For those who’re currently looking for a nice new device: shown are (from Top Left to Right):
- NovaCustom (NL)
- Star Labs (UK)
- System76 (US)
- Juno Computers (US)
- UbuntuShop (BE)
- Slimbook (ES)
- Tuxedo Computers (DE)
- Entroware (UK)
- MiniFree (UK)
- Nitrokey (DE)
- Laptops with Linux (NL)
- Purism (US)
Not mentioned but also selling Ready-to-use Linux computer:
- Dell
- Lenovo
My SOs system76 had intermittent graphics issues and their tech support had hour-long calls with me over several weeks and additional emails correspondence where we did some very in-depth testing and monitoring of the machine. I think most of the testing was that their team genuinely wanted to know if it was a hardware or software issue and fix it right.
In the end they replaced the entire motherboard under warranty because they pointed out in another month and it wouldn’t be covered and it might fix it. It did.
I suspect it was just a bad Nvidia GPU. It sucks that it had the problem and that it was difficult to track down but all laptops break.
I challenge anyone to find that level of support from a Windows manufacturer without having a corporate account.
Its kinda funny that when I read “hour-long wait calls” I initially thought you were complaining about being on hold for too long. I just couldn’t imagine a scenario where they were helping you the entire time and it was positive lol
Lenovo allows now. U can opt out of windows 11 and save money. I believe they installed Ubuntu. U can reinstall with Linux mint or Pop OS if u like the feel of windows.
I currently have a system76 (not happy, story for another time) and am in the market for a new gaming laptop this time specifically looking for amd cpu / gpu - any recommendations? I prefer Kubuntu should drivers be an issue.
If you are in the US, I’m very happy with the ROG G-series. The cooling is overengineered, they have a good community built around them (see https://gitlab.com/asus-linux/asusctl), and now they’re even offering some Strix Halo stuff, which is really awesome.
Framework is great, but I wouldn’t buy one for heavy dGPU use since the cooling is… not the best. At least not until they offer Strix Halo laptops too.
Bit pricey but the Framework 16 is always a great option for the more tech inclined.
Doesn’t come with Linux by default but they support it very well and have people on staff for Linux support. You will have to install it yourself though
Thanks this looks like a great option and actually cheaper than my system76 for similar specs
Also Pine64
I just got a Zenbook Duo for work because I haul around a second monitor all the time. Debian 12 is not happy, feels like the early 2Ks as I try out mainline and other methods to get the wifi card and displays recognized. Every laptop I’ve used up to this one worked out of the box. That being said, Ubuntu may, but I’m trying to avoid the snap machine.
Framework:
Missing Framework?
I think the answer is yes. Last time I did a survey of options a lot of them seemed highly unreliable. Framework was one exception but… unfortunately I think you kinda just have to like the framework idea. The massive premium you pay there just doesn’t make financial sense unless you actively (ab)use your hardware such that it might really fail within the useful lifetime of the processor. (Ie I can buy two laptops for the price of one framework, so…why not just do that if the first fails?)
PSA: My Starbook MK V has great specs but feels cheap and loses charge when closed, so it’s always empty when I need it.
(Tried all firmware updates and different distros, without success and their support isn’t of any help either. Won’t be ordering from them again.)
They’re all shitty clevo laptops
That’s not true! Some of them are Tongfang devices. 🥴
It’s true those companies have to overwhelmingly work with ODMs, doesn’t necessarily make the devices shitty though.
Starlabs design their own.
They’re also insanely expensive
Because they design their own, yes. That’s how economy of scale works.
To benefit from it you either need to sell an absurd amount of stuff or buy from those who do.
I beg to differ, i have bought clevo w650sj back in the day when it was produced, it works great to this day, just added ssd and ram and it works great with opensuse tumbleweed and windows 11 dualboot, i use windows in dual boot because i need adobe and flashing software for obscure chinese phones and flashing software to revive bricked usb sticks
Well, the quality of most laptops fell enough in the last decade, that the clevos are decent now. Also, fuck thinkpad part rejection, I’m definitely not buying a (edit: new) TP.
would you mind elaborating on the part rejection? i am not sure what is meant by that
ThinkPads refuse to work with non-Lenovo batteries.
Tbh I would rather a desktop and build that myself. If I wanted a laptop I would most likely be looking for very low specs and cheap, so second hand. Got a laptop with a 2011 pentium CPU somewhere and it works perfectly fine on Linux, even got a few games on it.
Drox Operative 2 runs at 60FPS, kinda makes me wish we had more 2D games these days as they can run on pretty much anything.
I’ve got a cheap refurbished ThinkPad L390 Yoga. (€180) It’s plenty powerful and the touchscreen is awesome with KDE Plasma (but only with Wayland - X11 is not built for touchscreens, it only does mouse emulation).
So apparently it’s for the Western people then. (Or I could be wrong)
I simply don’t know any vendors in Japan, Australia, India etc., but feel free to provide some!
I don’t think there are any, atleast in india. Except maybe dell and lenovo but idk if they would be any cheaper than windows ones. So I still bought cheap hp with windows
I can’t find any, hence my comment
Which would be considered a good gaming laptop?
Asus Zephyrus line are pretty good.
System76 laptops are built for gaming.
They also created their own Linux distro called Pop! Os, which is designed around gaming, and fairly popular within the community. All their laptops come with Pop! os preinstalled
Lol, no? System76 does have gaming-capable devices and Pop!_OS will absolutely get you there, but neither was designed “around gaming”.
To answer the original question: System76, Tuxedo and Slimbook do sell gaming-capable devices. Others might do as well, this isn’t a complete list.
They literally advertise it on their website. They definitely have gaming in mind.
Sure, they’re not designed solely for gaming. But they’re focused on graphical performance which is what makes them suited for gamers.
Pop! Os has a focus on graphical performance, with versions containing preconfigured AMD/nvidia drivers depending on the users build. To claim that gaming hasn’t factored into the decision to focus on graphics would just be silly.
Doesn’t really feel as though that pedantry has added anything to the conversation if I’m honest, as the question was what would be suitable for gaming, and you yourself also recommend 76?
Also Framework.
I think OP means “just work” as in the OS is preinstalled. Framework do support Linux but they don’t preinstall a distro for you.
Having said that, I’ve got a Framework 16 and it’s very nice.
I wouldn’t expect folks working on Linux to be discouraged by the sweat equity of something as small as running the installer for an OS. I definitely read “just work” to mean having all components supported by the OS, regular updates available, etc.
When I checked out during purchasing my 16 I seem to remember the options being “no OS (bring your own), Fedora, Ubuntu, and Windows.” I chose no OS because I was planning on installing FedoraKDE with FDE which wasn’t an option, but, I assumed that by choosing Fedora as my option it would come preinstalled, or does it come with an install USB to do it yourself?
Bought one very recently, the options are
- buy a prebuilt and it will come with windows pre-installed
- buy a DIY edition and the SSD will be new in box with nothing installed on it
- you can opt for a windows license, but it is just a digital download for the installer
Damn, I preordered mine, and definitely remember the option despite not choosing it. I wonder why they took it off. If I had a guess it’s because anyone ordering a framework probably wanted to install the OS themselves for encryption like me or whatever other reason, so almost nobody chose that probably lol.
Years ago it was literally impossible to get a laptop without OS. It’s a good enough option compared to what we had to suffer before.
Came here to say this. I really like mine.
Came to evangelize about our lord and savior used thinkpads
What color are your knee socks?
I still remember the good old IBM Thinkpads, most of them were indestructible tanks. But with Lenovo, those times are long over. My last machine was a TP L390 Yoga. It overheated frequently, the cooling system was inadequate for the 4.6GHz Intel CPU, one day the logo sticker came off because the glue turned into sticky liquid, the passive Micro-Ethernet dongle cost 50€ and the cable turned into glue after a few months…god, what a shit machine this was.
I was able to work with it for a while by limiting and undervolting the CPU, but one day a Windows update came out that disabled the functionality and it worked like crap on Linux for a long time due to bad drivers.
I switched to GPD now. Never going back, although I miss the Trackpoint a little bit.
Only get the business model. I’ve had T60, T61, T410, T460, X200, x220, X240, X250 and X260. They’re all rock solid. At work we use the X1 Carbon all gen they’re also damn good build quality.
Our experiences seem to differ. I currently have L390 Yoga and it’s the best thing I ever used. The cooling isn’t bad, just the feet are too thin to allow for flipping the screen over. Any cooling pad, or in my case an egg carton fixes this.
Mine has i5-8365U (4.1GHz).The Ethernet is pretty stupid, but I’ve got the dongle from AliExpress for €9.31 and it’s working fine.
I really love the touchscreen in combination with Arch, KDE Plasma and Wayland. It also has pretty great colors, but I am coming from TN, so the bar was laying on the ground.
Driver-wise, everything works OOB on Arch (at least since September 2024 which is when I got it).Really, I only have 2 problems with it:
- The proprietary “Ethernet”
- USB-C doesn’t allow charging from C to A cable despite supporting 5V@2.1A charging from any proper USB-C.
T and P series is aparently good, normal L is decent, but others are terrible (yoga, x, ideapad, etc.). But I haven’t used TP-s myself. I did use an Ideapad and it’s terrible (no upgradability, falling apart metal chassis (how the hell does metal break), no key-travel (feels like hitting a rock while typing) and it has a shitload of mediatek hardware which is a pain on linux (but I haven’t tested it as it’s my dad’s).
I’m here to evangelize coreboot and Talos and Framework for those with more money than you and I
I have a framework, not that happy with it. It sometimes fails to find my encrypted partition (many times reinstalled different systems over the years), it heated up to 100°C so fast that it throttled down to 400 MHz all the time. The overheating is better since they sent me a new motherboard, but it still goes to 95 easily and heats up when doing the most basic stuff. I’ve also had some sound issues lately on Debian stable and testing, but not sure about that.
Regrettable, my amd 7040 works fine since oct 2023, although i had to tinker in the beginning for power optimisation and to get suspension working properly
Talos… are you running kubernetes for your laptop you mad lad? Also, not aware that the coreboot is ready yet for any of the non-chromebook machines. (Edit: meant coreboot for Framework laptops)
oh i use coreboot on an old thinkpad daily, it’s completely fine
Coreboot is for the thinkpads. Talos PPC stuff is just cool if impractical.
I had a thinkpad for YEARS running various flavours of Debian / Ubuntu. It never had an issue with drivers and even the fingerprint sensor worked out of the box.
The battery was shot to hell, the hinge was gone, it was time to upgrade. So I bought an ideapad. There’s something funky with the audio quality on Linux and the fingerprint scanner is now a face scanner camera. Howdy is not easy to configure and I’m pretty sure I can trick it with a photo.
That’s a long way of me saying I have buyers remorse and not all Lenovos are made equal :(
