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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.
A modern MacBook has no mouse buttons since it is multitouch. They are simply the best mouse pad on any laptop currently available.
My feeling having gone the other way some time back is that a MacBook is the cheapest way of getting a decent UNIX laptop with all the hardware working, plus the hardware is well built and the OS works nicely. You can even run Linux on a MacBook if you really want to go that route. The build quality of most PC laptops is so poor that you end up paying just as much for a good Windows laptop to run Linux as you would buying a MacBook.
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Because you like the feeling of completely owning and controlling your laptop?
Try a laptop from System 76. Everything works right out of the box.
I've got a System76 laptop. They're good, and they have good support. They're pricey though (but nowhere near as bad as Apple).
This weekend, I went to Office Depot, bought an HP 2000 laptop for about $329, brought it home, backed up the windows image, and installed Ubuntu 11.10. All of the conditions of his post are met. Battery life is good, fan is quiet, sound works, closing the laptop lid causes the machine to sleep, etc. Not sure what he means about backup - I use grsync which is easy enough to back up my home directory to a flash drive (primitive, I know, but I've never been burnt). No special configurations were necessary to install Ubuntu. It's funny that people keep bringing up WiFi. The last time I had problems with WiFi on Linux was a Broadcom chipset on Ubuntu 8.04. After that, everything has worked without issue (and I could get it working by extracting / copying firmware). Sometimes I think a lot of the Linux complaints about sound and wifi are out of date.
I'm not sure what "AppleCare" is unless it's some sort of extended warranty / replacement program. Unless you're very unlucky, a decent laptop is cheap enough that you're better off self-insuring. While it might make sense for an Apple product (I'm being generous) I don't think it makes sense for a basic laptop workstation.
Why not put Linux on a MacBook? I have.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook
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I am not saying that you can't find a laptop, but it is truly becoming like pulling teeth. The entire industry outside of Apple has decided to jump on the Windows bandwagon.
I'm not sure what mythical age you're referring to when PCs didn't come pre-bundled with Windows.
What does seem to have changed, though, is that laptops now seem almost completely homogeneous. You can pick from just a few screen sizes -- 14" and 15.6" seemingly being the two most popular. But guess what? Whichever size you pick, they all have the same resolution: 1366x768. For the majority of models, the graphics will be powered by Intel onboard graphics -- which, by the way, are now actually integrated into the CPU dies. You can pick from a few different hard drive sizes -- 320GB, 500GB, and now 640GB being typical. Those will be 5400rpm drives, BTW. And the drive sizes will be closely tied to the CPU speed for pricing reasons -- so you might find a Core i3 with a 500GB drive, but if you want a Core i5 for just $50 more or so, it will come with a smaller drive. If you want the whole shebang, you'll have to pay more, plus they'll throw in something extra you didn't want (like WiMax or something).
Basically it's just an all-out price war, where all the manufacturers are producing virtually identical models while trying everything in their power to undersell the other guys. That means most of them are cutting a lot of corners. One reasonable shopping strategy is to find a configuration you like, list all the specific models that have those exact specs, and decide which brand you trust not to build a complete piece of shit -- but you can't even rely on brands these days, it seems.
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