TUXEDO Aura 15 Gen2 - AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Powered, Linux Laptop

[Venemo]

It's sad that this comes with an obsolete chip, would have been interesting to me if it had a Ryzen 6000 instead.

[Nth_man]

I was eyeing one of these. I don't want to to pay Microsoft tax, I want an AMD APU and I want a reasonable price. I also want to be able to buy a laptop without a disk, and without (or with minimum) RAM so that I could use my own. This is one of few companies in Europe which can give you that. A decent Clevo laptop with not much overhead, and a reasonable price. Oh, also, this laptop seems to have a sane keyboard layout and a full numeric pad. I like having those when writing code, and decent keyboard layout is becoming increasingly rare in consumer laptops.

Alternatives in Europe are Pcspecialist (no AMD laptops, but they had some reasonably priced AMD Clevos in the past). "Laptopwithlinux" also sells Clevos with Linux (no AMD models at the moment, but they were there in the past). And so do "Juno Computers"- they do seem to have some AMD Clevo laptops in stock.

So yeah, I think this is worth a look if you are looking to buy a laptop.

About selling computers with Linux preinstalled, I also remember Slimbook and also Vant (web only in Spanish?), other people can mention more companies.

[Paradigm Shifter]

I had a Lenovo ThinkPad for work a couple years ago. That touchpad with the ugly prominent (therefore bothersome) buttons on top (just for your palm to trigger them every single time when you type), the Fn key on the far left instead of Ctrl and the stupid trackpoint being touched and triggering things randomly every time you had to write something (typically the first you deactivate with these laptops). What crap that was.
Have no clue why there is such a hype over it.
My Aura 15 gen1 is about 20 years ahead of that ThinkPad in terms of comfort of use.

Ctrl/Fn can be swapped in the BIOS, so that's a non-issue... and the TrackPoint has always been something of a marmite option - you either love it or hate it.

I've found I'm far more accurate with the TrackPoint than a trackpad... but I still prefer a mouse.

[danger]

These benchmarks are crap. I have T14 Gen 2 with Ryzen 7 5850U and my result score for Jetstream2 on Firefox is 120. But you get only 83 in your benchmark for T14s Gen 2 with Ryzen 7 5850U? These laptops are identical in performance.

[deusexmachina]

Does it use s3 or s0ix? How is it not hitting the power issues that other modern AMD laptops are hitting?

[deppman]

I think what is missed in this discussion is really how much work Tuxedo puts into supporting their systems. They rewrite ACPI tables, create recovery disks, and generally resolve all integration issues both before the sale and after with repeatable, packaged solutions. Most Linux system vendors don't take this nearly as seriously, and it can save you incredible amounts of time and frustration. Full disclosure: I work with the Kubuntu Focus project with similar goals and efforts, and Tuxedo have been excellent friends and collaborators as we have similar requirements. Michael mentioned their great Linux-first integration, but his emphasis is on hardware performance, so it can get lost (no offense to him!).

What one needs to be aware of IMO, is there are a group of "we'll-drop-any-of-14-distros-on-a-laptop-and-verify-it-boots-into-live-disk" vendors. They're cheaper at first, but in reality you are very much on your own from day 1, with "support" in the form of community forums where you get to try to sort out solutions from stranded customers with lots of bad or incomplete and unpackaged solutions. In comparison, we test new kernels and graphics drivers for hardware compatibility (on every hardware platform!) before releasing upstream updates, and I'm pretty certain that Tuxedo do as well. That alone can save your days of hassle, lost work, and frustration.

Tuxedo might cost a bit more, but you *will* earn that back in days or less with all the problems averted and optimizations applied. They are good people who really know what they are doing. Support them and their dedication instead of saving $50 on a chassis with little optimization and lousy support. It's better for you and everyone.

[Mez']

Ctrl/Fn can be swapped in the BIOS, so that's a non-issue... and the TrackPoint has always been something of a marmite option - you either love it or hate it.

I've found I'm far more accurate with the TrackPoint than a trackpad... but I still prefer a mouse.

With touchpad gestures, I found my mouse to be useless. So I got rid of it and even bought an external touchpad for my desktop and one for work (on Windows, unfortunately, but still is better).
I like my touchpad clean (no printing, sticker or separate button at all) and that's why those prominent buttons on the ThinkPad are really frustrating. They trigger too often unintentionally, breaking your sentence, or triggering a send or confirmation button while you just wanted to type. I sent a few nonsense emails to my colleagues...
Also, you might switch Fn/Ctrl in the BIOS, but you still have the wrong print on the key, and a smaller Ctrl key, while you typically use it a lot and want to find it as easily as possible.
In any case, it was a work computer. Locked. Not sure I could have accessed the BIOS.

[Mez']

I think what is missed in this discussion is really how much work Tuxedo puts into supporting their systems. They rewrite ACPI tables, create recovery disks, and generally resolve all integration issues both before the sale and after with repeatable, packaged solutions. Most Linux system vendors don't take this nearly as seriously, and it can save you incredible amounts of time and frustration. Full disclosure: I work with the Kubuntu Focus project with similar goals and efforts, and Tuxedo have been excellent friends and collaborators as we have similar requirements. Michael mentioned their great Linux-first integration, but his emphasis is on hardware performance, so it can get lost (no offense to him!).

What one needs to be aware of IMO, is there are a group of "we'll-drop-any-of-14-distros-on-a-laptop-and-verify-it-boots-into-live-disk" vendors. They're cheaper at first, but in reality you are very much on your own from day 1, with "support" in the form of community forums where you get to try to sort out solutions from stranded customers with lots of bad or incomplete and unpackaged solutions. In comparison, we test new kernels and graphics drivers for hardware compatibility (on every hardware platform!) before releasing upstream updates, and I'm pretty certain that Tuxedo do as well. That alone can save your days of hassle, lost work, and frustration.

Tuxedo might cost a bit more, but you *will* earn that back in days or less with all the problems averted and optimizations applied. They are good people who really know what they are doing. Support them and their dedication instead of saving $50 on a chassis with little optimization and lousy support. It's better for you and everyone.

I agree. And while the Aura 15 gen1 is a rebranded Clevo (this one seems to have the same build), they also developed several drivers to make it work on Linux and the same goes for other laptops of their range. There is also the Tuxedo Control Center or their keyboard backlight driver (about 10 preselected colors through key combinations on the Aura, and you can change it manually to any RGB color, dim it, etc...). Little things like that.
If you look for Tuxedo on Ubuntu or in the AUR, you'll find plenty of entries, as they're very busy trying to support their laptops on Linux. They also contributed a few times upstream to the kernel from things they had developed (I can at least think of the work to provide 4K60 for HDMI outputs through eDP for AMD on Linux).

Before buying mine, I made a thorough research (System76, Tuxedo, no OS laptops, big brands) and I don't think they cost a bit more, except maybe compared to machines sold to retail in bulk (but not really what a Linux enthusiast is looking for). I was very happy with the price of mine compared to say System76 (on the contrary those cost noticeably more). Especially with no Windows license, a Tux print for the super key, belgian AZERTY keyboard, a numpad, etc... It was almost exactly what I was looking for (7-8 criteria out of 10, which is the best you can get), and they had it. Plus unsoldered RAM (both slots), no obligation to buy their RAM, their SSDs or their wifi-card. You could pick Tuxedo, Ubuntu, Suse, Windows, dual Linux-Windows or simply no OS at all (my choice as I would just copy my system from SSD to SSD anyway). About 15 keyboard layouts, american ANSI or ISO, etc... I mean... In terms of customization, that's as modular as it gets in the current market.

Last thing to notice is that like System76 or Slimbook, and unlike the big brands with pre-installed Linux offerings (ThinkPads and XPS typically), they have a range covering everyone's needs, not just the usual dev-oriented very limited possibilities of Dell and Lenovo.

I think Tuxedo is a great company for the Linux world in general.