Which laptop manufacturers usually have god compatibility with LInux distros?

HI. I usually run Lubuntu and just use my laptop for basic word processing and internet tomfoolery.

My trusty Thinkpad X120e drew its last breath today and Im in need of another laptop, though I'll probably wait a few weeks for the Christmas sales.

I don't have a preference for a certain company but I just want to know if some companies have significantly better compatibility with Linux or if it doesn't really that much which brand

Thank you.

 

This may be of some help Ubuntu Desktop certified hardware | Ubuntu It seems that Dell and Lenovo lead the pack when it comes to laptops

 

HP ProBooks are generally good with OpenSuSe - and you can buy them with SuSe Enterprise pre-installed.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express

 

Nice find, bookmarked! Thanks. I'm using a Lenovo E425 and its been okay with Mint, however its not great or how I would want it. For example, I installed AMD's Linux video drivers for my APU and Radeon dGPU and I still get some crazy glitches with the graphics display. Also, in Minecraft my FPS is lower in Linux compared to W7 or W8.

I've noticed HP ProBooks with OpenSuSe too. Interesting. Are there actual drivers and hardware being supported by HP for Linux then (that's great)?

 

HP Open Source and Linux - Certification matrix - HP notebooks - Novell SUSE

 

Lenovo's ThinkPads are awesome with Linux distros

I've owned 2 different ThinkPads and the compatibility was really amazing, almost flawless out of the box.

 

I have no issues with lenovo thinkpad x120e and xubuntu (have done some configuration).

 

Can't go wrong with a Thinkpad.

 

There's a lot of garbage to deal with regarding secureboot in the latest machines with win8. It's more important than ever to get a good review of a system (to know if the BIOS isn't locked down or buggy) and make sure you buy from a retailer with a good return policy.

 

And as far as graphics go, I think almost any laptop with an Intel integrated card. AMD cards do give some issues in Linux, because there's not that much support for the propietary drivers (Catalyst - for example, latest catalyst doesn't work with X.Org 1.13) and the open source drivers are OK for the most part, but not so good in 3D and power management.

Between AMD and NVIDIA, I think NVIDIA have better support.

 

I have a ThinkPad Edge and for the most part it works fine with linux mint. All the devices work and even my ExpressCard slot works fine with my Renesas ExpressCard USB3.0 card. Its plug and play, I didn't have to go digging for drivers. I did however try AMD video drivers for Linux and I'm still experiencing some graphical glitching. I've been so busy with work that I haven't had the time to diagnose and troubleshoot the problem. Otherwise I would say my experience with my ThinkPad has been positive using linux.

Sent from my SPH-M580 using Tapatalk

 

Laptop manufacturers such as Compal, Wistron, MSI and Asus use different hardware manufacturers depending on the brand company that contracts them out and the product line, such as Dell precision vs inspiron etc, Nvidia vs AMD...

Its really a difficult question to answer generally, while sometimes the "brand" company or contractor uses custom drivers, the hardware itself varies which can of course cause differences that border on intangible. For example, even the HP Elitebook workstation series within the 15-17" segment has used 3 different manufacturers for their motherboards even within only 2 generations (I think it was the 8510, 8530, 8710 and 8730 being manufactured by 3 different companies).

Except for the obvious with graphics cards that is. Although atm I can't remember which is supposed to have better linux support, but I think its Nvidia?

 

I've always had great luck with the Dell notebooks. I've never had any problems with NVIDIA video cards either.