Best Laptop for Linux/Unix ?

Which in your opinion is the best notebook for using Linux/Unix?

These days, most laptop manufacturers ship their product with Vista preinstalled. Many of the features advertised with the product are dependent on the OS and esp Vista. I so don't like it. I recently got myself a Thinkpad T400. For me to take benefit of a lot of the features, I need to use Vista .

The good thing is that there's a wiki where many articles are meant for the Linux users of Thinkpads. They also have scripts, fixes, patches etc so that a Linux user can make the best of their machines. I think that's a very nice thing.

Another good thing is, most hardwares run out of the box, including the webcam and wifi, which are nuisances in most other brands.

I have owned an HP machine before this - but it was a plain machine, with no special features like this T400. I think Thinkpad could do a lot better. Making a user unnecessarily dependent upon an OS (esp one which is considered one of the biggest failures) doesnt look good.

Wanted to hear from others on which is the best laptop for using Linux/Unix?

Thanks,
Bibek

 

I was going to suggest you a Thinkpad before I read your text. My T61p's hardware works very well in Linux with really no tweaking at all. All the major things like screen res, wifi, bluetooth, usb, mouse, GPU all worked in Linux. But I will mostly not run Linux on my laptops anymore as the power management is not great or at least not as good as Vista's and Windows 7 at the moment. Battery life is the main reason I got my current Ultraportable and to run an OS that takes away from that is counter productive for me. Linux has come a long way. I still remember the days when having Linux on a laptop was an impossibility without some major tweaking. You couldn't even get past the harddrive controllers

Another machine for you to try would be the Dell preinstalled with Ubuntu and some of the custom shops like system76 and LinuxEmporium(sp?).

 

Thanks for replying. Yes, power management in Linux isn't at par with Windows. I haven't used Windows 7, but I have a very strong disliking for Vista, so much that I don't want to see it as far as possible. Besides, most of my work happens in Linux - and I enjoy working on Linux too. But since I work near a power outlet most of the times, the power management comes handy only when I'm travelling. So, maybe a person like me should dual boot Windows 7 (and run Liinux in a virtual machine - i can't imagine doing real work in Windows) and Linux to get the best of both worlds.

Agree/Disagree? Are the Dell machines better than Thinkpads in build, robustness etc?

Bibek

 

Dells work pretty well with Linux, especially considering that Dell in fact shipped (ships?) some systems with Ubuntu. I recommend, however, not to get a Broadcom wireless card, even though they are fairly well supported. Intel is better. Even my webcam and hotkeys work out of the box.

But I believe Thinkpads work quite well also.

 

IMO, any manufacturer can make notebooks/laptops that are compatible/best for Linux installation as well as performance. However, the major difference is what kind of hardware they have chosen to built these laptops.

Take Fujitsu for example, there are numbers of users have no problem on installing certain Linux distro to certain models. It works well out of the box too.
But there are certain distros cannot be installed to some models, due to the limitation of linux driver to the specific hardware used in that machine.
(The F.A.v35xx series which uses SiS IGPs...Does this ring a bell? As well as early DELL models to early releases old Ubuntus...Broadcom Wireless?)

To me... Linux can be like wine, certain varieties are suitable for certain region cultivation, so as certain practice used by different wineries to bring out the best taste of the final product...

 

Have you tried it?

 

I'm using Linux on a Asus K40IN. There was no information online of anybody having put Linux on this model but I did it anyway. After some patches and minor tweaking, everything is working. The only thing I have not tested is the webcam so I have no clue if it works, how to access it or any of that (Can you tell I have no use for it? lol). I'm really happy with this machine. The wireless is now working better than it did in Vista.

 

When I bought my Asus G50Vt-A2, I made sure of a couple of things because I knew I was going to move to the Linux system sooner or later.

1)Made sure it had an intel chipset
2)Made sure it had a intel wireless card
3)Made sure it had a NVIDIA card

I will say you can probably make any laptop run in Linux if you follow those 3 steps.

 

Pardon me that i have to point out on these...
I won't use the word "make sure" on these and that...
There are just too much different configurations and combinations made/choose by either OEM makers or adopt by mainstream manufacturers.

While INTEL gpus, either IGP or DGP mostly work well with number of distros, not really all of them are pushed to the max when it comes to performance. Note that there are more gears out there with IGP than DGP due to different size in demand. ATI may work well with some distros too...

While INTEL Wireless may work with some distros, there are few that may not work with particular distros due to the lack of generic driver(for example...the most recent INTEL 5100 wireless...).
Broadcom Wireless may not work out of the box to some earlier releases(especially Broadcom/DELL wireless 13xx), but recent updated releases may have these issue rectified.
Atheros Wireless may work with numbers of distros, but there are some cases that happen/reported that after an update...the wireless act wierdly.

Hopefully you're not offended by what i have pointed out...
But when someone approach me for advise on which distro to choose, i would usually ask them for their gear specs, and advise them to try out on the live image available to see if the OS is stable on their machine. Most importantly, which type of distro they are comfortable or familiar with.

 

My hHP DV2 is fairly well supported. I had to around with the sound initially to get it working on Ubuntu 9.04, but 8.10 was fine. Only downside is crappy drivers.

The Asus EEE family is also a good choice. There is a huge community that has developped tools for it, as well as a very active online forum.

 

"old" tech is better because there has been more time to develop software for it.
Avoid ATI gpus.

 

Maybe I was just lucky with my Asus, but *nix systems run perfectly on my Asus N50Vn.

Webcam etc. works out of the box, also nVidia driver support is great. CPU On demand -downclocking works. I haven't yet met a problem with the system.

I am not sure if all Asus computers have this good Unix compatibility.

 

I have no idea where you got a chipset confused with a GPU but so you know they are NOT the same thing. Considering right now Intel Video drivers are on a FRITZ in Ubuntu, I would not recommend it. ( http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_q309_flakes&num=1)

Other companies that make chipsets are VIA, AMD, and SiS. Not saying any other those will not work but I am stating the ones I would recommend.

Now when it comes to wireless, you can make any wireless card after troubleshooting it, with ndiswrapper in theory all will work. I am stating, that usually you will have LESS trouble getting an intel wireless card to work and I myself do have the 5100, and it took a driver update to fix the issue I was having.

No offense taken but I would recommend you do some reading on chipsets. I am just stating what will be the easiest hardware to make work in Linux.

 

I don't want to go off topic and start a Linux vs Windows thread, but dual booting is a good option. Linux is good for many things and is amazing but there are some things that Linux is not good for such as .NET development. The Mono project is a good start but is still too immature for serious use. Besides why use another layer, when you can use the compiler directly in Visual Studeo?

 

Try sudo apt-get install cheese, then run cheese (Alt+F2).

 

Yes, I have used it. But that's not the single reason for my dislike. I dislike anything bloatware and even more so, if it is proprietary software.

Bibek

 

I do too, but the reality is that many times you are forced to use proprietary software.

 

I don't mind proprietary software at all, with the one condition that the software is well-designed. I'll gladly support good commercial engineering: Wolfram's Mathematica, for example. (I got my lease for free, thank God, but either way, someone payed.)

It's a different story, however, if said software is designed like a turd, or is otherwise sub-par compared to FOSS equivalents. Windows Vista falls into this category.

 

I don't mind having to use Windows and other proprietary softwares - I agree on that reality demands using them. But ideally, I would prefer a free world made by free softwares and standards I'm not a zealot, but Vista is a total crap - I've used XP too, and XP was far better.

But it is one thing to have "preferences" over the kind of softwares/OSes you use, and another to be "forced" by your hardware vendor to use a certain kind of OS. Not certainly pleasant if that choice is a very bad combination of crap+proprietary+costly.

A lot of things in most machines work only with Vista. Vendors could write better drivers, provide better support or give customers the option of ordering a machine without any OS pre-installed. (just pre-installing an OS has its problems: eg, in my machine 3 primary partitions are filled up already, and I can't create any more primary partitions for my use. Now, who owns my computer?)

Again, I certainly could deal with it, and I will, but things could be made a lot better. I hope sooner than later. Maybe I'm too used to the old days when my computer felt like mine (my own) - and I could use it the way I wanted.

Coming to another point, someone suggested using only Intel devices to ensure Linux compatibility. My Thinkpad T400 has an ATI GPU and other non-Intel devices. What could be the best distro for this machine? I'm a regular with Debian and derivatives esp Ubuntu.

Thanks,
Bibek

 

D900f LOL? Most powerfull laptop, and is not amd/ati so good driver support.