Who do you buy from when they’re all bad. I don’t think buying a Linux laptop is a serious option even for most enthusiasts. The software, hardware, and battery life just aren’t there.
It is quite a bit worse in practice depending on what you do.
For example, with web browsers, most Linux ones (including Chrome and Firefox) disable much of hardware accelerated graphics on Linux by default because of "unstable graphics drivers". If I remember correctly, Chrome just disables it across the board, while Firefox has a whitelist of drivers considered stable which is basically just Intel.
In my testing, unless you muck around with these settings, you're can easily lose something like an hour of battery life compared to Windows if all you do is just browse websites (and I'm not even talking about anything fancy here; my automated test was literally just scrolling the main Reddit feed).
I had one of the early Project Sputnik laptops (XPS 13 with Ubuntu preloaded) and loved it. Now I use a Framework which is fine, but not anything amazing.
I'm thinking either Framework or Lenovo. It might be interesting to see what good arm laptops will be available next year when I might finally decide to upgrade my current machine.
> The software, hardware, and battery life just aren’t there.
Writing this from a Framework 13. I've been using Linux laptops for the past 15 years, and this is the first time a Linux-friendly machine has checked all my boxes (including excellent battery life).
I think it's just some lingering propaganda of those who oppose adoption of Linux. Things are pretty usable and are there for those who want to use them. Not necessarily Dell though - haven't used them in a long time.
> Who do you buy from when they’re all bad. I don’t think buying a Linux laptop is a serious option even for most enthusiasts. The software, hardware, and battery life just aren’t there.
I'm writing to you from a $250 laptop running Mint (with 11 hours of charge remaining) that this is is pure, unadulterated FUD from 20 years ago.
Lenovo certifies their systems for use with both RHEL and Ubuntu [1] which means that most mainstream distros will work contemporary, high-end business ultrabooks that are widely regarded as some of the best in their class. Arch has a lush, green compatibility matrix [2] for these laptops too. Once a year on average I buy a four-year-old T series and throw Mint on it for a friend or relative and everything works out of the box. This has been the case for at least a decade. If you don't want to buy a Thinkpad then the acclaimed XPS 13 is one of many [3] Dell laptops that comes pre-loaded with Ubuntu. Others in this thread have also pointed out the numerous vendors that ship Linux on rebadged barebones hardware.
We need to cut it out with the "desktop Linux is hard" meme. It's a counterproductive mind virus. It hasn't been true since the Bush administration and almost always amounts to some hand-wavey comment like the above. The hoops you have to jump through with modern Windows a la Group Policy hacks, TPM requirement bypass, selecting the exactly-correct LTSC version, etc. are consistently greater than anything you have to deal with on modern desktop Linux in my experience.
