Good brand laptops for installing Linux sole boot - your experience

beachboy2 · 02-01-2022, 11:57 AM

Eucalyp333,

HP, Lenovo, Dell, Acer, Toshiba etc, in other words pretty much every make of laptop will boot Linux successfully.

The only make, to the best of my recollection, which may need a minor tweak is Acer.

With Acer you need to set a temporary Supervisor (not BIOS) password in order to disable Secure Boot.

Don’t forget to write down the password and then once Secure Boot has been disabled, remove the Supervisor password.

https://community.acer.com/en/kb/art...-acer-notebook

I do appreciate that it is not essential to disable Secure Boot on all laptops in order to boot Linux.

SlowCoder · 02-02-2022, 08:17 PM

+1 for Lenovo. My most current laptop is a budget Lenovo Ideapad 330 (i3-8130U), bought new early 2019. Linux Mint installed with 0 driver issues. Not the fastest tech, but with a Samsung 370 SSD, boots to login in 15 seconds, and runs flawlessly.

Other impressive (to me) stuff about the hardware:
Even on my lap, cooling is good, idling around 32C, and never higher than 55C under heavy load.
Under normal use, battery reliably lasts about 5-6 hours.

Quote:

System: Host: LennyLaptop Kernel: 5.4.0-97-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.2.7
Distro: Linux Mint 20.3 Una
Machine: Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 81DE v: Lenovo ideapad 330-15IKB
serial: <superuser/root required>
Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: SDK0J40700 WIN serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: LENOVO
v: 8TCN25WW date: 04/13/2018
Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 13.4 Wh condition: 26.2/30.0 Wh (88%)
CPU: Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-8130U bits: 64 type: MT MCP L2 cache: 4096 KiB
Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 400/3400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800
Graphics: Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
resolution: 1366x768~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.3
Audio: Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-97-generic
Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169
IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: 8c:16:45:83:4d:34
Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath10k_pci
IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: 50:5b:c2:bc:71:71
Device-3: Qualcomm Atheros type: USB driver: btusb
Drives: Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 638.11 GiB (68.5%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 870 EVO 1TB size: 931.51 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 46.68 GiB used: 15.95 GiB (34.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
ID-2: swap-1 size: 19.07 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda4
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 33.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 213 Uptime: 1d 7h 02m Memory: 19.46 GiB used: 1.84 GiB (9.5%) Shell: bash
inxi: 3.0.38

computersavvy · 02-03-2022, 06:28 PM

In the past I have used Dell, HP, and my current is an Asus. Never had a problem with any of them.

Fearless Fred · 02-03-2022, 08:32 PM

I have used several different Linux flavours on an old Macbook Pro 2010 some are easier than others, mainly due to the Broadcom 'softMAC' WiFi card and Nvidia GPU, only a couple of Linux distros tried I gave up on as a lost cause...

Linux hardware support has come a long way these days..

Debian6to11 · 02-04-2022, 01:43 PM

HP 650, installed MX Linux, Zorin-gnome and Zorin-xfce, antiX, Arch and trying LFS now. Though not used much, everything seemed to be working fine. Also an HP 850 with Linux Mint.

rokytnji · 02-04-2022, 03:23 PM

A Tank. Came cheap from corp. sale. Not the latest and greatest though.

Code:

$ inxi -b
System:
  Host: biker Kernel: 4.9.193-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits: 64 
  Desktop: IceWM 2.9.5 
  Distro: antiX-19_x64-full Marielle Franco 16 October 2019 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 2347DS2 v: ThinkPad T430 
  serial: <superuser required> 
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 2347DS2 serial: <superuser required> 
  UEFI-[Legacy]: LENOVO v: G1ET41WW (1.16 ) date: 05/25/2012 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 10.8 Wh (100.0%) condition: 10.8/56.2 Wh (19.2%) 
CPU:
  Info: Dual Core Intel Core i5-3320M [MT MCP] speed: 1218 MHz 
  min/max: 1200/3300 MHz 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel 
  Device-2: Acer type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  Display: server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: loaded: modesetting 
  unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1600x900~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile v: 4.2 Mesa 18.3.6 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network driver: e1000e 
  Device-2: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] driver: iwlwifi 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 54.02 GiB (11.6%) 
Info:
  Processes: 175 Uptime: 2h 27m Memory: 15.47 GiB used: 1.18 GiB (7.6%) 
  Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.06

yvesjv · 02-04-2022, 06:20 PM

For business such as Lenovo and HP Elitebooks laptops have been good.