Darn, I always forget this company when trying to find a laptop.

I just checked their website, and I immediately found a laptop which I would buy today if I needed one. The price is a little bit lower than a comparable Dell I would select. I must add to that I would select only a business type laptop. Consumer/home laptops are cheaper. Nevertheless somehow I must carve this brand somewhere on my screen surface so I would not forget it again.

jlinkels

Please don't become too irritated by this comment. I think several hardware companies and development teams of several popular Linux distributions would need to collaborate in order to produce some sort of reliable promises of full compatibility. This would give Linux more credibility. The current situation is that it is too difficult and time-consuming for the absolute beginner, who may not have much understanding of IT in general to begin with, to browse through distribution-specific or component-level compatibility lists. If I ask for Linux compatibility details about certain computer models at a computer store, they can't give that information. They don't know.

I perceive Red Hat as the de facto leader in this effort. If a computer is on the Red Hat hardware compatibility list, then most other Linux distributions will probably also have good compatibility.

If you are buying your hardware at a consumer store like Best Buy then I agree with your comment about the sales people not being trained to answer Linux questions. If however you contact the business division of a vendor like Dell, you are sure to get knowledgeable Linux advice.

1 members found this post helpful.

If Linux is such a great OS, how can retailers afford not to pay attention to consumer PC compatibility?

Because Linux is a great OS, used everywhere, in the majority of web servers, supercomputers, embedded devices (and those are a lot), and was the base of Android. The only field where it is not dominantly present is on the desktop. So if you go to shops where they sell desktops & laptops, Linux is non-existent and unknown.

And the reason it is not on the desktop is mostly because for ages manufacturers were obliged to install Windows (or loose their OEM licensing), and that resulted in that Linux is unknown to the general public and that literally everyone has one or more critical applications which are Windows only.

The technical quality of Linux is far superior as every multi-platform system administrator can tell you. But it lacks the non-technical qualities to appear in desktops.

jlinkels

Interesting logic. Why would greatness count? What matters is the quantity of computers sold, and Windows is far ahead on that score when it comes to desktop systems.

Quite the opposite! If anything, this discussion has established that quality Linux pre-installed computers, with good support, are readily available from vendors like Dell and System76. Have you considered a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition? It's a stunning, mainstream, award-winning, ultra-portable, 100% Linux-compatible computer for under $1k.

This is quite paranoid and over-conservative. I haven't bought a computer since my current machine in Dec 2011 when my Z68 motherboard and 2600K quad-core were very current. I installed and ran Fedora without problems. Linux as a whole only requires at least six month old hardware at least for distributions like Fedora which come out every six months.

I think that might be a little harsh. I built my machine around 2010 and the board I bought has a normal BIOS and not UEFI for one thing.

The other problem with that is that, it does not take into account distributions that use kernels released before said hardware that came out just 6 months ago. As you have to remember that generally hardware drivers are either compiled into the kernel and/or come with the kernel as modules. So it's more likely than not (if not almost certain) that a kernel released 1 year ago would probably not have the right drivers for hardware released just 6 months ago - as, how is a driver going to be written for hardware that has not yet been released?

Even if you installed the latest kernel version it may take some time depending on the hardware in question, before a suitable driver can be written and included in/with the mainstream kernel. Even then, it may take time depending on the distribution to release a updated kernel package, unless maybe you expect everyone to be willing to compile their own kernel?

Just because Fedora is "bleeding edge", that doesn't mean it's the same for every other distro - it's not.

Personally, I'd say at least 1 year if you want a "general" figure would be a better figure. But even then, it once again depends on the hardware in question, as well as the distribution you're talking about - so how can anyone give any accurate figure? I'm not sure that's really possible.

you know what?
i just don't care about this sort of misguided pep talk.
i don't think that linux for the desktop will benefit from a larger user base - rather the opposite.
developers now, that's a different story.
and those that are able to actually contribute are definitely able to benefit from gnu/linux as it is today, and also able to appreciate how sophisticated it is. maybe not the UX, but the security, versatility etc.

that might sound negative or fatalistic, but it's really not.

also, what you preach is already happening. you just have to see it in context, on a timeline.
look at the developments of the last 2 decades.
15 years ago i believe readymade computers with linux preinstalled were totally unthinkable.
and the joys ARM brought to the linux community...

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop...10p2c606ubuntu

"Starting at $2,049.99"

I'm going to buy some low-end computer and try to install Slackware on it.

It's true you can run it up over $2k if you max out all the options, but the base model is under $1k. Snowpine wouldn't give you bad advice. If you buy it today with code "SAVE50" it starts at only $899.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop...10p2c601ubuntu

This is what I said in my post. I was only referring to frequently released distros. There are also rolling distributions such as Arch which have no releases but they are not suitable for beginners.

I just looked it up and the Z68 chipset I have was released by Intel on May 11, 2011. I built my computer in mid-December 2011 so it was released seven months before. I installed Fedora 16 and ran it with no problems.

Fedora 16, codenamed "Verne", was released on November 8, 2011. Therefore Fedora supported the Z68 chipset 3 days less than six months after Intel released it.

I was lucky that there was a recent Fedora release so in general one year is a safer guideline. However I decided to post after reading comments that "two year old hardware" was required to run Linux which isn't true.