[timtadh]

Linux laptops: buy pre-installed. If you want linux and you want to be sure everything is functional, AND you don't want to devote lots of time to a "project" buy a pre-install. Dell Developer Edition laptops (XPS 13, 15) make great laptops. I hear good things about system 76 and purism as well.

Save time. Support having good laptops and good drivers. Buy pre-installed. Paying the "windows tax" and installing a Linux on a windows laptop isn't just more work, it is bad for the ecosystem.

[ePierre]

> Save time. Support having good laptops and good drivers. Buy pre-installed. Paying the "windows tax" and installing a Linux on a windows laptop isn't just more work, it is bad for the ecosystem.

I wish I could. Unfortunately, I live in a country (Taiwan) where no one knows about Linux. It's impossible to buy a pre-installed Linux laptop here.

You know the most ironic part? My job here is to certify hardware (including a lot of laptops) to work on Linux... so that you guys in the US and Europe can enjoy it :)

[majewsky]

> I live in a country (Taiwan) where no one knows about Linux. It's impossible to buy a pre-installed Linux laptop here.

Quite some years ago, I went into a smaller electronics store in Germany because I had seen a nice notebook model on their website that had an SKU without operating system.

When I spoke to the clerk, he was completely puzzled that I would want a notebook without Windows. I can still hear his words in my ears: "But you need an operating system!" I tried to explain to him that there exist other OSs, but to no avail. I walked away from that purchase after imagining how support would go if I had any problems with the hardware.

[yeukhon]

@ePierre:

> I wish I could. Unfortunately, I live in a country (Taiwan) where no one knows about Linux. It's impossible to buy a pre-installed Linux laptop here.

It's odd because Taiwan has a very strong IT root, and the Open Source community there is strong. It's true regular PC users don't use Linux, so are the regular PC users in America. Even government supports open source softwares.

[1]: https://www.mindmeister.com/303031964/open-source-community-...

[anuragsoni]

There was another post on hackernews today about some new Dell ubuntu-based workstations[1]. The webpage that the post refers to mentions worldwide availability, so maybe dell might be an option for you at some point?

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13360339

Also, it looks like that their ubuntu edition and the windows edition of XPS-13 come with the same wireless cards this year (It used to be broadcom on windows, intel on ubuntu versions), so there might less differences between the two this time around.

[boomboomsubban]

That's bizarre, considering 40% of Dell computers sold in China come with Linux.

[bigger_cheese]

I had the same issue I live in Australia I bought a XPS 13 from dell (same laptop as developer edition) I had not choice but to have Windows 10 preinstalled. No idea why they made the OS choice region locked...

[developer2]

>> Linux laptops: buy pre-installed.

The fact that hardware - though much improved in the past 15 years - is still a crapshoot on Linux, particularly when it comes to laptop hardware, is so frustrating.

Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware. OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box". I can't see how it's ever supposed to be "the year" for linux when just getting it to run properly on hardware requires buying OEM meant-for-Windows, but we-promise-it-works-with-linux garbage.

Is a "pre-installed" linux laptop even cross-distro compatible? If the laptop comes with Ubuntu pre-installed, what are the odds I can replace it with CentOS or Arch? Is the laptop "designed for linux", or "designed for exactly what is factory shipped, and nothing else"? Can I even do a fresh install of the shipped operating system, or do they hack in additional manufacturer packages/kernel drivers that require you to never reinstall on top of the shipped install? How about OS upgrades? Are they reliable, or do you risk running into compatibility problems, even with a new version of the same distro?

What we really need is a BSD/unix/linux[1] competitor to OS X. RedHat tried, and IMO failed. We need another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X. I'm tired of waiting for the open source world to try - and fail - to gather momentum. And tired of Apple, who has the best unix/linux operating system, fucking us over with every hardware release.

[1] How do you type a literal asterisk on HN? Backslash and double-asterisk don't work. nix. \nix. nix

[qplex]

>Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box".

Google the laptop model + Linux before you buy it. That increases the odds of getting a "it works out of the box" experience.

You'll also usually find pretty straightforward instructions how to get things going quickly if they do not work out of the box, or the simple fact that the machine is not well supported.

Also, if you had done enough Windows installs you'd know that things very seldom "work out of the box" if you do a clean install, especially with laptops. Instead, you'll have a fun time hunting bloated driver packages from some slow obscure chinese FTP server.

In addition hardware support on Windows gets worse over time. For example: Have an older Samsung laptop, wanna run Windows 10? Tough luck. [1]

On Linux you'll have this problem _very_ rarely, if ever, as hardware support (among other things) keep improving over time.

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/windows_10_samsung_f...

[kriro]

I strongly disagree with the sentiment that the solution is "another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X"

We don't need more closed, we need more open. What we need is massive rewards for open hardware via customer money. As long as wireless cards and graphics cards are closed by default and drivers are BLOBed up it's a losing battle by default. I do believe there's an opening to mini-disrupt Apples hardware (specifically laptop) sales by providing the "Apple experience" of bundling up everything in a neat package with strong branding. Focus very hard on the professional niche, ignore everything else. The key is finding hardware vendors that will play ball (and investors that are willing to take the boring low margin hardware risk). Linux has 30-40% of Apple's market share.

I suppose a bigish player like Dell could also work. I had the feeling their Linux line was more of an afterthought but the current release note of an extended Linux line looks pretty great. I'm not sure about their marketing and approach it isn't focused enough (just sell it as the ultimate developer box imo) but that news had me very excited. Good job Dell :)

[peller]

> If the laptop comes with Ubuntu pre-installed, what are the odds I can replace it with CentOS or Arch?

Very high.

For the most part, drivers on Linux are determined by the kernel version[0]. Arch typically runs a pretty new kernel, so anything that Ubuntu supports, will most likely be fine. (That applies to pretty much all desktop-oriented distros.) CentOS is server-oriented, and typically runs a pretty old kernel, and as such you need to be more conservative in the hardware you choose. That said, they do backport a fair amount of hardware support from newer kernels.

[0] The exception to this rule are closed-source drivers, but even those tend to be tied/limited to certain kernel versions.

[rl3]

>We need another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X.

In context of laptops, Microsoft is in a position to kick serious ass on this front should they wish to. Their Surface hardware line is vastly superior to Apple at the moment.

Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL) looks promising but is still in its infancy. Unfortunately it will likely have severe limitations for some time, and even then there's no escaping the fact it runs atop Windows.

In my opinion, there's a few rather crazy options:

1. Ship the Surface line with a hypervisor by default. Provide full official driver support for the hardware in both Windows and Linux environments. That means first-class Wacom support on Linux. Ditto power management, touchpad and wireless. Run Windows and Linux simultaneously, with interop support.

2. Reengineer the Windows kernel to update itself without the incessant need to reboot all the time. Windows Update is a piece of crap that needs to be replaced by a proper package manager anyways (at least under the hood). Then, double down on WSL until it's practically at parity with a real Linux install. Failing that, integrate a guest VM with full hardware acceleration and driver support.

3. Microsoft develops their own Linux distro and calls it Windows Developer Edition. Fuse the best parts of each OS together. Windows' existing graphics infrastructure ported as a desktop environment. Native D3D. Native Windows binaries. First-class driver support. A UI oriented towards pure modularity and customization.

I concede the third item is simply fantasy, but we can always dream.

[haspok]

Whenever in doubt buying a laptop for Linux, just consult the Arch Linux wiki on the specific model. If the given model (such as the XPS 13) is popular in the community, the amount and quality of the information collected there is mindblowing.

For example: the pages about the past 3 releases of the XPS 13: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9343) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9360)

From the compatibility point of view, usually more important than the distro is the kernel version. There are some minor exceptions to this, such as Ubuntu vs Fedora 25 on the 9343.

Ubuntu compiles the kernel with CONFIG_ACPI_REV_OVERRIDE_POSSIBLE=y (due to Dell asking for it), and Fedora does not. This results in the soundcard working properly in HDA mode under Ubuntu, but not working properly in I2S mode under Fedora. But this can be fixed, it just takes time and effort to find these information yourself.

No, the year of the Linux desktop - when you can just buy and use a laptop with Linux just as you do with Apple - has not come yet, and will not come in the near future.

[fnord123]

>Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware.

I strongly disagree. When the dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I tried to dual boot, Debian ran everything on my desktop from the get go. For Windows, I had to hunt for drivers for all the hardware, or use the provided disks (which was annoying since I hadn't originally bought an optical drive)

[jeena]

Just buy from a company which specializes in building laptops for Linux, they chose those components for which there are free software drivers already available so it never will be a problem.

1. http://system76.com/ 2. http://tuxedocomputers.com/ 3. https://www.entroware.com/

and so on ...

This way you're not only helping yourself but also invest into companies which make sure stuff is working on Linux, as they grow all the other OEMs will see the potential and adapt (hopefully).

[kbp]

> OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on.

OS X is only "permitted to operate" on computers designed for it, though. Linux doesn't have issues running on models where the manufacturer actually supports Linux.

[chubuntu]

Asterisk show up fine if followed by white space * ... The question is how to show (asterisk)nix?

Apparently three asterisks + nix = *nix

[jabajabadu]

Great point. I had two laptops with pre-installed Linux. Both were not even cross-update compatible. Video driver of my System76 laptop broke after the first major Ubuntu update. XPS 13 Developer Edition failed to hibernate the very fist time I closed the lid. WTF? Both laptops cost well over $1k.

[luca_ing]

> The fact that hardware - though much improved in the past 15 years - is still a crapshoot on Linux, particularly when it comes to laptop hardware, is so frustrating.

Anecdata: I've only ever had good luck with my laptops. All bought without OS (other than a make-believe FreeDOS installation).

Granted, I pondered a while which laptop to buy -- but I would do that in any case.

My personal experience is that it's surprisingly easy to get it right nowadays.

In fact I distinctly remember being baffled at how hard it was to install a particular driver -- only to discover that the system balked correctly: the driver didn't need to be installed, the device had been working all along, out of the box. I was banging my head against non-existing walls; these turned out to be harder than existing walls ;-)

[mrsernine]

> Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box"

I'm sorry to disagree, but after a fresh install of windows you still have to install a ton of drivers for specific hardware plus a ton of reboots after each one.

In fact IMHO Ubuntu offers a way better "out of the box" experience than windows does nowadays.

[qplex]

>OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on.

I've actually hacked the OS X installer to work on an older MacBook that wasn't "supported" anymore.

I think it was OS X 10.5 and the installer had something like this in there:

if(MacBook<3,1) ThrowError();

Rather amusingly everything worked after I changed that one line in the script...

[gonzo]

> We need another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X.

Jordan Hubbard is at iXsystems now. FreeNAS/TrueNAS & PC-BSD/ TrueOS.

So maybe.

[vacri]

> Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware. OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box".

Linux is exactly like Windows in this regard: it works just fine as long as you have the right third-party drivers. Hell, I remember having trouble installing my ATI drivers on win7 because win7 fallback was 640x480, and the braindead driver installer window was taller than that - you couldn't see the bottom of the window to click on the buttons (and windows wouldn't let you drag the top of the window offscreen). In the XP days, having windows completely fail to work with NICs was so frustrating that a friend of mine slipstreamed a vanilla installation disk with 676 NIC drivers on it, so 'no matter where you installed it, it would get network!'

So no, Windows doesn't work on 'practically any hardware' - you need to have the right drivers for it, same as linux/bsd/whatever.

[csdreamer7]

This is Linux laptop buying in a nutshell.

Used a nice little laptop for years in college. I kept fighting it on the headphone jack. It would not recognize when it was plugged in, or the sound did not work period. Hot keys would not work. Etc, etc. Besides that, everyone would always comment on what a nice little laptop it was as I ran it into the ground.

When it died I bounced from HP (horrible, came with AMD graphics that would overheat and AMD cut support for a month later, while still selling them) and then Dell (mostly horrible, but due to Sandy Bridge having horrible graphics support, the Dell had a short power cord, the USB shorted out)

Got System76 Lemur, it was like my old laptop, very small, very quiet, hardware switches for wifi, brightness & turning off screen so they would work. Ivy Bridge would freeze X if I closed and opened the lid enough, but that disappeared with the next version of Ubuntu. Similar issue with Skylake Lemur, went away when I used Manjaro with Mesa 13.

There is a small premium vs Dell or HP systems, but those are Dell and HP systems. You get what you pay for. Loud, poorly design pieces of crap (at least when I bought them). If you are willing to drop a grand and a half on a Macbook you would still save money on a System76.

[bwat48]

> Ivy Bridge would freeze X if I closed and opened the lid enough, but that disappeared with the next version of Ubuntu. Similar issue with Skylake Lemur, went away when I used Manjaro with Mesa 13.

This kind of issue is why I stopped bothering with linux on laptops and got a macbook.

EVERY single laptop I've used linux on (which were all researched before hand to include hardware that's not supposed to have issues with linux, and this includes a system76 lemur ultra laptop I had with ubuntu pre-installed) has had issues along these lines (e.g. random graphics driver freezes, suspend/resume issues, backlight issues, wifi issues, randomly freezing during boot etc...).

Random suspend/resume issues were by far the most common issue. With every laptop it would work like 95% of the time, but that remaining 5% of the time where it decides it doesn't want to resume is enough to make it unusable as far as I'm concerned. I've not once ever had a macbook (with OSX) refuse to suspend or resume on me.

Sometimes you could distro hop, update your kernel etc... to get past them, but there would always be some new issue along those lines that would crop up eventually. I felt like I was spending more time distro hopping, reporting bugs, trying to work around bugs etc... then I was actually doing anything productive.

[pjmlp]

I bought an Asus 1215B netbook that came with GNU/Linux pre-installed (Ubuntu), sold via Amazon a couple of years ago.

Guess what, the Ubuntu devs decided they should replace the Broadcom closed source WiFi drivers by the half-working open source ones, so during six months I didn't had a working wireless connection.

Asus could not support us, and Ubuntu forums were full of hacking the old drivers into the updated ones, or have patience and wait for the new working ones.

I had to disable sleep and hibernation, because it would only wake up again by forcing a full reboot, taking the battery out.

Still have it with GNU/Linux, just to have a machine around with it running directly on hardware, instead of a VM.

[pawadu]

I believe Ubuntu allows you to choose between closed source drivers from the vendor and open source ones.

It even asks you during install. I think it's on the very first page they show you.

[artursapek]

Just a PSA from my own research recently: be careful with the XPS. https://www.google.com/search?q=xps+coil+whine

As far as I know they haven't resolved it yet.

[blobert]

Can confirm, Precision M5510 (facsimile of XPS15). I usually have headphones on and even without them the whine is tolerable and becomes part of the background noise, however your annoyance tolerance level will vary.

[akulbe]

Does the coil whine only happen with Linux? or does it happen in Windows too?

Was thinking about the latest XPS w/Kaby Lake CPU... but this would give me pause.

[leesalminen]

Can anyone point me towards the new Dell XPS 15 Developer Edition (does it exist)?

I'm able to find the Windows version [0], as well as the XPS 13 Developer Edition [1], but no XPS 15 Developer edition.

I just want my 15 inches. I did 13 for years and the pain still haunts me.

[0] http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9560-laptop/pd

[1] http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt...

[gingernaut]

It's the Dell Precision 5510.

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstatio...

[deadbunny]

I use the XPS 15 (2015) and I run Linux with zero problems. While not marketed as a Linux machine I've had zero issues getting 16.04 server (no unity) working.

[nikatwork]

I've heard the XPS13 has a nearly-15 usable screen size because of the tiny bevel, any owners care to verify?

[gshulegaard]

In a lot of ways, System76 was a better user experience for me than the Dell XPS 13. But yes both are good (from someone who has both).

[rlonstein]

I recently had good luck with the Dell Inspiron 5565 with the AMD A12 APU I got for my son though I knew it might be a crap shoot. Everything worked out of the box on Ubuntu 16.10 including sound and sleep but I had to blacklist, iirc, `i2c-hid` so the touchpad would work consistently.

[metafunctor]

Is the Dell XPS 15" Developer Edition model actually available in Europe? Where can I buy one online? I would rather not talk with a Dell salesperson to buy just one. There don't seem to be any resellers in Finland who give a rat's ass about Linux.