A powerful laptop that'll last

gehilpiku84 · 08-20-2021, 11:43 PM

I've been on Mac's on my desktop now for well over a decade, and since I've gotten tired of Apple's bullshit, I've decided to go back to Debian.

However, finding the right laptop is turning out to be a bit... confusing, since I've essentially been out of the PC world for some time, and need help in choosing. Tbh I find it all to be a damn jungle. It used to be so much easier, I think

Some of the things I do on the regular:

Emulating Windows for gaming (where it's required)

Docker-emulation, LXC containers (I know, not very CPU or RAM intensive on a linux system but I use it extensively so better have more than I need than not able to do my work).Tweakbox Appvalley https://vlc.onl

Light video editing

Just overall requirements:

Proper build quality. I want as little deck flex as possible and don't want the machine to feel plastic'y at all. Also I'm used to Macbooks and don't want to feel like I'm downgrading the day-to-day experience.

I hate configuring new hardware, so it needs to be a laptop that's built to last, and I'm willing to pay that bit extra for the privilege.

32GB of RAM or more, preferrably user-upgradeable.

nVME storage and plenty of it. At least 1TB, preferrably more.

Bright ~15" screen with good color accuracy.

It needs to truly work properly on Linux (duh), with as few hacky workarounds as possible.

Nice to haves:

Discreet GPU that works properly under Linux, so I'm guessing AMD? Not at all 'in the know' on this.

Finger print sensor that works in Linux.

I have considered building my own stationary computer so it'd be easier to make sure every component works properly on linux, but carrying it around is too much of a priority for this to be viable.

I also need the laptop to exist with a swedish ISO layout. I get that this is a big ask for other people to find, so as long as I'm put in the right direction, I can find the correct version myself, if it indeed exists.

Thankful for any help here.

EdGr · 08-21-2021, 12:19 AM

Why not get both?

"Powerful" and "portable" are conflicting requirements. By using rsync to mirror the disks, you can have both a powerful computer and a portable computer that can be used interchangeably.
Ed

Brains · 08-21-2021, 01:03 AM

I don't know what's available in your country, but based on your requirements:
Going 1TB nvme and 32GB RAM is going to be expensive no matter which Brand. I have been looking at MSI gaming laptops recently and those two jack up the price by $800.00 Canadian because typically the processor is much "more" also compared to something with 500GB nvme, 1TB SATA, 16GB memory.

Since you're going Debian and looking for high end hardware, there will be some OEM uniqueness that will require a little more elbow grease than run of the mill hardware. Debian is GNU and getting the basics up quickly after install is not an issue, getting all the bells and whistles takes a search engine and time.

But personally, 1TB storage is not enough. Do I need 1TB nvme? I'm happy with the current 250GB, 500GB wouldn't put a big smile on my face if there's a 1TB SATA also. Data don't need to be on MVME as far as I'm concerned, only Operating Systems. I'm running Win 10 and 3 Linux on 25OGB, VMs are on the data drive, if I need it to run faster I copy it to the NVME and run it, but don't see a need for speed in my VMs.

As for discrete graphics, either AMD or Nvidia work great with Debian and proprietary drivers, after installed. I don't bother with the proprietary drivers anymore, Debian Testing is so sharp looking with nouveau, since I don't do gaming. You mention running Windows in a virtual environment for gaming, typically your discrete graphics don't come into play in a VM, it'll use the virtual software drivers, some virtual software can do pass through to share the discrete graphics with a VM.

Brains · 08-21-2021, 01:45 AM

Buying a laptop for Linux that didn't come with Linux is like buying a pickup truck.

Buy the plain Jane pickup with roll down windows etc. and it'll be a reliable pickup compared to the one with all the bells and whistles that not only cost more to buy, cost more to run, cost more to maintain, and spends more time in the shop because it has more things to go wrong that need special tools/equipment. The plain Jane pickup is so easy to work with you can do most everything in it's lifetime yourself.

High end computers are rare in reality, as such support is harder to find.

rkelsen · 08-21-2021, 02:35 AM

Dell XPS 15. Easily the best quality laptop I've ever bought. I've got one that's 3 years old. Would happily buy again.

syg00 · 08-21-2021, 02:45 AM

Gotta agree - I bought one of the earliest i7 XPS back in 2010. Retired it just over a couple of years ago, but I still use it occasionally for special situations that only need "old kit". Much more reliable than the HP that replaced it which is already having issues with power supply.

Brains · 08-21-2021, 05:48 AM

I bought a Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 and a Dell Dimension XPS Gen 5 in 2005. They both still run, the laptop display has a lot of vertical spaghetti, the Desktop has a newer power supply dangling out back since the original power supply is the entire bottom 2" of the case, not something you can pick up anywhere. They are CD burners now, every now and then someone brings a box of CDs they want digitized, I try to keep 4 burners around to get the job done ASAP.

I've bought many Dell for others also but stopped, because Dell was way too much OEM specific parts and they didn't hold parts for too long as a way of forcing you to just buy a new one. The XPS do perform better and last longer but same issue, when something goes down you likely won't be able to find a new replacement. That was in the past when it was still owned by Dell.

computersavvy · 08-22-2021, 05:20 PM

I seriously doubt you will ever need more than 16G RAM. In all my time with computers, I have never run anything that uses up all the memory and forces the system to swap. That is with multiple browser tabs, cpu intensive apps, cad graphics work, and more all running at the same time. My laptop is an Asus gamer with details below. Very durable, used a lot in the last 2 years and seems durable. No flex in the case or screen. This is also a 17" screen so it is about the largest available. Excellent cooling since it is a gamer laptop and designed for highly intensive graphics and CPU loads.

I have had both Asus and Dell laptops in the past and have never had any issues with linux and installed hardware working. This one has run linux from day 1 and no issues of any kind to date. In fact it still has win10 installed (dual boot) and I once or twice a month boot to windows for the 1 app that is windows only and cannot be run from linux.

The only driver I have needed other than what was from fedora was the nvidia driver for the discrete graphics card so I could get the full benefit of that GPU.

Code:

$ inxi -F
System:    Host: laptop.home.domain Kernel: 5.13.9-100.fc33.x86_64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: GNOME 3.38.5 
           Distro: Fedora release 33 (Thirty Three) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: ROG Strix G731GU_GL731GU v: 1.0 serial: <superuser required> 
           Mobo: ASUSTeK model: G731GU v: 1.0 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: G731GU.310 
           date: 04/29/2020 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 54.6 Wh (98.2%) condition: 55.6/66.0 Wh (84.2%) volts: 15.7 min: 15.7 
CPU:       Info: 6-Core model: Intel Core i7-9750H bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache: L2: 12 MiB 
           Speed: 4285 MHz min/max: 800/4500 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 4285 2: 4239 3: 4153 4: 4115 5: 4273 6: 4209 7: 4186 
           8: 4207 9: 4161 10: 4235 11: 4198 12: 4231 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel CoffeeLake-H GT2 [UHD Graphics 630] driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Device-2: NVIDIA TU116M [GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Mobile] driver: nvidia v: 470.57.02 
           Display: server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting,nvidia unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~75Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: N/A v: N/A 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Device-2: NVIDIA TU116 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.13.9-100.fc33.x86_64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 14.0-rebootstrapped running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi 
           IF: wlo1 state: up mac: 48:89:e7:c7:51:ff 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169 
           IF: eno2 state: down mac: 04:d4:c4:75:77:6f 
           IF-ID-1: virbr0 state: down mac: 52:54:00:cc:67:de 
           IF-ID-2: virbr0-nic state: down mac: 52:54:00:cc:67:de 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Intel Bluetooth 9460/9560 Jefferson Peak (JfP) type: USB driver: btusb 
           Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 state: up address: 48:89:E7:C7:52:03 bt-v: 3.0 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 60.53 GiB (12.7%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Intel model: SSDPEKNW512G8 size: 476.94 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 73.32 GiB used: 16.74 GiB (22.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0 
           ID-2: /boot size: 771.4 MiB used: 366.5 MiB (47.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p7 
           ID-3: /boot/efi size: 256 MiB used: 45.8 MiB (17.9%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 
           ID-4: /home size: 73.32 GiB used: 43.39 GiB (59.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 4 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/zram0 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 67.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 3500 
Info:      Processes: 330 Uptime: 3m Memory: 15.47 GiB used: 2.33 GiB (15.1%) Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.06

rkelsen · 08-22-2021, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by computersavvy

I seriously doubt you will ever need more than 16G RAM.

Given that OP has hinted toward tinkering with virtualisation, you could be wrong about that.

dugan · 08-22-2021, 06:14 PM

Yeah... I tried to enable 3D acceleration in VMWare Workstation Player (KDE really needs it), and I got a popup recommending that I allocate 16GB of RAM to the VM.

EdGr · 08-22-2021, 06:23 PM

The HEDT that I built in 2014 has 64GB of memory. Don't underestimate "powerful".

Ed

jmgibson1981 · 08-22-2021, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Emulating Windows for gaming (where it's required)

This one is the main problem I think. The only way to get decent performance in a vm is with GPU passthrough. But the host needs a screen as well. I'm not sure how you will pull that off without a second screen. If you can deal with the occasional issue I'd much suggest looking into Lutris / Steam + Proton / or if plain Wine is possible. That will allow you to get the full hardware power of whatever you have available.

I've gone back and forth between bare metal Windows & virtualized with pass through on my desktop. Ultimately I ended up back with Linux and bypassing Windows altogether with Lutris for World of Warcraft. I've solved a few issues and it's been a real treat since then. Not everything will work that well admittedly though. Even Skyrim on Steam + Proton is lovely. And for added win I can even do the Steam streaming my World of Warcraft to another location in my home. It's working out quite well all around.

Quote:

I seriously doubt you will ever need more than 16G RAM.

Whether or not Gates said it, this came from somewhere back in the day...

Quote:

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."

biker_rat · 08-22-2021, 09:47 PM

I haven't bought a new laptop in a long while so my advice could be out of date and obsolete, but I like Dell Precision Workstation Laptops and Lenovo Thinkpads on linux.

zeebra · 08-22-2021, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gehilpiku84

I also need the laptop to exist with a swedish ISO layout. I get that this is a big ask for other people to find, so as long as I'm put in the right direction, I can find the correct version myself, if it indeed exists.

Why not have a look here:
https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/index.php

These are mainly for GNU/Linux, and they allow you to choose keyboard layouts (including Swedish). Not sure how important games are for you, but they have a gaming section too. I would guess their products are well tested on GNU/Linux and components chosen with that in mind. And you can customize all products to your hearts content.

Daedra · 08-25-2021, 08:23 PM

If money is no object here you go lol. Finger print sensor, discrete nvidia card, etc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk0o3KRYI-k

https://www.originpc.com/gaming/laptops/new-eon17-x/