How to choose a computer/laptop/device that is better compatible with linux? Are there certain things to look out for when shopping?

I apologize if this has been asked a ton, still migrating to lemmy. Still stuck on crappy reddit out of habbit, but i’ve found the lemmy universe to be much more helpful.

Basically I’ve had a Dell Xps 13 9310 laptop for 4-5 years maybe? and I’ve put the thing through hell and back. Always (I believe) fixing it though and bringing it back to life. However, it seemed as if any linux distro i ever installed always had some sort of problems. I don’t know Linux well enough yet to be able to trouble shoot because it seems there’s many different routes to do it in Linux.

I’ve gone through so many distros and DEs and have tried everything on this thing. Well I think I finally bricked it after tinkering around with it. So I’m trying to plan a new budget setup.

I’ve always been a laptop guy because I love being able to lay on the couch by the TV and also have my laptop right there in front of me. I suppose im open to a small form or mini form desktop or box and just get a small display and a wireless keyboard/touchpad combo.

I just don’t know how to find what’s better compatible with linux. I see so much talk about “X” computers being great for Linux and to avoid “Y” computers because they dont work well with Linux (which I found out the newer Dells kinda suck. becoming more locked down and proprietary like Apple). I know there’s companys like Tuxedo or Pine or Pop Os that sell their specific Linux friendly devices, but those are all too expensive for me.

I’m looking for a machine that can easily handle Linux but also handle I guess a system or network, basically something strong enough to be a stable link in my entire network; if that makes sense. Because I have many plans for things I want to learn about and add to my network or system down the road. Also something durable and fairly user friendly.

The million dollar question(s)… how am I supposed to know which machines are better or even “compatible” with Linux? like all linux distros or flavors? I ran into a firmware/driver issue with my Dell and linux… they provided only a handful of drivers/firmware for ONLY Ubuntu 20.04. super limited and meant as a windows machine. As far as ram and storage, those are probably not pertinent and more of personal preference. But I guess it boils down to things like the cpu, gpu, ram, idk, whatever is important for Linux? any tips or advice is greatly appreciated. I want to finally take this serious and ensure I have the right equipment for what I want to do instead of falling for the newest, shiny things lol. Thanks

kanzalibrary,

something strong enough to be a stable link in my entire network; if that makes sense. Because I have many plans for things I want to learn about and add to my network or system down the road.

You need to check out Fedora Podcast EP: Getting Fedora with your Lenovo. For the first time they take laptop compatibility with Fedora Linux ecosystem seriously and announce it with such a deep detail on how they do that.

how am I supposed to know which machines are better or even “compatible” with Linux? like all linux distros or flavors?

I think Thinkpad line seems to be your right choice. Not for all linux distros, but at least Thinkpad has used by many developers in the world, so probably more compatible than other laptop brand IMO.

Macaroni9538,

thanks alot. are there certain thinkpad models to look at or will any thinkpad be ok? i think i’ve heard that after a certain model, lenovo started making changes or something and it affected the linux experience. idk i could be way wrong

kanzalibrary,

You can check the hardware compatibility list in here. The level support begin with Ships Fedora, Supports Fedora, and Fedora Friendly.

phx,

AMD or Intel Graphics. Intel networking, Atheros, or a chipset that is known to be friendly with Linux.

CPU support is fairly diverse.

Sound is fairly well supported but with some devices can be a surprise, as are touchpads. Touchscreen and webcams are generally a bit more dubious.

With desktops, I very rarely have issues but it’s also easier to pick my own hardware. For laptops, I usually don’t buy something that’s new to market unless the component models are known to work. If it’s been around for a bit I can usually Google comments by somebody else who’s got one and tried to run Linux on it.

consumptionone,

Have you considered a steam deck? Might work for you based on mentioning a small display and wireless keyboard.

WindowsEnjoyer,

Disclaimer - it might require lots of tinkering depending on what the goal.

For example, install JRE from Flatpaks. It will “succeed”, but due to some partition mounted in read-only mode, no binaries would be installed. 🙆

Macaroni9538,

Nope, i dont even really know what they are; always thought they were purely game related and im not a gamer. is it basically like a mini pc?

alt,

You basically already know the drill; buy it from a Linux-first vendor that offers devices that you can afford. A list of vendors can be found here. Personally, I’m quite fond of NovaCustom and Star Labs. Fortunately, both have ‘cheaper’ offerings with their NJ50 Series and StarLite respectively.

Macaroni9538,

Thanks! but when it comes to linux hardware vendors like those, for me at least, it’s hard to know which ones are good and which ones are bad or unknowns. also, i did look into the lower grade star labs and there was something about the processors they used… i did a little reading and they got poor marks for being uber slow or something. i could have misinterpreted things though.

alt,

but when it comes to linux hardware vendors like those, for me at least, it’s hard to know which ones are good and which ones are bad or unknowns.

You hit the nail on the head with that remark. Because, quite frankly, it’s hard for all of us; I would love to read reviews done by Notebookcheck (or similarly high-profile reviewers), unfortunately that’s simply not the case. In this case, you would have to scrape whatever knowledge you can find about these specific devices (and their vendors) before judging for yourself if it’s worth taking the risk.

The reason, why I’m personally fond of NovaCustom and Star Labs, is because they’re known to contribute back significantly to the open-source community; same applies to System76, Purism and Tuxedo. I didn’t name any these in my previous post, because none of them seemed to be sufficiently affordable.

i did look into the lower grade star labs and there was something about the processors they used… i did a little reading and they got poor marks for being uber slow or something. i could have misinterpreted things though.

If it’s about the processor being slow, then I’m not surprised. It’s from Intel’s N-series, which is somewhat of a spiritual successor to Intel’s Celeron and Pentium lines. Both of which are known to be not powerful. And for that price you shouldn’t expect a lot more, but I agree that an i3 (or something else with similar processing power) should have been possible at that price-range.

Macaroni9538,

Yup, N series

Frederic,

I always had chance installing Linux on Dell Latitude laptops. MX Linux works flawlessly, everything.

Macaroni9538,

Ok I have always heard Latitudes and thinkpads up to a certain model or generation are good for Linux

starman,
@starman@programming.dev avatar

Check out framework laptops

Macaroni9538,

Thanks, will check out

Flaky,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

For near-guaranteed compatibility, there are dedicated manufacturers like System76 and Tuxedo. Framework also claims Linux compatibility but for set tested distros (Ubuntu and Fedora).

Generally, anything with Intel/AMD graphics and Intel Wifi is pretty much guaranteed to work in my experience. For laptops, high-DPI displays can be problematic but the fixes are on Wayland which is getting higher priority now.

Macaroni9538,

ahh i think my dell xps 13 has a higher DPI and I always run Xorg or X11 or whatever it’s called

ShitOnABrick,
@ShitOnABrick@lemmy.world avatar

Generally it doesnt really matter but if you can it’s best to avoid using nvidia gpus although they will work under Linux they don’t have as good support doesn’t mean you can’t use a nvidia gpu under linux if you want or have to I mean I’ve got a nvidia gpu in my gaming laptop and while it’s a pain to setup it works somewhat well for gaming

Macaroni9538,

Oh no, I couldn’t care less about graphics, but at the same time I don’t want a potato lol so no Nvidia for me

ShitOnABrick,
@ShitOnABrick@lemmy.world avatar

You’ll be fine just get whatever has best price to performance nvidia intel or amd generally amd gpus are best for linux because of there driver support but its still shit a good exanple of this is the r7 370s last drivers being made in 2015

bustrpoindextr,

Honestly people over do it with the Nvidia complaints.

Nvidia provides a rock solid driver for Linux. If you are a general consumer it works really really well and it’s easy to install.

Here’s the actual historical issue people have with Nvidia on Linux: it’s a closed source binary which is contradictory to the ethos of Linux.

But he’s the rub, Nvidia open sourced some shit this year, not all of it, but they’re becoming more open about the GPU drivers. But shitting on Nvidia is a hard habit to break lol

null,

Here, take some of these: . . . . , , , , ,

ShitOnABrick,
@ShitOnABrick@lemmy.world avatar

Punctuation I’ve never heard of it what is this Punctuation

AlexanderESmith,
@AlexanderESmith@kbin.social avatar

@ShitOnABrick

I've been using nVidia cards on laptops with Ubuntu much exclusively for ~15 years . Only problem I've ever had was once when I accidentally uninstalled something using apt-get and it took the nvidia drivers with it (because I'm was stupid).

Petter1,

I just collect junk from my friends and install Linux on them, lol, you get what you get and make it work

Macaroni9538,

It’s just that my model is a newer generation Dell and I’ve heard from multiple people that Dell is getting more and more locked down and proprietary like Apple, so im thinking that’s why I haven’t had the best linux experience on this darn thing.

Petter1,

Have tried openSuse together with the community repo “packman”? OpenSuse was best distro with compatible driver yet.

BeatTakeshi,
@BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world avatar

On the other hand… threads.ruin.io/comment/247004lemmy.ml/post/35749

Macaroni9538,

yes Ive heard they are good too, but i’ve been having issues with mine. it came with windows pre-installed, i doubt that plays much of a role but Idk. like the system is naturally fitted for windows only, so the linux experience has been a little rough around the edges. I have no clue, just a thought maybe

OddFed,
@OddFed@feddit.de avatar

tuxedocomputers.com

oh_gosh_its_osh,
@oh_gosh_its_osh@lemmy.ml avatar

Fully agree. Even though OP mentioned it, I personally find that the prices compared to others (Dell, Lenovo Thinkpads) way more affordable.

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

Avoid NVidia graphics and Broadcom WiFi.

maeries, (edited )

Wifi is usually easy and cheap to swap in case thats the only thing that bothers you with a laptop

AnUnusualRelic,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

I’ll assume that was meant to be WiFi. It’s indeed one of the few components that’s easy to swap (a new one is about 30€), as long as it’s accessible (it usually is).

rotopenguin,
@rotopenguin@infosec.pub avatar

It may be modular, but many OEMs have the BIOS block out any other component you put in there. Neat, huh?

Macaroni9538,

Thanks, didn’t know about the Broadcom wifi part.

Bizarroland,
@Bizarroland@kbin.social avatar

The 2060 in my Lenovo legion seems to work pretty well

Ringmasterincestuous,

Fucking Broadcom wifi 😤

Flaky,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

Same. The moment I got a card with Wifi from Intel, it was so much better.

msage,

Do you mean like System76?

Macaroni9538,

What the heck is System76??? I see it everywhere but only affiliated with Pop OS

turbowafflz,

They make computers designed for linux, Pop OS is their default operating system for the computers they make

Macaroni9538,

Gotcha! I browsed their site a bit. I’d have to check ebay because I cannot afford the prices on their new stuff lol. I have a question that maybe you can answer. alot of folks recommend older laptops or whatever for linux. Does age of the computer matter much? I know you can always make upgrades to the internals and such, but say I got an old thinkpad for example maybe from 2010… and it’s certified linux compatible and all that… would i be able to run the latest versions of distros or would i be limited to older kernels due to the system being old? or is all of that determined by the hardware specs?

msage,

You don’t need certified Linux hardware to use Linux, and hardware is supported for a really long time once it’s there.

So you don’t have to worry about using latest distros, you should always welcome every update, they fix and add new things (unless it’s Ubuntu, screw them). And if you have new unsupported hardware, it will usually be supported in the next kernel release.

Meaning if you go with usual x86 CPU, Linux won’t have issues with almost anything that comes with it.

pete_the_cat,

Dell is well known for their proprietary fuckery, both in hardware and software. Pretty much anything other than a Dell or an Ultrabook like the Surface or MacBooks (obviously) should give you very little issue. Look for something that uses Intel NICs and you should be fine, Realtek NICs are poorly supported in Linux.

Macaroni9538,

Perfect, good to know. I hear some of the older model dell laptops are great for linux, but these Xps models have been troubled

pete_the_cat,

One of my coworkers had a Dimension or whatever the “base level” laptops are and absolutely hates it. He said it ran like shit but couldn’t get another one.

stealthnerd,

I’ve had two Dell laptops that ran Ubuntu perfectly. Dell sells laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed and also certifies models for Linux. Their Linux support is top notch in my experience.

pete_the_cat,

Yeah, obviously the ones they sell with Linux pre-installed support Linux perfectly, but that’s like 5 out of their 20 laptops. It would be shitty if they didn’t. People tend to buy a model with Windows preloaded and then install Linux on it though. Even though I used to work for Disney+ as a Linux System Engineer, which runs entirely on Linux, I had to fight with the helldesk to get a laptop that runs Linux, they would only support Windows and MacBooks. I told them straight up that I didn’t need their support and I was able to figure out things on my own. It took me about 5 months to get the Lenovo Carbon X1, granted this was during the end of the first year of COVID.

admin,

Seconding this, Dell has excellent support for Linux on their enterprise laptops (Latitude and Precision). XPS are another breed, and tend to be marketed as a ultrabook or a MacBook competition.

otter,

A key one is batteries

Dell, and other brands, sometimes have it so the device will reject all third party batteries. It has to be one made by Dell.

Meanwhile they stop selling the battery for older devices, which is usually when you need one of those batteries.

zShxck,

My Dell XPS is perfectly compatible with linux

floofloof,

I wiped Windows and have been running Linux without issues on a Dell XPS 13 9360 for some time, so it can be done at least with some of their models. For what it’s worth I’m using OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

pete_the_cat,

Is that a desktop or laptop? The desktops are generally better supported and they just make the case and motherboard proprietary. My dad had an XPS Gen3 desktop back in 2005. When it finally died I couldn’t reuse the case since it was the BTX form factor and the front panel connector was proprietary 😑

floofloof,

It’s a 13" laptop from late 2017, with an 8th gen Intel i7 in it. With Tumbleweed it feels faster than my other XPS 13, which has an 11th gen i7 but runs Windows. I actually thought the 2017 one was finished because under Windows the fans ran all the time and it overheated so badly it would slow to a crawl. I repasted it twice with no improvement. But once I switched it to Linux the fans hardly come on, and they’re quiet when they do. Linux has been a huge improvement on that machine.

pete_the_cat,

Nice! Yeah there’s so much shit running in the background of Windows that it’s ridiculous. Linux practically has nothing running in the background.

floofloof,

With Windows it always feels like I get the dregs of the CPU cycles after all the corporate interests with software on the computer have taken their share.

Spectacle8011,
@Spectacle8011@lemmy.comfysnug.space avatar

Every Dell laptop I’ve ever owned has had a key repeat issue. Mind you, this was an issue on Windows too. Otherwise, I bought a Dell Latitude last year and it has worked great.

oldGregg,

deleted_by_author

    •
    pete_the_cat,

    Do you also drink Bailey’s from a shoe?

    zaph,

    Do you have neck problems because of your giant brain?

    oldGregg,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    zaph,

    Weird way to take a compliment

    Juujian,

    Lenovo/Thinkpad will certify certain models for use with Linux, other brands sell Linux laptops. Those are obviously good indicators that those models should be safe to choose. More generally, the more popular a model is, and the longer it’s been on the market the more likely they are to be compatible, just because they are in people’s hands and people tinker with them and add stuff to the Linux Kernel. So stay away from the latest model that is uncertified, and don’t choose the flashy, overpriced model that will see poor sales.

    pete_the_cat,

    I second this. I got a Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon X1 for work after the Dell I had originally got straight up refused to sleep. I would put it to sleep manually, close the screen and when fully closed the screen would turn back on. Also, it refused to charge properly so I just left it plugged in 24/7. One day it became unplugged and then refused to turn on at all.

    I’ve been running Fedora for about 2 years on it and the only issue I’ve had that I can’t fix is the fingerprint reader doesn’t work in SDDM/KDE for unlocking stuff. Fprintd recognizes it and I can enroll fingerprints, it just doesn’t work with KDE for some reason.

    TerkErJerbs,

    The fingerprint reader on mine doesn’t work either. I’ve read up on solutions for that regards Debian but I haven’t tried any yet. I have a yubikey and that works fine as an extra layer of login security.

    pete_the_cat,

    I wanted the fingerprint reader to work just because it’s easier than typing a password, using something like a YubiKey is the complete opposite unless you keep it plugged into the device 24/7, and then it really no longer serves its original purpose.

    d3Xt3r,

    Yeah, unfortunately it looks like the reader on the X1 is a special case. Thankfully, this isn’t an issue with my Z13 - the reader itself worked out-of-the-box, just had to enroll my fingerprint from the Settings menu and then added fprintd to my pam.d rules.

    pete_the_cat,

    I’ve tried everything I’ve found in the Arch Wiki but nothing seemed to work, oh well, it’s not a big deal all things considered.

    Macaroni9538,

    Wonderful to know! thanks alot. I have heard alot of good about linux and thinkpads but only up to a certain generation I think? What about HP? my computer repair guy swears by HP but I honestly know nothing about HP and never hear people talk about HP either.

    bustrpoindextr,

    HP consumer products are literal garbage. The only good thing that comes out of HP is their commercial server equipment.

    Lenovo won’t let you down for Linux. I’ve run Linux on thinkpads for years, multiple generations. I used to work at IBM, so I had em for work. Rock solid machines, I still run with them today (just the newer generations).

    Macaroni9538,

    What about HP business grade stuff? thats what ive heard good about. Also any idea on other IBM equipment than their old thinkpads? I have no clue about nowaday IBM but am curious.

    bustrpoindextr,

    IBM doesn’t do consumer stuff anymore they sold the entire side of that business to Lenovo.

    HP Business stuff is pretty good but it’s gonna run you a pretty penny.

    TerkErJerbs,

    I have a lenovo thinkbook (cheapy thinkpad) for work with AMD chip and gpu. It wasn’t one of their models certified for linux but everything runs flawlessly for a lean debian build for me. I’ve had linux on several laptops and this is my second machine with AMD chips, and I’ll say that what you hear is true; There are way more, and better, drivers available for AMD if you go with linux.

    My 2 cents.

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