2017 Linux Laptop Survey Results

The most popular laptop brand for Linux laptop users was Lenovo at 39.6%, Dell in second at 27.8%, ASUS in third at 16%, HP in fourth at 15%, and Apple and Acer were tied in fifth at 11.3%. Trailing the top five were Toshiba, Samsung, MSI, and then System76. System76 was the most popular dedicated Linux system provider but is only used by 2.1% of those responding.

37.1% of those responding say their primary laptop has a 15 inch screen size while 30% had a 12~13 inch and 21.7% had a 14-inch laptop.

A majority of the Linux laptop users polled have Intel integrated graphics while 26% had NVIDIA graphics and just 8% had Radeon graphics.

In terms of Linux laptop compatibility challenges, the most common issues were with the display or GPU at 26.1% followed by WiFi/Bluetooth issues at 18.8% followed right behind at 18.7% with Linux laptop users encountering shorter battery life. UEFI/SecureBoot was the greatest challenge for 12.8% of users, multimedia/hot-key issues at 6.8% and touchpad problems at 6.6%.

The budget for the most recent Linux laptop purchases was $800 USD or less with 39.9% of those responding followed by $801 to $1000 at 17.1%.

A slight majority at 55% expect a Linux-loaded laptop to be cheaper than an identical Windows laptop, notably because of needing no Windows license. Nearly 30% meanwhile expected a Linux laptop to cost the same as the same Windows laptop while only 15.1% were willing to pay more for this vetted Linux compatibility and official technical support.

I'm still going through the final free-form answers of "What would you like to see in a "dream Linux laptop?"" Popular answers from the feedback submitted come down to having better battery life as most popular followed by Coreboot/Libreboot support for freeing the system down to the firmware/BIOS. Also common were people wanting everything to "just work" with Linux.

Thanks to those that participated in the 2017 Linux Laptop Survey.