2017 Linux Laptop Survey

[GreatEmerald]

Yea, for the "most important factor" question, I answered with Linux support, but I had in mind that the hardware must be known to work on Linux. If the laptop comes with Linux preinstalled, it's usually a safe bet, so it's a bonus, but not a requirement. And yes, if it comes with Linux preinstalled, I will wipe it and install another distro, but only after investigating what is preinstalled and taking any vendor DEBs/RPMs that are preloaded. Those are helpful and often fascinating to look at.

My latest laptop is, well, a tablet; I'm not sure if it's supposed to count, but I took it that it is because it's a detachable. It does have some issues still (I'm documenting them on my website and on https://www.phoronix.com/forums/foru...st-for-tablets ), most notably it doesn't show battery status and the back camera doesn't work, but overall it's pretty nice and it's just a matter of time until the few remaining kernel bugs get fixed.

I would also like to see more AMD hardware out there, and indeed, I would never take anything with NVIDIA on a laptop. Intel is OK. The biggest hardware issue on conventional laptops has been wifi, what with quite a few vendors still relying on nonfree drivers and firmware.

[Darknation]

I picked up an HP EliteBook 8460p a few months back for $150 on ebay and aside from some quirks I ran into with Arch Linux, I decided to settle on Antegros for my operating system. For what I paid it's been a great experience.

[Kerashi]

I don't use Linux on my main machines (3 of my PCs run Windows) but I do run Linux (Ubuntu Mate) on this laptop. I got the laptop for free, with a cracked screen and an infested, pirated copy of Windows 7 (that I promptly removed and replaced with Linux). It's sluggish due to age, but it makes for a good machine to travel with. The biggest challenge I've had with it (aside from the screen replacement) has to be getting it to communicate with my printer, a Brother laser printer shared from a Windows machine. I'd say my dream Linux machine would have all of the applications I depend on on Windows running on it natively, without WINE. Extremely unlikely, I know, but one can dream, right?

[rene]

I'm actually pretty impressed and satisfied by the Lenovo T470s. The ultra-book class machine (15W Intel CPU, ...) actually runs Qemu/KVM Windows 10 guess for software development and testing pretty snappy, even while screen capturing the Full HD screen and offloading the encoding to the GPU for the YT video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyclA-_M-aA

[Leinad]

I didn't check Gaming in survey, because laptops are not enough powerfull for gaming. But I play games on Linux desktop computer.

[GreatEmerald]

The biggest challenge I've had with it (aside from the screen replacement) has to be getting it to communicate with my printer, a Brother laser printer shared from a Windows machine.

Yea, that's another thing I as thinking. Aside from wifi drivers, printer and scanner drivers are also a mess. An even bigger mess, even. Thankfully to me it doesn't have much of an impact because I make a point of not dealing with paper if I can avoid it. But it's still rather odd that while all hardware drivers are in the kernel, printer and scanner ones are not...

[Rhylor]

Under the "greatest challenge" section, I really wish that WiFi and Bluetooth were separate options. On my Dell XPS 15 9550 running Arch Linux, WiFi worked smooth as butter out of the box (even with a Broadcom chip - imagine that!), but Bluetooth had me stumped for quite a while before I finally got it working. For this reason, I chose the "WiFi/Bluetooth" option, but I really don't want that to create misleading data which may suggest that WiFi is still in a bad place on Linux, because it's not (in my experience). And let's be honest - people rely way more on WiFi than they do on Bluetooth, especially for a laptop.

[sverris]

Missing aspects like fair production, bloblessness, repairability... in this survey.
I use only (older) laptops, which other people wanted to throw away.

[stqn]

The first question should be multi-choice because it’s obviously a combination of requirements/desires. And "$800 or under" is very wide; I paid €120 for mine. Oh and it would be nice for privacy if the survey wasn’t hosted by Google…

[AdrianBc]

@illwieckz

Michael, on the first question “Of the following, what do you view as the most important factor when deciding on a new laptop?” I can't answer. It's missing “Trackpoint”. So I answered “Brand” but it's not true. It's true I bought a Thinkpad because they have a Trackpoint, but if some laptop maker (that is not Dell neither HP) make a laptop with a Trackpoint, I can say Bye Bye to Lenovo.

I agree with you, because I also prefer a Trackpoint to a trackpad.

Nevertheless, I do not believe that you should blacklist any laptop maker.

I do not know anything about HP, but my Dell laptop has a good Trackpoint. It is certainly more comfortable and precise than the Trackpoint used by me many years ago on an IBM Thinkpad. I do not know if this is due to hardware improvement or to a better software driver in Linux (that old IBM laptop was used only in Windows XP).

Before buying this Dell laptop, I have also heard some horror stories about Dell Trackpoints, but those stories might be no longer up-to-date. I actually wanted to buy a Lenovo laptop (this was in May 2016), but I needed a customized variant. While Lenovo & Dell started from the same base price, after adding all the custom options, the Lenovo price became almost double compared to Dell, so I abandoned quickly any plan to buy the Lenovo laptop. That was a good decision, because the Trackpoint is very good, unlike what I had heard.

I believe that Lenovo does not have any advantage in Trackpoint quality, but only the advantage that Trackpoints are offered in more laptop models, including some less expensive.

My Dell laptop was expensive, being a Precision 7510. I am not aware of much cheaper Dell models with Trackpoints.