I’m in the market for a new Linux laptop. My current machine is a 2018 i7 with 64GB of RAM, a 4K screen, 1TB of storage, 2x USB-C and 1x USB-A.
I’m looking for something that can match my current specs but brings great battery life, modern Wi-Fi, and a fingerprint reader. I don’t have to have 4K, and may actually prefer lower resolution for the battery savings.
I’d love to hear some recommendations for a machine built within the past 12 months. Thanks in advance for your feedback!
Have you looked into the Framework Laptop? It’s highly customisable, upgradable, and repairable. I don’t actually know how well it plays with Linux but as it is appealing to techy people who like to tinker I would imagine the community to be rather active.
Yup, it’s absolutely on my list. I’m specifically interested in the 16”, but it’s not available yet. Additionally, the soonest I could get the 13” is Q4. I’m wanting something before then.
Thank you for the feedback!
I was in the same boat before Framework launched and ended up with a ThinkPad X1 Extreme.
It’s a solid machine - easy to upgrade the SSD and RAM, easy to repair, very good premium support available for an additional fee. I paid for the support and had to replace a touchpad that started acting weird. They were at my house within 24 hours and made the repair at my dining table. So much better than AppleCare.
The Linux support is great. Everything works. The build quality is good as far as pc laptops are concerned. Lots of USB ports, HDMI out, and an SD slot. That’s the next best thing to the customizable ports on the Framework. The battery is a little better than the Framework. Really can’t go wrong with either one.
You can never go wrong with Thinkpad. Both of mine are 10+ years old and still running and they do with realyl well with Linux
I’ll take a look. Thank you for the recommendation.
I had an extreme, as nice as it was it kind of sucked on Linux due to all the dual gpu weirdness (working hdmi or battery longevity, pick one)
Has this changed recently? Because it used to be due to the wiring of hdmi though the external gpu
I’d seriously keep waiting for the 16" Framework. It’s definitely going to be worth it.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Framework laptops are, as far as I know, certified for Ubuntu. Meaning that any distro should run just fine, if maybe with some slight modifications, but Ubuntu (and its derivates) will work perfectly.
If your OK with arm I’d say the macbooks and especially the macbook air are ready with asahi for daily use. I’m personally considering getting to run linux on as daily driver.
That’s an interesting point. I could buy my wife a new Air and update her M1 to run Linux. Thanks for the suggestion!
Check the status of Asahi Linux, they’re making a lot of progress on Apple silicon, but it’s very early. I wouldn’t recommend it, at this point.
Do you actually need 64GB of RAM? The Thinkpad T16 AMD would be a good choice, but the T14s AMD has just stupidly low fan noise in Notebookcheck’s review. You definitely want to focus on AMD, Intel’s efficiency is… not great right now. As an added benefit, you get AMD graphics from the APU, so none of the Nvidia driver fuckery, and better performance than Intel.
Personally, I’m waiting for the T14s Gen 4 AMD. The 7840u is zen 4, GCN 3, and TSMC 4nm over the 6850u’s zen 3, GCN2, and TSMC 6nm. The T14 and T16 just hit Lenovo’s model database ‘psref’ earlier this week, so I’d expect them out in the next couple months. The T14s hasn’t been seen yet, I’d guess it hits psref in the next couple weeks. But, I’m prepared to wait into Q4, if need be, and some think I will be.
Yeah, the RAM is a hard requirement. I’d like more if I could. My desktop is AMD so I’m not against using them at all if it makes sense to do so. I’ve also enjoyed Lenovo in the past but couldn’t find a well enough equipped unit for my liking.
What are you doing that makes having 64gb ram useful?
Ah, I think to get 64GB from a Thinkpad you’d have to move up to a P series, and even the P16s and P14s that are based on the T16 and T14 will be significantly warmer and louder than those others. They’re very much tuned for performance. Unfortunately, Lenovo is soldering RAM far more on their AMD models than the Intel models, so you won’t be able to run above spec.
System76 makes their own distro called PopOS. Their laptops right now are rebadged, but I’m sure they support them well. They are in the process of designing their own and I’m waiting to see how it compares to something like Framework.
PopOS kinda sucks nards. Don’t use it.
You absolutely don’t have to. They will support you no matter what distro you have. All their custom bits are in the AUR and Nix, for example.
deleted by creator
To add, while I still enjoy my laptop, my biggest issues are battery life and heat. This thing could fry an egg when it’s under load. At best, I get 3 hours of usage on battery even with a lower resolution, low brightness, power management utilities optimizing performance, and running on my integrated GPU vs the nvidia GPU.
Is installing Linux as simple a process on Mac M1s or M2s as it is on other devices?
That seems quite top of the line even today.
For battery life, the screen, the screen, the GPU (seems you use an IGP), the size of the screen, and the CPU are the main culprits.
64GB RAM will use some battery do you really need that much?
Hopefully your 1TB is an SSD otherwise an SSD is a nice upgrade.
There are also fat fat powerbanks for power users far away from a 110/220volt line!
I Am curious, most often power hungry laptops are gaming ones… What do you do with yours?
I’m in DevSecOps, and do a lot of heavy development and testing, as well as PoCs. Ideally, I’d have 128GB of RAM but laptops aren’t quite there yet. The HD is a Samsung SSD.
I usually have the GPU set to integrated graphics unless I’m doing some heavy load in which case I’ll switch over to the nvidia GPU. I also switch between power modes depending on my use case at the time.
There’s not a lot I can do with the CPU other than the optimizations I’ve done thus far. It’s actually one of the main reasons I’m looking to upgrade so I can have better performance per watt and take advantage of various cores depending on workload.
What OS are you primarily using? I’d imagine Kali for pentesting if you do that, but what do you use everyday?
Interesting, thanks for sharing!
No sure about 64gb, but for performance/watt and reliable Linux I can really recommend the Amd p16s and t16(s?) machines from Lenovo. Have about seven in the office and they are excellent.
I too, as someone in devops, am wondering what you need that much memory for. Do you simply really like VMs? :)
Also, have you considered doing the really heavy stuff remotely? Whenever I need desktop type power (16 physical cores and 128gb memory) I simply wake the desktop, ssh into it and do it there.
Just got a new gigabyte. The bootloader is shit combined with shitvidia to make a terrible combination to avoid. I expect most companies are doing the same bullshit with TPM/Secure boot. Everything proprietary is criminal theft.
Look up any model you are considering on the following websites and if it’s listed it should tell you everything you need to know about Linux support. I’d say you’d be safe with most laptops these days though.
You try’na sell that laptop whenyour get the other one?
I’m keeping it as I still need more machines for testing. Sorry!
