Ask Slashdot: GNU/Linux Laptops?

"I'm an OS X user looking to switch to a Linux laptop. I like the Unix/BSD aspect of OS X. Simple things like when I close the lid the laptop goes to sleep, the sound card works out of the box, long battery life, minimum cooling fan noise, and a comprehensive but relatively straightforward backup system and 'AppleCare' package are important to me. What all-inclusive model of laptop and distro would you recommend?" He didn't mention it, but I am presuming that working Wifi should be on that list too.

Comments

http://www.system76.com/

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.system76.com/

System76 is the closest your going to get to a Apple experience with Linux.
Pre-installed so you don't have to muck around with drivers
Comprehensive testing and configuration of the hardware by professionals.
Support and documentation.
Company officially supports Linux.
Provides custom driver bundles to make upgrading effortless as possible.
etc etc.

You will get NONE of those things if you go with a Windows system from a large OEM and then try to install Linux on it yourself. You will be your only source for OS support and hardware configuration. You can have Ubuntu forums and mailing lists, but to be honest the chances of you getting useful answers is about 1 in 4.

Re:http://www.system76.com/

[Rastor]

Yeah, it would be good to get it from a supplier who has actually heard of Linux. So System 76, or maybe Emperor Linux or The Linux Laptop or Linux-Certified or ZaReason etc.

Re:http://www.system76.com/

[seandiggity]

Typing this on a 4-year-old System76 now. Great hardware, and it's important to support GNU/Linux vendors.

System76 has an update tool that will install anything specific to their hardware as a .deb package, so you shouldn't have any driver problems as long as you only upgrade your distro when System76 says they support it. For some time now, however, I haven't needed any updates directly from System76, as driver support for all my hardware is now available in the default repos.

There are actual lists ya know

[jmorris42]

Ubuntu has a list of Certified Hardware for ya. But I have yet to get a Thinkpad at least 90% running. I don't have the fingerprint reader on my X200s working with Fedora but everything else works, including the dock. The boss's Thinkpad T520 runs Ubuntu and has everything working except audio through the dock, but dual DVI displays on the dock do work.

Of course once you get a laptop working expect updates to constantly break things until you just get tired of rolling back failed updates and just stop, only taking critical security updates you can't live without.

It is worse with Linux because almost no OEMs are involved in keeping it working, most aren't even involved in initially getting it going so folks have to guess. But raise your hand if you haven't had to roll back a driver or update on that 'other' popular OS. Last week I had to roll back a mouse driver on a Dell laptop to get the pointer working.

My $0.02

[someSnarkyBastard]

System76 and ZaReason are both good dedicated Linux laptop companies. Personally, I have a Dell n-series laptop .

Fan noise?

[devleopard]

" ... minimum cooling fan noise ..."

I have a 2011 15" MacBook Pro. The new i7 quad-core + new GPU gets crazy hot. Often the temp gauge jumps to 80 degrees C + and the fans spin up. Those 2 fans maxed out at 6200 RPM is anything but quiet.

Re:SLASHDOT...SERIOUSLY STOP COMMENTING AT THE BOT

[Bob9113]

oh well. I love you guys

A worthwhile point that made me smile -- always remember, Slashdot, we wouldn't bitch about you if we didn't care. :)

Re:Not a troll but....

[jmelchio]

Until recently I had an old PowerBook G4 and a Macbook Pro. When the Powerbook died I had to make a choice of forking out significant money to replace it with another apple product or get something cheaper. The Macbook Pro allows me to do iOS development which I need for work, the second machine is really more for wife and kids so it's not that important what it runs but I still like the idea of having a Unix/Linux system.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Ubuntu listed several laptops on their site that would work with their distro so I ended up getting a Dell Inspiron 15 which I re-partitioned. After that I installed Ubuntu 11.04 without a problem and everything works after installation.
Wife and kids use the Windows 7 partition and I use the Ubuntu partition when I use it which is actually quite often. The machine is obviously not as nice as a Macbook Pro but it costs only a third of what the smallest Macbook Pro costs and as far as I've been able to tell it works just as well for most purposes.

If you're after a good Unix/Linux experience for a reasonable price I think this is a good option.

Re:Not a troll but....

[mspohr]

Having recently switched from Linux on a Dell laptop to a MacBook Air (which I bought because I fell in love with the design), I would have to say the the Mac UI definitely has a few oddities that just don't make sense (except in a historical context). My biggest gripe is the menubar on the top of the primary screen. I can understand that this made sense in 1984 when screens were small (and there was only one). Now that it is the 21st century, it drives me crazy to have to mouse up to the menubar at the top of the screen. I go absolutely batshit insane when I have a window on my secondary monitor and I need to use the menubar which is many thousands of pixels away at the top of the primary screen. The keyboard is missing a bunch of keys (a real delete key, pgup, pgdn, home, end, etc.). They also have this odd Command key (flower power) which seems to have taken over a lot of the functions of the Control key (but not all... I'm still figuring this out). Build quality seems fine but I'm not that happy with the chiclet keyboard. Touch pad is nice but I still prefer a mouse. I think I much prefer the Linux UI (any of them, all of them) and standard PC hardware.

BTW, a good backup solution for Linux is "Back in Time" which is a nice shell built on rsync similar to Apple's Time machine. Linux on my Dell was just fine. Everything (including power management) "just worked".