Lightweight laptops running Slackware - Post your model
 

Hi everyone!

I'm on the prowl for a *modern* lightweight (preferably 11 - 13 inch) laptop that can run Slackware with little or no compatibility issues.

Budget: max $1200 US (preferably less).

I'd like to hear who's got it running and on what model, perhaps state if there are any issues.

I've search-engined near and far, but haven't found any list of models which have been verified for Slackware. The most intriguing result I found was he Slackhat ARM project for the Samsung Chromebook:
http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/call...rm-chromebook/

However, there doesn't seem to have been any updates on there for a while.

So please, any experience at all, even if it's a bigger laptop would be interesting to know about.
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[UPDATE]:
Thank you so much for all your replies!
Here's a thread summary on devices mentioned so far:
No compatibility issues:
- Acer Aspire One netbook
- Acer Aspire 5735, 15.6" (Intel core 2 duo T6400)
- Asus 1005 HA EeePC
- Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A R4004H, 13.3" (Core i7) (non-touch version)
- Asus Zenbook UX31A, 15", (Core i7, Ivy bridge)
- Dell XPS L702x, (Core i7) 16GB RAM, 120GB SSD
- Dell Inspiron 1750
- Dell Latitude D520
- HP Mini, model 210-1000 (N450 processor)
- HP DM4-2058, 14"
- Lenovo Z580, 15", (Core i7)
- Samsung n110
- Samsung n150
- Hercules eCafe EC-800 (400Mhz) (Boots slow, but works well afterwards)
- Thinkpad T21 (Pentium III/256MB) (Boots slow, but works well afterwards)
- Thinkpad x41
- ThinkPad T60
- Thinkpad T61, 14,1"
- Thinkpad x100e
- Thinkpad T400, 14"
- Thinkpad T410
- ZaReason Strata


Requires work:
- Asus Travelmate (Due to Broadcom wireless)
- Dell Latitude C400, 12", (Ran Slackware 13 well, lacked intel video driver in Slackware 14)
- Dell Inspiron 1545n (Due to Broadcom wireless)
- HP 635 (Doesn't play YouTUbe videos)
- HP Pavilion DM1 (ATI video card uses the proprietary fglrx driver. Wireless works perfectly using the broadcom-sta driver. Audio configuration requires some fiddling to work)
- Lenovo G430 3000 14" (Due to Broadcom wireless)
- Lenovo T430s 14" (Due to intel graphic card - Solution: rebuild kernel)
- Sony VAIO SR Model VGN-SR36GN/B (When in the console, the screen is blanker, goes white instead of black)

Issues:
Toshiba Satellite M115-S3104 (screen at times blanks out after the video driver kicks in on boot up)

A couple of months ago I bought a used Thinkpad T400 (14 inch 1280x800) for $200. No compatibility issues and I'm reasonably content.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1545n, which is getting on to three or four years old, and an even older Asus Travelmate both running Slackware Current. The only issue is that both have Broadcom, so I had to expend some extra energy to get that working. Slackware on both is its usual rock-solid self.

I also have a Dell Mini9 netbook what has run Ubuntu, Salix, Bodhi, and Mint without issue. With Dells, the main issue seems to be their fondness for Broadcom wireless. All the other crucial interal stuff seems to be Intel.

I'm toying with getting my next laptop from Zareason, which allows you to pick your Linux distro. They are no cheap, and I have no idea what the pricing would be like for someone in Sweden.

This model is very popular among longtime Slackware users. I have one, Robby Workman has (or had) one, and Alien Bob has (or had) one. And, of course, Woodsman has one.

I have a 3-4 year old Acer Aspire One netbook running slackware-current. I've also run Debian-testing and Mint on the unit.

4 years old Lenovo G430 3000(14 inch). Not really lightweight.
Running Slackware 14.0 since it was released like a champ. The Broadcom wireless requires bit of work, although I use an external USB modem.

Regards.

HP 635. Slackware64 14.0.

Works great, except that it is unable to play most Youtube videos.

lenovo T430s 14" (intel graphic card)
I had an issue with the graphic card (random freezing)
which was solved by building a new kernel

I have a 4 year old Asus 1005 HA EeePC netbook that works wonderfully running Slackware 14.0. Its Atom processor is slower than those available today, it is still so good enough that although I now have a 15" Core i7 Lenovo Z580 notebook (also running Slackware64), even at home I still mainly prefer the little EeePC.

I have a new Asus Zenbook UX31A with Slackware 14.0 64bit running like a charm.

Member Response
 

Hi,

I have a Dell XPS L702x i7 16GB, 120GB SSD, Laptop running Slackware64, no issues. I did tweak the install for a better/cleaner GUI experience. :)
Love the back-lighted keyboard.

Plus using Optimus via Bumblebeed which did require some setup but doable. My Dells are all refurbished units at a fair price from Dell outlet. I have not had any problems from Dell for hardware repairs under warranty.

In fact the warranty extension was cheap for additional 2 years. XPS will be replaced sometime near the end of warranty. Mainly to stay current with hardware.

Purchased a Compaq CQ60 for a project but sold the unit after project completion. Got my investment back! :)

I've got a Dell Inspiron 1750 and have zero problems with it running Slackware 64-bit 14.0.

I do not dual boot any of my Dell systems, I partition, install Slackware, and go from there (one box has VirtualBox on it with Win7 that I hardly ever use for anything, mostly just Patch Tuesday).

One thing I did and do was order non-proprietary graphics, they're all standard Intel graphics and it works just fine (I see so many threads about problems with AMD and Nvidia graphics and fiddling with drivers that I just don't need to deal with). I use WICD, find it quick and easy to use (and I don't configure anything, it "just works") with both Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections.

Good keyboard (well except for that finger-pad thing that I just can't use and I disable it), excellent resolution with the display, not too heavy, runs cool, can't complain, when it goes someday I'll buy another.

I've had excellent service from Dell equipment -- I have two Dell Dimension 8400's (32-bit) that I use as headless data base servers. The things date from 2004, has one bad capacitor about two years ago and a new motherboard cost $50. Can't beat that with a stick. They're running 24/7 just sitting there mumbling to themselves, doing their job and not bothering me (and they've got Broadcom network cards and never had a lick of trouble with those either).

Hope this helps some.

Dell Latitude D520 running 14.0 here with absolutely no problems. I believe you can pick these up for less than $200 now...

Nice!

I own the 15" (non-touch version)

Which of the UX31A's is this? (C4043H, R4004H, C4027H etc.)

I'm running Slackware 14 on a HP Mini, model 210-1000. It has a N450 processor and a gig of ram. Works fine on 14.0, I upgraded Slack13.37 to 14.0. Both versions work fine. No issues at all.

Thinkpad T410. It's probably not very lightweight but I have run Slackware64 13.0, 13.1, 13.37, 14.0 and currently -current without any problems.

Dell Latitude C400 (12") ran Slackware up until around 13 but replacing the alternate Intel video driver that isn't present in 14 anymore.
Asus eeePC900 runs 14 fine though getting a little slow.

I'm looking for something myself, dell had a Latitude 2200 10" that I got for my wife and was going to order one for myself but its not sold anymore. I'm having a hard time finding a 10" or smaller business grade with hdd instead of ssd.

It's this one: :)

ASUS ZENBOOK Prime UX31A R4004H - 13.3" - Core i7 3517U

I have a 9 year old Dell D505 Latitude running Slackware 14.0 32-bit. It only has 256MB RAM, which was fine for the Windows XP system it originally came with. Slackware non-graphical command line runs great. KDE and XFCE are both way too heavy for it, but fluxbox will run OK if I need a graphical environment.

My IBM Thinkpad T43 is about a year newer than the Dell, I think. It runs 32-bit 14.0 just fine with 1GB RAM. I use KDE on it with no problem, albeit sans the nepomuk/akonadi/strigi pig.

I'm running Slackware on this Toshiba Satellite M115-S3104 and Slackware64 on a Sony VAIO SR Model VGN-SR36GN/B.

The only issue I have is on the Toshiba, the screen at times blanks out after the video driver kicks in on boot up. I've tried numerous solutions, but nothing seems to work. This is only an issue using the default runlevel 3, which I prefer. Alas, I have relegated my self to starting up with runlevel 4, which make this a non-issue.

On the Sony, when in the console, the screen blanker, goes white, instead of black. I have not figured out a solution for this and I am probably overlooking the simple one. It's not a real issue though, just an annoyance, most of the time I am using the laptop with KDE.

I have a Hercules eCafe EC-800 here. This "beast" has got 400MHz of power and only supports i586 and not even the full i686 instruction set.

Booting is slow like hell, but afterwards very stable. :)

I have an Acer Aspire 5735 Intel core 2 duo T6400 15.6" screen
with kernel 3.2.45. slackware 14 64 bit.
Very happy with it runs well.

Have -current running on an old Thinkpad T21 (Pentium III/256MB)..Like schmatzler,boot time DOES take some time..but afterwards,no probs.

I am running Slackware on variuos ThinkPad's. My favorites are X41 (not that strong, but very lightweight and pretty handy, but you need to work arround their weird 1.8" ide hard drive, I have replaced it with 16gb x533 Compact Flash card, but I needed a bios mod for that to work properly) and T61 14,1" wide screen model (simmilar to T400). Earlier ThinkPads (up to recent x3x series) were very comfy to use and they talk well with Slack. For a powerfull lightweight laptop I would recommend one of the ThinkPad X series (X200, X200s, X201 or X220).

I'm running Slackware-14.0 on my friends Samsung n110 and Slackware64-current on my Thinkpad x100e

Markus

Asus Zenbook UX31A, 15", i7, ivy bridge

I like it. Some problems (hacks necessary for some function keys), but until kernel 3.9.10 ok, running nicely, even plays planeshift :).

Does not work with kernel 3.10.x -> not resolved. See http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...en-4175472685/
I'll start a new thread about that soon...

Good luck
Franz

Running slackware 14 on a pretty old Lenovo ThinkPad T60.
Even KDE runs smoothly.

Slackware64 14.0 with my personal blend of KDE running fine on a brand-new HP Pavilion DM1. ATI video card uses the proprietary fglrx driver. Wireless works perfectly using the broadcom-sta driver. I had to fiddle a bit with the audio configuration to make it work.

I don't have this laptop, but I have a heavier model from ZR (Strata), and I absolutely love it. If you are interested in running a free kernel, ask them to install AR9285 for wireless (at no charge). This will cost you bluetooth though.

That's what youtube-dl is for though, right? :-)

Running Slackware-current 64bit on a 14" HP dm4-2058, everything works including video, audio, webcam, wifi, skype, sleep/hibernate etc, using both kde and xfce. I don't use bluetooth but got it to work one-way (receive files from an android phone).

Thanks! I might just pick one of these up this week.
They seem budget friendly and have fairly good user reviews.
I've found 4 different model variations on the DM1 here in Sweden. Would you suppose that the dm1-4401eo can achieve the same results?

Some reviews claim that the screen is a bit dim, have you experienced any issues of this sort?
And, how has the battery life with Slackware64 been for you?

Samsung Notebook n150.
 

Just in case anyone is interested, I'm running the latast Slackware 14. Without problems, so far.

I hope this thread continues to build a useful resource for people in search of a suitable device for their Slackware needs.

I've gone ahead and ordered a device which hasn't been mentioned:
Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E130, 11.6" (Core i3 @ 1.9Ghz) 4GB RAM, 500GB 7200RPM SATA, 3G

I have no idea if Slackware is compatible, but based on the hardware specs of previous posts, I would think there's a pretty good chance that it will.
If not, I'll post an update on how it went and what is needed for it to start puttering.

Thanks again for each one of your replies, and please do keep adding!

I'm using a Dell Latitude 2100 (with an 1.6mhz Intel Atom and 2gb of RAM) with Slackware 14. I'd be lying if I said 100% CPU usage wasn't a regular thing, and I do get the occasional lag, but otherwise it works pretty nicely!

Yeah, I'm sure as far as the specs go that will work, but is that one of those Windows 8 laptops? I know that they can be finicky as far as putting on different operating systems go from time to time.

IBM Thinkpad T61p. Works flawlessly with Slackware64 14.0.

Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E525 (1200 CTO). Requires the proprietary video driver from AMD for resume from suspend and hibernation to work. Though the fingerprint-gui worked well for the Upek thumb print reader under Ubuntu, I haven't tried building it under Slackware. (Though fingerprint-gui is GPL, some of the drivers it relies on are proprietary as is the case with mine.)

Modern and lightweight? I wish I had a laptop that had either of those qualities, let alone both ;)

Anyway, I have many laptops, but the most modern I own is a Dell Studio 1558. Besides having AMD graphics (ugh...), that particular laptop is rather Slackware-friendly; even the wireless worked well (which is a surprise in hindsight, given that when I eventually installed openSUSE on it, the lack of proper wireless support was among the first things I noticed...).

The laptop I've been using most often, though, is a Dell Latitude D830 that I salvaged from a pile of computers my employer was discarding. Once I picked up a "new" (actually not all that new, but it was cheap) hard drive (since we have to shred the hospital hard drives), it worked like a charm. Currently running Slackware64-current (along with a plain /boot and encrypted LVM VG for /, /home, and swap), and while it's neither lightweight nor modern, it's been a reliable and durable business-grade laptop.

Update:

My laptop arrived (Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E130, 11.6" (Core i3 @ 1.9Ghz) 4GB RAM, 500GB 7200RPM SATA, 3G).

The first things I did were to insert an additional 4GB of RAM and replace the spin-drive with a 128GB Samsung SSD.

Slackware64 v14 wouldn't boot due to the fact that it's an UEFI-based machine.

The solution I chose was to head on into the BIOS setup and enable "Legacy" mode.

After this, it was a straight forward Slackware partition & install with fdisk & the setup guide.
I chose to make one primary partition approx 120GB (beginning of disk) and the remainder 8GB as a swap partition at the end (to match the amount of RAM).

Everything seems to work so far. Wireless, and other network technologies included didn't work "straight away" - you have to open up a terminal and enter "NetworkManager" to get those devices started.
Audio - no problem.

Haven't seem to have found any life in the Bluetooth, but I'm sure it'll be an easy fix.

There is another option for those who don't wish to enable Legacy mode in the BIOS - which you can read about here:
http://xathrya.web.id/blog/2013/01/0...based-machine/

Another useful resource is:
http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sla..._uefi_hardware

In the latter, they recommend enabling Legacy mode in the BIOS setup if it is available on your machine.

I'm running Slackware64-current on a new Asus Zenbook, model UX21A. Everything important worked out of the box (I guess the unimportant things would be the screen brightness keys and a few other things I can't think of right now, so they can't have been that major). It took a bit of tweaking to make things perfect, but it is working flawlessly right now.

I am working on a guide to getting it set up with Slackware.

I see a lot of laptops listed but not a lot of lightweight. I'm looking to replace my eeepc soon and am looking for lightweight and there are not a lot out there.

Well, my Zenbook is an ultrabook, so it is lightweight. Your other main ultrabook choice is the Dell XPS 13, which also runs Linux quite nicely, though I prefer the Zenbook (well, obviously).

Those are the major Macbook air competitors out there right now. Of course, If you want to get a Macbook air, there is nothing stopping you. The Arch wiki has a nice tutorial for setting up Arch that can definitely be extended to Slackware.

If you do not want an ultrabook, the other "lightweight" laptop options are your netbooks. I have a Samsung N145 Plus, and I like it very much for what it is. If I ever wanted to buy another netbook (although I can't see why I would, honestly), I would not own a different one, except maybe the Acer Aspire One, since it can be upgraded to 4 GB of RAM and doesn't look like a chunky black pencil case. It is uncommon for a netbook to be upgradeable beyond 2 GB. Of course, the performance improvement you will get with 4 gigs with a Fusion processor is debatable, but still.

Anyway, most people aren't buying netbooks anymore anyway, but they are inexpensive. However, if you can afford it, I would pick a nice lightweight ultrabook. I find them really very pleasant to work on.

As a university lecturer I use Slackware 14 on a Thinkpad T60 as my "lecture theatre machine". I prefer to take my own computer rather than use the Windows box in the theatre. XFCE is enough bloat for me, I do not use KDE. Everything works very well, including suspend - not that I use that feature.

Defiantly not anything apple, no way I can afford them or have the down time while its being sent off to be fixed multiple times or waiting on one of the recalls.

I'm looking for 12" or smaller business class. Dell had a Latitude 2100 but seems to have discontinued it. Its frustrating, I keep finding cheap consumer grade or tablets with no storage and limited OS and can't tell if i can throw a useable OS on them or not.

Love it. I am rolling beamer slides in okular for my stats class, and do some live plotting with R.

After reading this. I decided to see if the netbook I use is available.

I was surprised so I bought one of the 20 being sold. I paid more than that for this one previously. I have a 64 Kingston gig 1.8 " zif SDD I put in mine and the netbook has a water proof keyboard and is designed for kids to abuse it. It is also super linux friendly also and should run Slackware just fine.

The stock pata 1.8" zif 30 gig Toshiba 4200 rpm drive is OK though kinda slow.
The SSD I put in here makes boot in seconds and flys in Linux just fine.
So a low cost replacement atom netbook for the eeepc is 50 bucks and some change.
You will probably have to use a universal ac adapter as I don't see any in the pictures.

I know this thread is or Slackware. But if I wished. I could run Slackware on this netbook if AntiX runs just fine on it also.
No lag in youtube either and movies and music and webcam and mic and viop/(Jitsi,Skyoe,Pidgen) work just fine.

For a business class machine that small, the only options I am aware of are the Zenbook and the Acer Aspire S7 (not to be confused with the Aspire netbook I mentioned above; this one is made of aluminum and has the Core series processors, 1080p, a touchscreen, etc.), and some hybrid tablet/laptop convertibles like the Sony Vaio Duo 11. However, even if you are looking at 12" or under, I would suggest you still consider the Dell XPS 13, because even though it has a 13" screen, they made a point of stretching the screen all the way out to the edges of the chassis so the actual form factor is not much different than some of the 11.6 inch ones. My Zenbook, for instance, has about an inch of space around the sides. The Dell does not. I have also heard the Dell is particularly friendly to Linux. I might have gotten one myself, except for the fact that I read some bad reviews about the touchpad. This year's model of the Zenbook (but not last year's!) did better in that respect--and it just looks cool. :)

If I had it to do over again I would probably still get the Zenbook, but there are some caveats. Other than the really stunning metal design and the extreme lightness (I think it may be the lightest ultrabook on the market, but don't quote me), one of the main reasons I chose it was because of the screen. They actually have two different display options, one of which is a normal HD, and another, which I got, which is an IPS with 1900 x 1080 resolution. It really is brilliant. However, with a resolution this high on a relatively small screen, I had to do a lot of tweaking to get things to be the right size. I have it basically the way I want it now, but every once in a while there will be cases when I have an issue come up where things are not rendered at the right size, and I will have to deal with it. Don't get me wrong, it's a great machine, and like I said I would probably buy it again, but it has seriously made me wish for resolution independence in Linux. One should definitely be aware that this issue exists before thinking about getting one.

Of course, the one with the standard HD display would have no such issue. But I guess I would still rather spend a few days fiddling than sacrifice image quality. It's a matter of preference, though. Mileage may vary.

Anyway, I hope this helped!

Thought I would throw my 2 cents in. I have a HP DV6-6145DX that I run Slackware64 on just fine. It is an AMD APU laptop fyi. The only thing that does not work out of the box is the fingerprint reader which I have never even bothered to try and fix. I put a 128gig SSD in it and its nice little machine.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=c02996677

Beamer of course, LaTeX for all my writing!

This would be great. I followed the guide at the Ubuntu site, but it would be good to have one that is specific for Slackware. It's a great laptop that works very nicely after some adjustments.

Samsung NC10-anyNET, 2 GB RAM is running Slackware 14.0 with Kernel 3.8.13 from -current.

All components are supported OotB, including the Samsung HSPA 3G modem.

Issues:

Idle power consumption under Linux is 50-70 % more than with the pre-installed Windows 7 Starter, so battery life is reduced by about 30-40 %. Fan is spinning almost all the time.

Caution: The preinstalled Samsung Recovery Solution (the integrated backup and recovery functionality) uses a specially formatted MBR and the sectors following the MBR. The firmware entry point for SRS gets destroyed by installing any bootloader into the MBR or any other bootloader than LILO. Once broken, there is no way to restore SRS functionality by any means other than restoring a sector-based factory disk image, which you have to create yourself beforehand. An intact recovery partition is not sufficient.

Solution: Install LILO into the Linux partition and set the boot flag. Stay away from GRUB an other boot loaders, which use the MBR or the space between the MBR and the first partition (which is the recovery partition on this machine).

Additional notes:

Google Chrome 24 with Pepper Flash Player 11.6 supports accelerated video output on the GMA950 GPU of the NC10, so fullscreen video playback is possible. Other browsers with the stale 11.2 plugin max out the N270 CPU with a 240p window.

The NC10-anyNET has two (!) full-size Mini PCI Express slots containing the 11g Wi-Fi card and the 3G modem. They can be replaced with different hardware. The pre-installed hard-drive is a 2.5in 9.5mm SATA one, so there is room for up to 1 TB.