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Most Linux-Friendly Laptop Besides Dell?

post #1 of 21
8/14/07 at 1:54am
Thread Starter 
So i'm looking for a new laptop for college since my averatec burned itself alive. Since i'm unable to switch to Mac, I'd like to dual boot windows and Linux, but I want a laptop that will actually work with linux instead of sending me on a driver safari and drowning in random cli fixes.

So what laptops are best suited for running Linux? What companies have good, affordable laptops in general?
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post #2 of 21
8/14/07 at 2:01am
well, not sure why you say no Dell, but I've had good luck so far with Linux on my Dell.

you could of course check out a laptop with linux pre-installed.

Aside from that I'd peruse tuxmobile.org
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post #3 of 21
8/14/07 at 2:29am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by drlouis View Post
well, not sure why you say no Dell, but I've had good luck so far with Linux on my Dell.

you could of course check out a laptop with linux pre-installed.

Aside from that I'd peruse tuxmobile.org

I don't like Dell's designs, so if i can, i'd like to avoid them. I'd like a smaller computer, and from what i've seen, the reasonably priced dells are pretty big.

I'm a little hesitant to get pre-installed linux because i imagine it's harder to add windows to a linux system than the other way around.
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post #4 of 21
8/14/07 at 2:32am
ASUS is what alot of people here are running.

DJembe would be the one to ask. He went to sleep, but will be here tomorrow pretty early also hit up Seablade and ABF.
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post #5 of 21
8/14/07 at 3:36am
IBM/Lenovo has excellent linux compatibility.
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post #6 of 21
8/14/07 at 3:55am
Good call TV. I forgot they are shipping or soon will be shipping laptops with SuSE installed.
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post #7 of 21
8/14/07 at 4:12am
Thread Starter 
The Lenovo's look nice, and are priced pretty reasonably. Will pretty much all of their notebooks work completely with Linux? or are there certain ones that will?
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post #8 of 21
8/14/07 at 12:53pm
Lenovo does have a good, not perfect, but GOOD reputation for Linux.

ASUS as already mentioned.

Dells.

Stay WAY the hell away from Sonys.

Others can be hit or miss unfortunatly. CHeck out tuxmobil as suggested for specific laptops.

Seablade
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post #9 of 21
8/14/07 at 12:54pm
Also posting up the specs, or rather googling for the specs in linux (I might try with the google Linux search engine I just recently discovered www.google.com/linux) to see whether they are supported or not before you buy is a very good idea.

Seablade
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post #10 of 21
8/14/07 at 1:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by seablade View Post
Lenovo does have a good, not perfect, but GOOD reputation for Linux.

ASUS as already mentioned.

Dells.

Stay WAY the hell away from Sonys.

Others can be hit or miss unfortunatly. CHeck out tuxmobil as suggested for specific laptops.

Seablade

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post #11 of 21
8/14/07 at 4:54pm
Thread Starter 
How are Acers? I found some good deals on some.
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post #12 of 21
8/14/07 at 5:51pm
If you don't get it preinstalled, then there is no go-to brand for Linux compatibility. Just because Dell sells laptops with Linux doesn't mean that *all* their laptops work with Linux (they don't). It all depends on what's inside.

Generally looking for Centrino branded stuff is a good idea, Intel has good Linux support for it's wireless and graphics. Avoid ATI graphics. And Acers tend to have "mystery" wireless, where you don't know whether you get a compatible Atheros card or less compatible Broadcom card.
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post #13 of 21
8/15/07 at 12:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by slickhare View Post
The Lenovo's look nice, and are priced pretty reasonably. Will pretty much all of their notebooks work completely with Linux? or are there certain ones that will?

http://www.thinkwiki.org

My new T61 is running 7.10 Tribe 4, everything works except sound right now, need to compile that from CVS to get it working. After install everything else worked great.
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post #14 of 21
8/17/07 at 11:40pm
yet another vote on Thinkpads (have a T23 running PCLOS2007), and basically i dont think brands really matter (except staying the hell away from sony).. just get a nice popular chipset, nvidia gpu (avoid ati as much as possible..say this as an ati linux user), atheros or intel wireless....and you should be in decent shape.
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post #15 of 21
8/18/07 at 12:59am
In all fairness ATI graphics cards arent SO bad. Once you get the right driver installed you'll be good to go.
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post #16 of 21
8/19/07 at 12:11am
well...the X1600 or better need fglrx for any kind of better than vesa-quality support. older cards (i have a 9700) now work well on the open source radeon driver...in fact even beryl and most games work great w/o fglrx. that said though i am happy that the radeon drivers came a long way as of xorg 7.2... what bothers me is the fglrx drivers which fail @ life really really bad.
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post #17 of 21
8/21/07 at 9:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by seablade View Post
Stay WAY the hell away from Sonys.

Not saying you should get one, but from the For What It's Worth Department, my new SZ340P15 runs Linux Mint (Ubuntu variant) extremely well. Beryl, VM Ware, WiFi right out of the gate, etc. The only thing that's not working is the fingerprint scanner. There's a way to get it going but I can't be bothered.

I bought a Sony because I needed a screen that I can see clearly in direct sunlight. Hard to beat a Sony for that.

-Doc
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post #18 of 21
8/21/07 at 9:34pm
Sony has a LONG and STRONG reputation of using a LOT of proprietary components that there are no linux drivers for and don't release specs for to develop drivers for that. Glad it is working for you, but I gotta say you got lucky.

Though I can't say I have had a problem reading my new MBP's screen yet

Seablade
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post #19 of 21
8/27/07 at 12:42am
I don't think I agree with the statement that ATIs aren't so bad. The fglrx driver performance in 3D still sucks. I think it is 50-70% of windows driver performance. The place to look is www.phoronix.com as they look at the fglrx driver each time a new one comes out.
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post #20 of 21
8/31/07 at 2:37am
I had a compal HEL80 and everything worked perfectly with ubuntu, except for the fingerprint-scanner. the new IFL90 should be the same way.
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