try a 'Live USB' to test if the model works with Linux. If you can find such friendly dealers, keep a Live USB handy to test the lappy before purchasing it. Both Nvidia and ATI graphics may be an initial problem with vanilla Live USBs, so I also second the Intel graphics if you wish to avoid the extra exercise of installing proprietary graphics driver (and hope that it'll work).

**kurt18947** · June 25th, 2014

In the U.S. finding a laptop with Ubuntu or no O.S. installed at retail is highly unlikely, unless from a small specialty shop. There are a couple small mail-order merchants, http://zareason.com/shop/Laptops/ and https://system76.com/laptops?gclid=C...Fe4F7Aodsi0A3w. I suspect but don't know that machines from those vendors might use higher quality components than the $300-$400 machines at the big box stores so might be longer lived. A fair number of used or refurb laptops on Ebay can be bought without an O.S. but unless the model is known to be linux friendly, returning a machine might be a real headache.

The point about preinstalled Windows 8 (it's possible to find preinstalled Win 7 but it takes some looking) is also good. It seems that implementations of EFI/UEFI & Secure Boot vary quite a lot from vendor to vendor.