I've been looking at buying a rather astonishingly cheap Pipo W9S laptop. According to all reviews and opinions I can find it seems to work just fine for web browsing and video playing on Windows 10, but nobody on the Internet seems to have even attempted to get Linux running on it.

I'm fine running anything short of the really hardcore distros - anything that'll let me stay out of Windows 10 as much as possible.

What's the current support for these things? Can I expect most non-specific hardware to run fine? I've had some bad luck running Linux on integrated machines in the past (with results like a system that boots but only ever runs on molasses-slow generic video drivers, or does no power management and keeps everything on full blast all the time) and I'd rather avoid another trip down that particular rabbit hole.

I found specifications for what I think is the same machine: http://www.pipo-store.com/pipo-w9.html

It's Intel inside; that's generally a good sign. It would be helpful to know what wireless chipset is installed. I can't say from the specs that it will work well with Linux, but I see nothing to indicate that it will not.

If I were to take a whirl on it, I would definitely make sure I had a recovery CD first, just to be on the safe side. It is always best to be on the safe side.

Yes, although support for the integrated video is EXTREMELY poor if you use a pre-4.4 kernel. I believe the touchpad also requires at least a 4.0+ kernel on cherry trail in order to recognize. So wouldn't try to run anything that's got older kernels in it, but if you run something fairly bleeding edge, it should work (I'm actually looking at a cherry trail laptop myself).

I was looking at that really hard for a bit. Yes, look at sites that tell how to install linux to a stick computer. Almost exactly the same board.

Was going to use it as an untangle firewall device.

I am in China and I recently bought a Pipo W9S "tablet laptop."

I have installed Linux Mint 17.3 MATE on a flash drive using Linux Mint from an optical drive.
This is a nice installation with a custom GRUB menu and it will then boot to either Mint 17.3 or the pre-installed Windows 10.
It seems to work quite well, so well that it took some time before I noticed that there is no sound.

I've also installed Linux Mint 17.3 KDE on a flash drive using Pen Drive Linux.

I've also installed Ubuntu daily build 16.04 on a flash drive using Pen Drive Linux.

My problem is no sound on all three installations. I was hoping that the new Cherry Trail Z8300 was the reason why, and that support might appear in the next release of Ubuntu, but all three installation have no sound and a dummy sound output.

I've asked Pipo-store for the name of the sound card so I can ask Ubuntu if they support it or not.

Good luck with the Linux install on the W9S. It's a bit sluggish sometimes, but it's good value and I find it both fun and useful, if not lightning fast. The mouse pad could be better, too, as could battery life. Still, I think it's good value for $200. I also added an external drive to it. It's serving me well.

If only Linux had sound . . .

Does this use the same sound card as Baytrail? If so, it requires firmware in order to work, but is supported in the newer kernels. I should have my cherry trail laptop by next weekend, so I'll find out for sure.

Thank you for the reply and I look forward to your experience with Cherry Trail.

One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post is that the wife does not work on my W9S. However, I have a Tenda USB wifi dongle. It works just fine.

What kernel are you running? (uname -a)

~ $ uname -a

3.19.0-32-generic #37~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 22 09:41:40 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I think that the "No sound Linux 17 Cherry Trail Z8300" is the more appropriate thread on which to sally forth with this topic.

Thank you for you responses, by the way. I have a glimmer of hope now.

Whilst the machine I'm typing this on isn't of the same generation I know that I needed a 4 series kernel for my touchpad to work and that things, generally, were better with the more modern kernel. Since you're using new hardware I think at least a 4.5 kernel is in order...