3d ago

Laptop for Linux

Hey all.

I've booted Linux Mint Debian Edition and Arch on to a couple old machines including my old laptops. The performance is still rather brutal because these machines are so old and their battery lives are rough. They are also bulky and uncomfortable to carry around.

So, I've been thinking about getting a more modern laptop and putting Linux on it but I've been out of the laptop market for so long now I have no idea what's good and what's not anymore. Any recommendations?

I think I've heard decent things about Chromebooks but how's the hardware of those? Are they relatively locked down and don't play nice with Linux? I'm just looking for a machine for daily use (browser, light coding, remote connecting to my desktop for heavier stuff)

Thanks in advance

EDIT: Thank you to everyone for responding, I did not expect so much discussion! I've certainly changed my mind on Chromebooks and will look into the options recommended below in the coming months. Thanks!

60 comments

If you haven’t already bought something:
What do you have now?
I would generally recommend against chromebooks. They’re often aimed at the lowest end of the market and have esoteric processors and boot processes that will make you frustrated.
I would generally recommend against small laptop manufacturers like framework etc. because of parts availability. People will say that you can get parts from the manufacturer but for how long? People will say you can make the parts themselves because the design is open source but I have a board etching setup, hot air station and injection molding machine and I don’t do that.
Obviously if you just want to “vote with your dollars” the above doesn’t matter.
If you want to get a laptop that’s gonna run linux well and last a long time get a used business class machine. There will always be a huge market for parts and they have almost always had someone put the effort in to document getting their distro to work right on their work assigned computer.
The black sheep option is to get a mac. Parts are everywhere for cheap and every microsoldering and computer repair shop will work on them because so many people have them and want to get them fixed. Obviously do your research first, but asahi is coming along and you’ve always got a Unix system to fall back on if it isn’t working out.
- My current laptop I use when I'm away from home is a surface pro (one of the ones from like 2017). It just doesn't hold more than two hours of charge now and constantly freezes just simply browsing.
  After reading the replies here, I'm currently considering a refurbished framework 13 because I value its repairability though you do make salient points about their supply chain if they go under.
  I may also wait a bit as I think I can hold off without a laptop for bit longer. All depends on where my job takes me in the coming months. Or if I still have one :/

I've been enjoying my Thinkpad E16 1st gen AMD on Debian 12. You do have to run a newer kernel to get it working. I ran into a bit of Wi-Fi trouble because I accidentally got a Realtek model, but I've long since fixed the issue entirely - I've posted the solution elsewhere here.
On another note, maybe we should just have a yearly hardware recommendations post pinned on this forum - it feels like we get a question like this every week or so and they sort of clutter the forum, no offense intended to OP.
Edit: Here's my Linux Hardware probe from when I first got the laptop https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=1e50fb1862

I just sold my Framework 13 after daily driving it for a year. The HiDPI display bugs and workarounds just got too annoying.
I went back to my old Dell XPS 13 9310 and I'm loving it.

You have plenty GNU/Linux compatible OOTB laptop manufacturers like:
Tuxedo
Slimbook
System76
Purism
Framework
StarLabs
Also check this for buying preinstalled libreboot laptops (some of the upper ones already do) minifree.org and here how to do yourself if you feel confident libreboot.org
Also you can consider buying a Dell laptop or Lenovo Thinkpad
I strongly recommend buying a laptop with AMD graphics, either integrated or external, for getting the best compatible machine for GNU/Linux, and avoid Nvidia, and Intel too if possible

I've recently got myself an Acer Aspire 15 with AMD chip set and I am quite satisfied with the machine and how Mint just works with it.

How about a "native" Linux laptop such as the Tuxedo Infinity Book Pro 14, or a similar model? That should provide more than enough power for the tasks you mentioned. There is also Slimbook, who make different Linux laptops though they are a little lesser known I think.

Framework. Check the refurbs shop and get a great deal.
Stay away from Chromebook anything unless you get it for free.
- Seconding Framework, they make great laptops.
  Highly recommend getting one with an AMD processor, as AMD drivers are built into the Linux kernel updates. Driver updates will just work without you having to think about them.
  
  This is the same for Intel variant Framework boards.
- +1 for the framework laptop. Have had zero complaints with mine. Framework also has some guides on their website for specific Linux distros if an issue comes up.
  And just echoing another user here: AMD is better supported for the Linux kernel. Speaking from personal experience, I have used both an Intel based and AMD based system with no real issues
  
  The one single thing I can't stand about my Framework is the lack of S3 suspend, meaning I regularly have my laptop completely run down in situations my old one never would, even with its worn out battery. Unfortunately that's not Framework's fault and there's nothing you can get with S3 if you want a newish CPU
- Came to say this. My 13 amd is a champ. Got my refurb and it’s brand new, I see literally 0 scratches or blemishes on it.
- chromebooks are often well built with good keyboards at prices monumentally lower than comporable laptops, whilst being powerful enough to run linux well
  you can quite easily get linux on almost all chromebooks, even arm ones (mrchromebox and postmarketos are references to look into for that) (postmarketos for arm stuff)
  I have an hp chromebook g7 that I paid less than 20 dollars for, which has a good keyboard and is performant enough for firefox and typing on swaywm. it’s worth so little and is so light that it can just live in my backpack without worry. it’s also able to be charged from a normal usb c phone charger, supports usb c display output, and has a low power celeron that absolutely sips power
  you can get much nicer chromebooks for cheap too if you’re into that, including some with unibody aluminum chassis and high resolution ips displays, all at prices less than even bottom barrel pc laptops

If you can wait just a little longer I would seriously consider the Framework 12 that is going for pre-order next month and being shipped "mid-2025".
Of course, this isn't an option if you need a laptop right now. In that case the current Framework 13 offerings are the best you can get but of course are not as affordable and possibly a bit overkill for a simple browsing machine.
- Any idea what the price point is going to be?

Used thinkpad is an easy choice. If you want new, I've been very happy with the framework 13
- Definitely agree on the used ThinkPad. You can get some surprising deals from businesses offloading even relatively recent machines that are still in very good condition (used to daily drive a T14 Gen 3 that was half the price of when it was new despite being only two years old and still in warranty). However, new ones do still retain very good compatibility (no issues on my P14s Gen 5), although the price point does make a Framework the obvious other option to look at, especially due to the better upgrade and repair situation (soldered WiFi modules on newer ThinkPads are really annoying).
- I'm daily driving debian on a lenovo t490.
  Can get one for a few hundred. With a dock and 2x 1920 monitors its just beautiful.

Old ThinkPads
- My old Thinkpad from work runs Linux Mint like a charm. I tried dual-booting with Windows 10/11 for awhile and it was soooo sluggish. I deleted the windows partition entirely. Any use case I needed Windows for I've either run successfully on Linux or found a significantly better alternative.

I've got a Dell 1500 series laptop that I've been running Ubuntu on for several years. It is thicker than many modern computers but not to thick as to be uncomfortable to carry. The touch screen even works with Ubuntu Mate. It is slow to boot owing to a very slow hard drive but ok once booted, however the battery is sick so I'm getting ready to perform surgery and replace the hard drive with an SSD and replace the battery.

Frameworks are the best modern laptop by far imo.

Stay away from Chromebooks. Even if you get a Chromebook that is reported to play well with Linux, there can be issues. I have/had two different Linux Chromebooks. They both had unique pitfalls.
I had an arm-based Chromebook that was actually the development target of a custom distro. At its best, it still required a fairly specific wifi dongle to work without kernel hacks. Even then, the processor was slooow and storage was a bit of a problem if I was using it for anything other than text editing.
I'm running an intel-based Chromebook these days with Arch. The biggest bottleneck is the built-in nonupgradeable storage (16gb). Most of my home folder is symlinked to an SD card that I keep in the slot at all times. It works well and has great battery life, but there are easier ways to play with linux on a laptop.

I use Framework 13 with AMD for my Linux laptop, love it. I do not want to go back to any other brand.

Tuxedo
- Gonna have to anti-recommend tuxedo unfortunately. Never had a "Linux" laptop before and never had any issues, but two of the newest Infinitybooks have a number of issues with fan control, clock sometimes stuck at 800MHz, weird-ass Ethernet NIC with no upstreamed drivers and so on. It's like a trip to 15 years ago in terms of weird little issues popping up every now and the .
  The tuxedo kernel modules are a mess and not currently upstreamable, their interfaces are inconsistent across lineups/generations which they solve by building a unified Electron monstrosity "control center" on top.
  The idea is nice but any mainstream manufacturer works pretty well these days, and the Schenker laptops with tuxedo software not up to par :/
  
  I’ve Pulse 14 with plain Debian installation and so far didn’t notice any issues. Though admittedly, I’m not a heavy laptop user. Your mileage may vary I guess.
  
  Were you using it with their custom OS, or did you try to install something else like Linux Mint?

My daily driver is a 10yo Dell business laptop. Before that I ran a similarly aged Lenovo. I run mint.
In my experience, the amount of ram and an SSD are the biggest contributors to how good the performance feels. Running mint on 4G is possible, but performance is comprised. 8G is perfectly fine most of the time. 16G (my current setup) is peachy keen. I'm astounded what I can do in blender on a 10yo machine.
That said, if you can afford one (and they operate in your country - they don't here), then grab a framework, like others have said. If that's not an option, then add some ram and an SSD.
My 2c.

I would go for Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 AMD or System76 Lemur Pro. Not a cheap option, but supports Linux well.
- Only thing I dislike about the T14s is that you have to dissassemble everything to replace the keyboard. On the T14 it's so much easier.

Loving my T480 I got recently. Performance is meh but upgraded the memory to 32g and works good enough. Plus it was cheap on craigslist so I don't have to worry about it too much.

Not often mentioned, but Surface Laptops run Linux thanks to Linux Surface on Github. I've been running Mint on a Surface Laptop 4 13.5" for years with zero problems. Used and refurbished models are much cheaper than the other options mentioned here.
Positives - Excellent display and keyboard, nice form factor, very light and thin, comfortable fabric cover on keyboard bezel.
Negatives - Smaller SSD (256g), limited ports, larger display bezel, reportedly somewhat difficult to disassemble, initial Linux installation a bit of a pain.
13.5" models with I7, 16g and 256g ssd are going for around $300 on ebay.
- I have a Surface Go 1 and I’m really happy with it.
  But, I have to admit it was tricky to boot Linux on it and the blutooth doesn’t always work. The cameras too, but I don’t care.
  Still, it’s a great device that you can attach to a big screen to get the best of both worlds (easy to transport and useful at home).
  
  Some Bluetooth/wifi adapters are a real[tek] pain in the ass. The adapter in my HP laptop is constantly trouble and well known for it, but the Intel adapter in my Surface works without any issues at all. At some point I'll replace the Realtek in the HP with an Intel.
  I agree it was somewhat cumbersome to set up Linux initially, but the excellent guide by the Linux Surface folks on Github made it just a matter of following the directions. For me the biggest annoyance was having to use a USB keyboard and mouse until the Surface kernel was loaded. The good thing is once the kernel was loaded everything just works and has for years.
- What is the battery situation like?
  The older, cheaper devices are obviously, well, older and thus the battery degraded a bit. Linux isn't exactly optimized for these things either. I would expect less than great battery life.
  
  The battery on my 3 year old AMD model lasts 6+ hours on a full charge.
- I have a surface pro 6 and I love it.
  You should, however, mention that the cameras do not work (yet), which makes this a no-go as a full laptop replacement.
  
  It wasn't mentioned because the camera works on the Surface Laptop 4.

A refurbished Lenovo T14 or T16 should do it.

Installing Linux bare onto a Chromebook involves unplugging the internal battery (or buying a cheap special USB thing) to disable the hardware write protection and flashing a custom BIOS. Some models have issues with basic things like sound output not working through speakers or headphones or both. From experience I don't recommend.
If you still really want to though there are two websites that are really useful and should have up to date information.
https://docs.chrultrabook.com/
https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/
- Can confirm. I finally managed to install Linux Mint on my Chromebook yesterday and while it wasn't as difficult as I imagined, it was annoying. The guy at Google that came up with the battery ideea deserves prison time. My internal speakers don't work anymore, but I wasn't really using them that often so it's not a problem for me.
  Stay away from Chromebooks. Save up for a normal laptop.

I have a Thinkpad T480 that I'm very happy with. I believe it's around 7 or 8 years old, but it works great. Unlike most laptops, it doesn't have soldered RAM, so it's easily upgraded. One downside is that most units don't come with a lot of storage, so you'll probably want to get a larger drive. I spent around $200 on mine plus another $100 for the SSD. It's a great inexpensive laptop that'll last for years.

Most laptops will be more or less fully compatible with linux I think. Though a few niche features like finger print or key card readers might be a hassle to get working. To me, the most important thing is the keyboard since some manufacturers forgo the end of/start of line buttons, for instance.
- Most laptops will be more or less fully compatible
  If by "most" you mean only the ones over 500 bucks. Chromebooks have almost completely taken over the bottom end of the market (which is more than adequate if you're not gaming) and Chromebooks are not compatible with Linux unless you enjoy getting your hands very dirty.

I've shopped around for a 12+ hour Linux laptop, I think you should wait a little while to pull that trigger, Qualcomm isn't exactly great /w Linux, RISC is currently tripping on its own laces and people just aren't interested in making this kind of thing exactly, yet.
I'm guessing that in a few years a lot is going to change with low power laptops that can still compute efficiently.
I have a 5 year old laptop that when I set it to highest efficiency can get almost 4 hours as long as I'm not doing 200 things, which is fine most of the time.
Plus I've read in a bunch of places that putting standard Linux on Chromebooks is way more complicated than it ought to be, so I'm not sure I'd pull the trigger on that without first researching the specific laptop you're looking into.
Not that I've tried personally, just the Internets.
- Framework
  
  Yeah, I am thinking about getting one of those too, but I'm probably going to wait for the next generation before I buy one.
  Unless they have a flash sale before the next release ;-)

Going to piggyback off your post with this comment.
Where can we get laptop (m.2) wifi cards that are supported by FOSS drivers? I've been having a hard time finding them anymore.

I bought a very cheap N100 laptop that worked perfectly with EndeavourOS. If you don't need a not of gaming prowess, or massive storage I recommend something modest. PM me and I will send you a link, I just don't want to junk up the forum but 16 inch screen, 16gb of ram and a 512gb ssd and it is perfectly respectable, though the touchpad isn't great it does work in Linux, I just think the design is a little too tight. I will agree that a lot of laptops work fine and you can "test" them with a USB stick instead of going through the full installation.

I think chromebooks are pretty locked down these days. The old ones you can unlock and install Linux on the bare metal are underpowered. 4g RAM and 64g storage typically. I use one as a touch screens for home Assistant and to run Pihole.
I would recommend a Think Pad with 4 cores and 8g RAM from eBay. Should be plenty for your use case and cheap. I have a 10 or 12 year old idea pad that I use about the same way you do and it still running great with PopOs.
- Chromebooks are locked down yes, but they do give you the keys. It involves unplugging the internal battery to be able to modify the hardware write protection, entering dev mode to disable the write protection, and then flashing a Coreboot port onto the firmware. Even then, a lot of basic things may or may not work once you're booted into Linux. From experience I don't recommend.

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