Best notebook brand with more or less standardized components, no special drivers needed, for running different operating systems?

So, which is the laptop brand I can put on a vanilla Windows XP, 7 or a Linux distribution and the install disk will in general it recognize the hardware, no custom drivers from the hardware manufacturer needed?

I don't want to run into the dead end when only the special driver from he manufacturer works... only on the specific operating system the driver was written for, and as long as they keep updating it.

All in all, which is the general go-around brand which runs almost everything?

Is there any performance or battery life difference between using default Windows drivers and drivers made by the hardware manufacturer?

 

Pretty much any laptop components will "work" on generic drivers. You'll be able to make do without the manufacturer's drivers, but the performance will be severely hindered, especially on discrete graphics. This is generally true of all your components. Manufacturer drivers generally enable functionality that the generic drivers can't handle. Certain drivers, like for the chipset, almost definitely need to be installed to enable functionality - like USB, multi-core support, device controllers, and power saving features like throttling.

My advice is simply to download all the drivers you need to one place, make multiple backups, and don't worry so much about it. Most XP drivers will work on 7, believe it or not, and Linux distros are a totally different ballgame. Old drivers are always easy to find as well. Linux drivers rely more often on dedicated coders than on the manufacturer. If you're really planning to go in the Linux direction, drivers are the least of your worries unless you're planning to use Ubuntu without ever touching the terminal (unrealistic).

 

I think it's less the brand but more the components that makes a difference.

E.g., Linux will work better out-of-the-box with Intel IGP than with Mobility Radeon 5xxx. In the past, Intel wireless also had a higher probability of functioning without fiddling than Broadcom/Atheros/etc wireless. (I didn't have non-Intel wireless for quite some time so dunno if it's still the case.)

Standard components (e.g., motherboards) have a higher chance of working without messing with drivers than less common stuff such as accessories (webcams or smart card readers) or new audio codecs.

 

Intel has actually been better than most manufacturers is helping develop open source (or at least linux-compatible) drivers for its chipsets, wireless, and integrated display adapters than most. If you want to see people having issues, check out the Ubuntu forums and driver/display issues with Nvidia/ATI, HD audio driver problems, webcams, bluetooth, and the i3/i5/i7. The i3/i5/i7 problems will probably go away as new kernels are released, but the others persist for ages.

Brand can make a difference once in a while - emachines will once in a while use components with brands you avoid like the plague that work with generic drivers, but create compatibility errors once the specific driver is installed

 

Windows 7 should boot on nearly everything with the included drivers, and as long as you stay away from the cutting edge hardware Linux should boot too.
Windows XP on the other hand may need some driver installs.

 

Any Win7 installation will need significant driver update work. Not all of them are picked up by the PnP processes or on-line updates.

The driver library on current win7 disks was frozen in place nearly a year ago. And a lot of those drivers were prelim/beta releases not really suitable for 'production'.

Booting/installing is one thing, running correctly without problems is quite another.

If msft does nothing else for sp1, they should really update the internal driver library on the install disks.

Compared to missing/old device drivers, the security fixes of the past year are trivial.

 

If you want the simplest, most compatible system, Mac.
It will run Windows, Mac, and Linux without problems. Though you may have to load a Windows driver or two.


Don't expect any to be perfect without effort.
Especially with XP, which lacks Sata drivers. Another reason is function keys, they all are a bit different in how they work with the Bios. Beyond this, the camera will be the next big issue. After that it should be rather smooth sailing.

Other recomendations:
Thinkpad and and Clevo based (Sager).




No matter what you do, XP will be a pain due to SATA, it's simply getting old.
There is an easy fix for all the Windows woes, same for Mac and Linux. Make slipstreamed disks for all of your operating systems. By doing this you can put all of the patches (XP is patch hell), and put all of your drivers. Beware, some drivers do not seem to agree with slipstreaming and can cause an unstable OS.

 

I don't think you can pick a brand, because within every brand, there's always a notebook series that will need to be on a certain OS. For example Dell, the Alienware M17x version will need Windows for the extra lighting and (if you buy the first generation) the hybrid chipset. On the other hand, the other Dells are compatible with all OSes, for example the M6400.

The same thing applies for Lenovo's thinkpad series. Linux has no support for switchable graphics yet, as far as I know. So you might have to stick with Windows on those laptops like the T410 or is it the W500. One of those.

So in short, you have to look at a certain series laptops instead of a brand.

 

My Sony FW runs Ubuntu, Fedora, Vista/7 all fine. I haven't tried XP however, but I assume it would work.

I hear that Dell has pretty standard components and sometimes they pre-install Ubuntu. So I assume many Linux distros would work fine.

 

with the possible exception of specialized usb-based keyboard/buttons (think multimedia keys) and their drivers, just about every component in a 'laptop' these days is standardized.

The days of makers being able to economically design and produce proprietary machines with proprietary components that refuse to run with other than proprietary driver software is long past.

Certain add-in devices, most notably stuff from Creative Labs, are still a pita. It is however very easy to avoid everything from CL.

 

Regarding battery life, I will be better off downloading the manufacturer's drivers than relying on the Windows 7 ones? If we compare now that two.

 

What do you mean by SATA issues with XP? It used to be when SATA came out that you had to do what you are talking about, but as soon as SATA came as part of the chipset, like over 5 years ago, XP would install on a SATA drive without having to load any drivers at all.

As far as drivers go, XP lacks a lot off the shelf, but that is easy to fix with a USB loaded with the drivers. And with any other OS, I pray that one installs the real drivers instead of using the crap that comes preloaded in Vista or 7.

I hope you're not serious. You are better off with the correct recent drivers for your hardware than the old generic drivers meant to just give you basic functionality.

 

True, if you want to legacy mode, but if you want better performance by using ahci you will need a disk.

And while Win7 may not load the newest most optimal drivers right away (what os does), at least it has them. XP is waaaay behind in terms of technology these days.

 

The 'benefits' of ahci aren't quite as tangible as you make them sound.

There really isn't any more of a pain to install than vista or 7. The only difference really is that you need to install a wireless or ethernet driver (some are supported oob) before getting online in XP so that you can download all the rest of your drivers and stuff (if you don't already have them on a disk or drive). Not exactly a big deal except in a worst case scenario.