Buying new laptop, worried about compatibility

So I have been looking at the Ativ Book 8 as seen here for a college laptop: Samsung ATIV Book 8 15.6" TouchScreen Laptop 8GB Memory 1TB Hard Drive NP880Z5E-X01UB - Best Buy

My main concern is that I need to run Linux on my laptop for my computer science courses. I have heard horror stories of Samsung laptops being bricked by using Linux. I heard this has been fixed, but I am still nervous about how compatible this laptop is with Linux. I have very little experience with Linux, and I would hate to futz around with it too much. Thank you in advance!

 

The rule of thumb for me on laptops is that it takes at LEAST 6 months after a model is released before the latest daily build or every 6 month release of ubuntu will support most of the hardware out of the box properly.

For instance, my Sony SA trackpad was garbage under 10.04LTS, 10.10, and 11.04 when I first got it in Decemeber of 2011. I didn't try 11.10 because it was mostly working tho. But by the time 12.04LTS came out all the little stuff like audio devices, trackpad, all just worked fine. I still had to download and install a few odd ball bits but overall it was a usable laptop about 6 months after I bought it, and almost a year after the initial release of the SA. for this reason a closeout model is often both a good deal in terms of cost, and compatibility.

 

^^^ Great point, it may be worth it to look here & purchase a second machine Ubuntu Desktop certified hardware | Ubuntu if you need something right away. Do you have any Distro in mind?
OR you could run Linux in a Virtual machine under windows with the Samsung --- Nice machine BTW; BUT Sata II hard drive 5400 RPM - you may want to upgrade to an SSD if you are not happy with the performance.

 

The Samsung laptop you indicated looks like it shouldn't have any long term issues with Linux compatibility. The specifications for it include hardware that is all well supported in Linux;

Intel chipset
Intel Core i7 CPU
Intel Centrino 6235 WiFi w/Bluetooth
AMD/ATI Radeon HD 8770M GPU

By well supported, I mean that Intel and AMD do a good job of seeing that Linux drivers are available for their respective hardware, and if the drivers that support your current laptop's Intel and AMD HW aren't part of your favorite Linux distro today, they should be available with future updates. The only thing I noticed from a quick read of the laptop specifications is that getting touch screen support working for your laptop screen, may be a little tricky, but there's also a good chance that you won't need touch screen support in Linux for your computer sciences course. There is a Samsung users section of these forums, with threads that specifically address running Linux on the Samsung ATIV Book 8, like these posts, ( 1, 2), from this thread, and this thread as well.

Finally as to the issue of Linux bricking your Samsung laptop, this issue looks like it was initially reported in an article from HOpen, as well as Anandtech articles, ( 1, 2), and this blog post. There is also this thread here in the Samsung user forum, regarding this issue. Apparently Samsung’s UEFI implementation appears to be faulty and under certain conditions can cause the affected laptops to appear to be bricked. This has initially been reported occurring when trying to boot Linux, but it also looks like it can happen under some Windows use cases as well. Some users have reported clearing the condition by removing the CMOS battery for a few minutes. Until Samsung releases a firmware update that specifically addresses these issues, the safest thing to do is not to use UEFI on any Samsung laptops, even if you're only going to be using Windows. Unfortunately, if you're using Windows, that'll require you to reinstall it from scratch.

If that issue, or some of the steps involved in installing Linux on this laptop from the threads mentioned above, give you pause, then it might be better to select a different model/brand of laptop for your endeavor.

Good Luck..

 

Yeah generally the CPU and GPU are often well supported, it's the peripherals you run into issues with. Sound chips, track pads and so on. Well worth googling a model you're looking at and the word ubuntu to see what pops up in the support forums.

 

That so many special keys, hardware variants, and so on actually are supported is pretty impressive, really. Remember that in almost all cases, there's just no documentation for the interfaces. So just something as simple as making the keyboard backlight turn on, this is a reverse-engineered hack from scratch. With often different layouts for each individual model of the laptops, etc.

 

Not sure why you "hate to futz around with it too much" if you're a CS major. It's your job to "futz around".

Does anyone know the brand/model of the touch panel? I'll see if there's a driver for that.

 

That is what Linux is all about, futzing around. Look at it this way, if everything ran 100% out of box on everything what need is there for CS majors? With the hardware the touch screen is the one thing I would wory about for drivers and UEFI but supposedly with 2013 models all is well, at least with the x64 Linux distro's.

 

+1

Buy an older Lenovo Thinkpad from the Lenovo Outlet site. ( Lenovo Outlet | Laptop, Desktop and Tablet PCs | Lenovo | (US)). Thinkpads have great linux support and are extremely durable and long-lasting, and you can buy an outlet Thinkpad for less than $300 shipped. There are many different screen sizes and resolutions available.

 

While that is generally true, I doubt if it makes a difference anymore. This is not IBM era when most notebooks you buy were terrible at anything Unix-like. Yes, the ThinkPad line is still fine with Linux distros, but we have many options now.

 

I need to have linux on my laptop for school also, though I really just need a terminal. For my purposes when I cant ssh to the school server via putty/kitty and need to mess around I find it best to just install it in a VM. Oracle and VMware work great, or if you're running w8 pro you can give hyper-v a shot. If your needs are similar it is something to consider, you get to avoid all the messyness of dual booting and other nonsense.

 

The OP is "worried about compatibility". Thinkpads have great compatibility. I'd be leery about a touch screen laptop.

By the way, I use Xubuntu linux on an Acer netbook as my main laptop, so I agree that there are many other options.

 

SSD and a VM is the best thing for Linux... I shudder when I remember how many hours a day I was wasting trying to get it to work properly on pretty much any laptop I've ever had (desktops strangely worked fine... most of the time). There's always something that breaks - but hey, at least I could make it look like Mac OS X .

So, get the best laptop you can (with VT-d if possible) and run Linux inside a VM...

 

Depends on what OP wants to do. If (s)he has to crunch numbers (not uncommon for CS majors), that's not a very good idea.

If you want your UI to look like a Mac, why not get a Mac or a Hackintosh?

 

I've been running linux on laptops since I had a Toshiba 4700 with 16Megs RAM running RH 5. Since I got to a T42 on Fedora 9 I haven't had to do more than wait for the next major release to make most stuff work. The hardest thing I've had to do in the mean time was downloading software to switch GPUs so I could get decent battery life and make my Sony SA run cool.

 

Make sure the wireless card has a hardware on / off switch & not a stupid "airplane mode" on / off switch on the keyboard (which will not work under linux) - the HP DV6Z with the Trinity APU / AMD video card is an example of this.

Test out whatever laptop you intend to buy in a store by booting Linux on a USB stick.

 

About the wireless thing. Some of them work great, some don't. My Acer Aspire One the wifi switch on the keyboard works great. In many cases it's something you can map if it doesn't work right out of the box. The keyboard function for my Acer 4820TG also worked for wifi on / off as well. Have you tried the latest version of your distro on your HP dv6z to see if the switch started working under it?

The live CD / USB key is a GREAT way to test if linux will work on a new laptop. Some stores get a little sore over people sticking USB keys in their laptops and have them locked down so you can't do that. Often asking a sales associate to help you will get you in tho.

 

On the DV6z the BIOS switches off all wireless devices (including any attached USB wireless sticks) - the solution is to tape off one of the pins on the wireless card:

 

How to access a physical switch on a WiFi card inside the computer?

 

I think he's talking about the external facing ones, like my Sony SA has. An actual physical switch accessable from the outside that powers down the wifi with no software intervention.

 

Like those express slot cards? In that case it should work fine.

 

If you're not going to be doing anything heavy like number crunching, why not take a look at older ThinkPads?

Because I never run Windows on laptops, (Xubuntu/Fedora being my main go to choice for laptops), I usually buy used ThinkPads off eBay, I've had like 3 of them (I can't make up my mind and I keep buying and selling stuff) and none of them had a single issue with Linux (unless not being able to scroll with middle button + trackpoint out of the box with certain distros is an issue, it can be easily fixed with few lines in terminal)

 

In generel I always go for almost 100% intel based laptops when I look for a Linux pc.

But during the last two years hardware support on Linux has changed a lot and I have installed Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora etc. on loads of laptops and all seem to be running fine out of box.

That said I will of course agree with bibacula and advice you to buy a Thinkpad. Not only because the generel Linux support is great but also because it is a really great laptop.

 

Things are much, much better now.

All the 4 combinations (NV Bumblebee, NV headless, AMD PowerXpress, AMD headless OpenCL) work just fine as long as you have a reasonably up-to-date kernel.