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Ask Slashdot: Recommendations For a Reliable Linux Laptop?

Posted by timothy on from the narrow-it-down-a-bit dept.

An anonymous reader writes: I will be looking for a new laptop soon and I'm mostly interested in high reliability and Linux friendliness. I have been using an MSI laptop (with Windows 7) for the last five years as my main workhorse and did not have a single, even minor problem with the hardware nor the OS. It turned out to be a slam-dunk, although I didn't do any particular research before buying it, so I was just lucky. I would like to be more careful this time around, so this is a hardware question: What laptop do you recommend for high reliability with Linux? I will also appreciate any advice on what to avoid and any unfortunate horror stories; I guess we can all learn from those. Anti-recommendations are probably just as valuable, a lesson I learned when an HP laptop I bought (low-end, I admit) turned out to be notoriously fickle when it comes to Linux support. Since our anonymous submitter doesn't specify his budget, it would be good if you specify the price for any specific laptops you recommend.

7 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. 2012 15" macbook pro retina by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    linux mint runs really well on it! everything works out of the box except the wifi, but you can just use ethernet to download the driver for the wifi adapter in the mint driver manager app. plus the screen is beautiful

  2. Samsung Series 9 by moon_unit2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I bought a Samsung series 9 a couple of years ago and Ubuntu works perfectly on it.

  3. System76 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just buy a System76 laptop. Everything will work, including suspend.

  4. System76 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    System76 has been selling Linux laptops for years now. I've never bought one, but they certainly have expertise in getting it to work.

  5. Re:Dell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have the XPS 15 (consumer version of the M3800) and it's a beautiful machine (I actually have 2 of them). I use them with Ubuntu as my main OS with no problems since day 1.

  6. FSF has some recommendations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Check out the FSF's recommendations for hardware at https://www.gnu.org/links/companies.html. It's hard to see how these wouldn't work out with GNU/Linux. In particular Minifree Ltd (http://minifree.org/) has some laptops that might interest you. They're modified ThinkPads so the hardware is pretty reasonable.

  7. Re:MacBook Pro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Your 'mentor' is a fucking tool.