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>> Linux laptops: buy pre-installed. The fact that hardware - though much improved in the past 15 years - is still a crapshoot on Linux, particularly when it c

>> Linux laptops: buy pre-installed. The fact that hardware - though much improved in the past 15 years - is still a crapshoot on Linux, particularly when it comes to laptop hardware, is so frustrating. Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware. OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box". I can't see how it's ever supposed to be "the year" for linux when just getting it to run properly on hardware requires buying OEM meant-for-Windows, but we-promise-it-works-with-linux garbage. Is a "pre-installed" linux laptop even cross-distro compatible? If the laptop comes with Ubuntu pre-installed, what are the odds I can replace it with CentOS or Arch? Is the laptop "designed for linux", or "designed for exactly what is factory shipped, and nothing else"? Can I even do a fresh install of the shipped operating system, or do they hack in additional manufacturer packages/kernel drivers that require you to never reinstall on top of the shipped install? How about OS upgrades? Are they reliable, or do you risk running into compatibility problems, even with a new version of the same distro? What we really need is a BSD/unix/linux[1] competitor to OS X. RedHat tried, and IMO failed. We need another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X. I'm tired of waiting for the open source world to try - and fail - to gather momentum. And tired of Apple, who has the best unix/linux operating system, fucking us over with every hardware release. [1] How do you type a literal asterisk on HN? Backslash and double-asterisk don't work. nix. \nix. nix

peller 10y ago
> If the laptop comes with Ubuntu pre-installed, what are the odds I can replace it with CentOS or Arch? Very high. For the most part, drivers on Linux are determined by the kernel version[0]. Arch typically runs a pretty new kernel, so anything that Ubuntu supports, will most likely be fine. (That applies to pretty much all desktop-oriented distros.) CentOS is server-oriented, and typically runs a pretty old kernel, and as such you need to be more conservative in the hardware you choose. That said, they do backport a fair amount of hardware support from newer kernels. [0] The exception to this rule are closed-source drivers, but even those tend to be tied/limited to certain kernel versions.
- mgbmtl 10y ago
  Not to mention, that before buying my Dell XPS 15 (at the time) in order to run Debian, I mostly relied on Arch's documentation to know if it was a good purchase or not, and what wifi chipset to choose :)
  - ankka 10y ago
    The Arch linux wiki is one of the best maintained and up-to-date on hardware issues. It helps that Arch itself tries to ship only vanilla software: as few modifications as possible to the kernel, too, unlike the bigger distros. Excellent source of information.
- stymaar 10y ago
  A notable exception to this rule are Nvidia Drivers, which are close-source. When switching from the initial distribution to the newer one, you'll fall back to the free Nouveau driver and need to reinstall the NVIDIA zone by yourself. It's not too difficult but can be surprising if you're not expecting it because your thought everything was in the kernel like I did.
gonzo 10y ago
> We need another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X. Jordan Hubbard is at iXsystems now. FreeNAS/TrueNAS & PC-BSD/ TrueOS. So maybe.
rl3 10y ago
>We need another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X. In context of laptops, Microsoft is in a position to kick serious ass on this front should they wish to. Their Surface hardware line is vastly superior to Apple at the moment. Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL) looks promising but is still in its infancy. Unfortunately it will likely have severe limitations for some time, and even then there's no escaping the fact it runs atop Windows. In my opinion, there's a few rather crazy options: 1. Ship the Surface line with a hypervisor by default. Provide full official driver support for the hardware in both Windows and Linux environments. That means first-class Wacom support on Linux. Ditto power management, touchpad and wireless. Run Windows and Linux simultaneously, with interop support. 2. Reengineer the Windows kernel to update itself without the incessant need to reboot all the time. Windows Update is a piece of crap that needs to be replaced by a proper package manager anyways (at least under the hood). Then, double down on WSL until it's practically at parity with a real Linux install. Failing that, integrate a guest VM with full hardware acceleration and driver support. 3. Microsoft develops their own Linux distro and calls it Windows Developer Edition. Fuse the best parts of each OS together. Windows' existing graphics infrastructure ported as a desktop environment. Native D3D. Native Windows binaries. First-class driver support. A UI oriented towards pure modularity and customization. I concede the third item is simply fantasy, but we can always dream.
- hobarrera 10y ago
  I don't get why people insist that the whole "bash on windows" things makes it a suitable replacement for Linux. It's like when people say "oh, but OS X has a terminal as well". I don't use Linux just because of the terminal. Package managers (and the ability to deterministically install/uninstall packages!!) are one of the strongest pilars. WMs I like are another (we'll each have a preference, mine bine i3wm). And finally, a [somewhat] sane, understandable filesystem hierarchy. Windows is still so, so far from all of those, that it's still not even close to being a suitable replacement.
  - cube2222 10y ago
    If you don't get it, try it. It's not just bash. It's the whole Ubuntu userspace. Yes, you can use apt-get there.
qplex 10y ago
>OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. I've actually hacked the OS X installer to work on an older MacBook that wasn't "supported" anymore. I think it was OS X 10.5 and the installer had something like this in there: if(MacBook<3,1) ThrowError(); Rather amusingly everything worked after I changed that one line in the script...
- 20after4 10y ago
 I did the exact same thing! I was a tiny bit proud of that clever hack. It was just too easy to really feel good about it though.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
qplex 10y ago
>Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box". Google the laptop model + Linux before you buy it. That increases the odds of getting a "it works out of the box" experience. You'll also usually find pretty straightforward instructions how to get things going quickly if they do not work out of the box, or the simple fact that the machine is not well supported. Also, if you had done enough Windows installs you'd know that things very seldom "work out of the box" if you do a clean install, especially with laptops. Instead, you'll have a fun time hunting bloated driver packages from some slow obscure chinese FTP server. In addition hardware support on Windows gets worse over time. For example: Have an older Samsung laptop, wanna run Windows 10? Tough luck. [1] On Linux you'll have this problem _very_ rarely, if ever, as hardware support (among other things) keep improving over time. [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/windows_10_samsung_fail/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/windows_10_samsung_f...
- pjmlp 10y ago
  > Google the laptop model + Linux before you buy it. That increases the odds of getting a "it works out of the box" experience. I would happily do this when was a university student about 20 years ago. Nowadays, I want to go whatever store (physical or online) and just take what I want to buy. Yes, there are some online stores for GNU/Linux, but as I discovered with the one I bought (Asus + Ubuntu), it might happen that some things don't quite work. Also the models being sold aren't that enticing, XPS is the exception.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    > Nowadays, I want to go whatever store (physical or online) and just take what I want to buy. If you bring Linux on a USB stick, a good store will let you boot into it on the exhibition piece. At least, that was the case for me, and it definitely contributed to my buying my notebook at that particular store.
    - thecrazyone 10y ago
      I hadn't thought about this. Thanks for sharing :)
chubuntu 10y ago
Asterisk show up fine if followed by white space * ... The question is how to show (asterisk)nix? Apparently three asterisks + nix = *nix
- digi_owl 10y ago
 I have taken to using _ as an alternative...
 - vacri 10y ago
 I go for ^nix
- developer2 10y ago
 Ha! Funny enough, triple asterisk actually renders as * - an empty tag followed by a single asterisk. Oh, HN, you. But thank you, something that visually renders properly.
jabajabadu 10y ago
Great point. I had two laptops with pre-installed Linux. Both were not even cross-update compatible. Video driver of my System76 laptop broke after the first major Ubuntu update. XPS 13 Developer Edition failed to hibernate the very fist time I closed the lid. WTF? Both laptops cost well over $1k.
kriro 10y ago
I strongly disagree with the sentiment that the solution is "another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X" We don't need more closed, we need more open. What we need is massive rewards for open hardware via customer money. As long as wireless cards and graphics cards are closed by default and drivers are BLOBed up it's a losing battle by default. I do believe there's an opening to mini-disrupt Apples hardware (specifically laptop) sales by providing the "Apple experience" of bundling up everything in a neat package with strong branding. Focus very hard on the professional niche, ignore everything else. The key is finding hardware vendors that will play ball (and investors that are willing to take the boring low margin hardware risk). Linux has 30-40% of Apple's market share. I suppose a bigish player like Dell could also work. I had the feeling their Linux line was more of an afterthought but the current release note of an extended Linux line looks pretty great. I'm not sure about their marketing and approach it isn't focused enough (just sell it as the ultimate developer box imo) but that news had me very excited. Good job Dell :)
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  That's not the Apple experience. The Apple experience means - well, used to mean - an entire ecosystem of hardware, software, content, distribution, marketing, branding, business partnerships, and development. Linux doesn't work with absolute consistency because FOSS people still don't understand that source code is a tiny part of the bigger user experience. The big challenge in the PC business isn't the OS, it's the politics of community building around a platform - "community" meaning users, hardware suppliers, developers, investors, and channel partners. Linux has a relatively tiny community which only really interests developers, which means that the big hardware companies don't feel any great commercial pressure to support it. This might change if Team Linux had an evangelical organisation that could negotiate and do politics at the appropriate levels. But politics is a much harder problem than writing code, so that probably won't happen any time soon. Edit: at the moment some of the distros have evolved to do some of that work, with varying levels of success. But if you want to play in the consumer space (which is a superset of the developer laptop market), you need to do a lot more than release distro installers and hope Dell or someone else will pick them for its hardware.
kbp 10y ago
> OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. OS X is only "permitted to operate" on computers designed for it, though. Linux doesn't have issues running on models where the manufacturer actually supports Linux.
fnord123 10y ago
>Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware. I strongly disagree. When the dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I tried to dual boot, Debian ran everything on my desktop from the get go. For Windows, I had to hunt for drivers for all the hardware, or use the provided disks (which was annoying since I hadn't originally bought an optical drive)
- calvin_ 10y ago
  Nowadays, that's not an issue with Windows. On all my machines, the drivers either came with Windows or Windows downloaded them from Windows Update.
  - BuildTheRobots 10y ago
    I disagree. Installing Windows 7 and 10 on newer hardware usually leaves me hunting for network drivers _before_ windows can then go about automagically installing the rest of them. Even after installing the network driver, there's usually some ACPI or platform device it can't automatically install and then I'm stuck hunting device IDs and chipset drivers.
  - jeena 10y ago
    I disagree too, I had to install the ethernet driver, the wifi driver, the soundcard driver and the bluetooth driver manually frome some shady websites on the Internet. The worst was the ethernet driver because I couldn't just download it without internet, I had to use Linux to download it and put it on a FAT formated USB stick.
luca_ing 10y ago
> The fact that hardware - though much improved in the past 15 years - is still a crapshoot on Linux, particularly when it comes to laptop hardware, is so frustrating. Anecdata: I've only ever had good luck with my laptops. All bought without OS (other than a make-believe FreeDOS installation). Granted, I pondered a while which laptop to buy -- but I would do that in any case. My personal experience is that it's surprisingly easy to get it right nowadays. In fact I distinctly remember being baffled at how hard it was to install a particular driver -- only to discover that the system balked correctly: the driver didn't need to be installed, the device had been working all along, out of the box. I was banging my head against non-existing walls; these turned out to be harder than existing walls ;-)
vacri 10y ago
> Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware. OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box". Linux is exactly like Windows in this regard: it works just fine as long as you have the right third-party drivers. Hell, I remember having trouble installing my ATI drivers on win7 because win7 fallback was 640x480, and the braindead driver installer window was taller than that - you couldn't see the bottom of the window to click on the buttons (and windows wouldn't let you drag the top of the window offscreen). In the XP days, having windows completely fail to work with NICs was so frustrating that a friend of mine slipstreamed a vanilla installation disk with 676 NIC drivers on it, so 'no matter where you installed it, it would get network!' So no, Windows doesn't work on 'practically any hardware' - you need to have the right drivers for it, same as linux/bsd/whatever.
- WayneBro 10y ago
  > So no, Windows doesn't work on 'practically any hardware' - you need to have the right drivers for it, same as linux/bsd/whatever. Sure. But it seems silly to acknowledge that fact while omitting the fact that hardware manufacturers actually always build drivers for Windows and they hardly ever build them for Linux.
haspok 10y ago
Whenever in doubt buying a laptop for Linux, just consult the Arch Linux wiki on the specific model. If the given model (such as the XPS 13) is popular in the community, the amount and quality of the information collected there is mindblowing. For example: the pages about the past 3 releases of the XPS 13: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9343) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9343) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9360) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9360) From the compatibility point of view, usually more important than the distro is the kernel version. There are some minor exceptions to this, such as Ubuntu vs Fedora 25 on the 9343. Ubuntu compiles the kernel with CONFIG_ACPI_REV_OVERRIDE_POSSIBLE=y (due to Dell asking for it), and Fedora does not. This results in the soundcard working properly in HDA mode under Ubuntu, but not working properly in I2S mode under Fedora. But this can be fixed, it just takes time and effort to find these information yourself. No, the year of the Linux desktop - when you can just buy and use a laptop with Linux just as you do with Apple - has not come yet, and will not come in the near future.
jeena 10y ago
Just buy from a company which specializes in building laptops for Linux, they chose those components for which there are free software drivers already available so it never will be a problem. 1. http://system76.com/ http://system76.com/ 2. http://tuxedocomputers.com/ http://tuxedocomputers.com/ 3. https://www.entroware.com/ https://www.entroware.com/ and so on ... This way you're not only helping yourself but also invest into companies which make sure stuff is working on Linux, as they grow all the other OEMs will see the potential and adapt (hopefully).
mrsernine 10y ago
> Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box" I'm sorry to disagree, but after a fresh install of windows you still have to install a ton of drivers for specific hardware plus a ton of reboots after each one. In fact IMHO Ubuntu offers a way better "out of the box" experience than windows does nowadays.

peller 10y ago

> If the laptop comes with Ubuntu pre-installed, what are the odds I can replace it with CentOS or Arch? Very high. For the most part, drivers on Linux are determined by the kernel version[0]. Arch typically runs a pretty new kernel, so anything that Ubuntu supports, will most likely be fine. (That applies to pretty much all desktop-oriented distros.) CentOS is server-oriented, and typically runs a pretty old kernel, and as such you need to be more conservative in the hardware you choose. That said, they do backport a fair amount of hardware support from newer kernels. [0] The exception to this rule are closed-source drivers, but even those tend to be tied/limited to certain kernel versions.

mgbmtl 10y ago
Not to mention, that before buying my Dell XPS 15 (at the time) in order to run Debian, I mostly relied on Arch's documentation to know if it was a good purchase or not, and what wifi chipset to choose :)
- ankka 10y ago
  The Arch linux wiki is one of the best maintained and up-to-date on hardware issues. It helps that Arch itself tries to ship only vanilla software: as few modifications as possible to the kernel, too, unlike the bigger distros. Excellent source of information.
stymaar 10y ago
A notable exception to this rule are Nvidia Drivers, which are close-source. When switching from the initial distribution to the newer one, you'll fall back to the free Nouveau driver and need to reinstall the NVIDIA zone by yourself. It's not too difficult but can be surprising if you're not expecting it because your thought everything was in the kernel like I did.

gonzo 10y ago

> We need another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X. Jordan Hubbard is at iXsystems now. FreeNAS/TrueNAS & PC-BSD/ TrueOS. So maybe.

rl3 10y ago

>We need another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X. In context of laptops, Microsoft is in a position to kick serious ass on this front should they wish to. Their Surface hardware line is vastly superior to Apple at the moment. Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL) looks promising but is still in its infancy. Unfortunately it will likely have severe limitations for some time, and even then there's no escaping the fact it runs atop Windows. In my opinion, there's a few rather crazy options: 1. Ship the Surface line with a hypervisor by default. Provide full official driver support for the hardware in both Windows and Linux environments. That means first-class Wacom support on Linux. Ditto power management, touchpad and wireless. Run Windows and Linux simultaneously, with interop support. 2. Reengineer the Windows kernel to update itself without the incessant need to reboot all the time. Windows Update is a piece of crap that needs to be replaced by a proper package manager anyways (at least under the hood). Then, double down on WSL until it's practically at parity with a real Linux install. Failing that, integrate a guest VM with full hardware acceleration and driver support. 3. Microsoft develops their own Linux distro and calls it Windows Developer Edition. Fuse the best parts of each OS together. Windows' existing graphics infrastructure ported as a desktop environment. Native D3D. Native Windows binaries. First-class driver support. A UI oriented towards pure modularity and customization. I concede the third item is simply fantasy, but we can always dream.

hobarrera 10y ago
I don't get why people insist that the whole "bash on windows" things makes it a suitable replacement for Linux. It's like when people say "oh, but OS X has a terminal as well". I don't use Linux just because of the terminal. Package managers (and the ability to deterministically install/uninstall packages!!) are one of the strongest pilars. WMs I like are another (we'll each have a preference, mine bine i3wm). And finally, a [somewhat] sane, understandable filesystem hierarchy. Windows is still so, so far from all of those, that it's still not even close to being a suitable replacement.
- cube2222 10y ago
  If you don't get it, try it. It's not just bash. It's the whole Ubuntu userspace. Yes, you can use apt-get there.

qplex 10y ago

>OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. I've actually hacked the OS X installer to work on an older MacBook that wasn't "supported" anymore. I think it was OS X 10.5 and the installer had something like this in there: if(MacBook<3,1) ThrowError(); Rather amusingly everything worked after I changed that one line in the script...

20after4 10y ago
I did the exact same thing! I was a tiny bit proud of that clever hack. It was just too easy to really feel good about it though.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

qplex 10y ago

>Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box". Google the laptop model + Linux before you buy it. That increases the odds of getting a "it works out of the box" experience. You'll also usually find pretty straightforward instructions how to get things going quickly if they do not work out of the box, or the simple fact that the machine is not well supported. Also, if you had done enough Windows installs you'd know that things very seldom "work out of the box" if you do a clean install, especially with laptops. Instead, you'll have a fun time hunting bloated driver packages from some slow obscure chinese FTP server. In addition hardware support on Windows gets worse over time. For example: Have an older Samsung laptop, wanna run Windows 10? Tough luck. [1] On Linux you'll have this problem _very_ rarely, if ever, as hardware support (among other things) keep improving over time. [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/windows_10_samsung_fail/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/windows_10_samsung_f...

pjmlp 10y ago
> Google the laptop model + Linux before you buy it. That increases the odds of getting a "it works out of the box" experience. I would happily do this when was a university student about 20 years ago. Nowadays, I want to go whatever store (physical or online) and just take what I want to buy. Yes, there are some online stores for GNU/Linux, but as I discovered with the one I bought (Asus + Ubuntu), it might happen that some things don't quite work. Also the models being sold aren't that enticing, XPS is the exception.
- majewsky 10y ago
  > Nowadays, I want to go whatever store (physical or online) and just take what I want to buy. If you bring Linux on a USB stick, a good store will let you boot into it on the exhibition piece. At least, that was the case for me, and it definitely contributed to my buying my notebook at that particular store.
  - thecrazyone 10y ago
    I hadn't thought about this. Thanks for sharing :)

chubuntu 10y ago

Asterisk show up fine if followed by white space * ... The question is how to show (asterisk)nix? Apparently three asterisks + nix = *nix

digi_owl 10y ago
I have taken to using _ as an alternative...
- vacri 10y ago
  I go for ^nix
developer2 10y ago
Ha! Funny enough, triple asterisk actually renders as * - an empty tag followed by a single asterisk. Oh, HN, you. But thank you, something that visually renders properly.

jabajabadu 10y ago

Great point. I had two laptops with pre-installed Linux. Both were not even cross-update compatible. Video driver of my System76 laptop broke after the first major Ubuntu update. XPS 13 Developer Edition failed to hibernate the very fist time I closed the lid. WTF? Both laptops cost well over $1k.

kriro 10y ago

I strongly disagree with the sentiment that the solution is "another closed-source unix/linux-based operating system that throws away X.org and its attempted modern replacements, that can directly compete with OS X" We don't need more closed, we need more open. What we need is massive rewards for open hardware via customer money. As long as wireless cards and graphics cards are closed by default and drivers are BLOBed up it's a losing battle by default. I do believe there's an opening to mini-disrupt Apples hardware (specifically laptop) sales by providing the "Apple experience" of bundling up everything in a neat package with strong branding. Focus very hard on the professional niche, ignore everything else. The key is finding hardware vendors that will play ball (and investors that are willing to take the boring low margin hardware risk). Linux has 30-40% of Apple's market share. I suppose a bigish player like Dell could also work. I had the feeling their Linux line was more of an afterthought but the current release note of an extended Linux line looks pretty great. I'm not sure about their marketing and approach it isn't focused enough (just sell it as the ultimate developer box imo) but that news had me very excited. Good job Dell :)

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
That's not the Apple experience. The Apple experience means - well, used to mean - an entire ecosystem of hardware, software, content, distribution, marketing, branding, business partnerships, and development. Linux doesn't work with absolute consistency because FOSS people still don't understand that source code is a tiny part of the bigger user experience. The big challenge in the PC business isn't the OS, it's the politics of community building around a platform - "community" meaning users, hardware suppliers, developers, investors, and channel partners. Linux has a relatively tiny community which only really interests developers, which means that the big hardware companies don't feel any great commercial pressure to support it. This might change if Team Linux had an evangelical organisation that could negotiate and do politics at the appropriate levels. But politics is a much harder problem than writing code, so that probably won't happen any time soon. Edit: at the moment some of the distros have evolved to do some of that work, with varying levels of success. But if you want to play in the consumer space (which is a superset of the developer laptop market), you need to do a lot more than release distro installers and hope Dell or someone else will pick them for its hardware.

kbp 10y ago

> OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. OS X is only "permitted to operate" on computers designed for it, though. Linux doesn't have issues running on models where the manufacturer actually supports Linux.

fnord123 10y ago

>Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware. I strongly disagree. When the dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I tried to dual boot, Debian ran everything on my desktop from the get go. For Windows, I had to hunt for drivers for all the hardware, or use the provided disks (which was annoying since I hadn't originally bought an optical drive)

calvin_ 10y ago
Nowadays, that's not an issue with Windows. On all my machines, the drivers either came with Windows or Windows downloaded them from Windows Update.
- BuildTheRobots 10y ago
  I disagree. Installing Windows 7 and 10 on newer hardware usually leaves me hunting for network drivers _before_ windows can then go about automagically installing the rest of them. Even after installing the network driver, there's usually some ACPI or platform device it can't automatically install and then I'm stuck hunting device IDs and chipset drivers.
- jeena 10y ago
  I disagree too, I had to install the ethernet driver, the wifi driver, the soundcard driver and the bluetooth driver manually frome some shady websites on the Internet. The worst was the ethernet driver because I couldn't just download it without internet, I had to use Linux to download it and put it on a FAT formated USB stick.

luca_ing 10y ago

> The fact that hardware - though much improved in the past 15 years - is still a crapshoot on Linux, particularly when it comes to laptop hardware, is so frustrating. Anecdata: I've only ever had good luck with my laptops. All bought without OS (other than a make-believe FreeDOS installation). Granted, I pondered a while which laptop to buy -- but I would do that in any case. My personal experience is that it's surprisingly easy to get it right nowadays. In fact I distinctly remember being baffled at how hard it was to install a particular driver -- only to discover that the system balked correctly: the driver didn't need to be installed, the device had been working all along, out of the box. I was banging my head against non-existing walls; these turned out to be harder than existing walls ;-)

vacri 10y ago

> Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware. OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box". Linux is exactly like Windows in this regard: it works just fine as long as you have the right third-party drivers. Hell, I remember having trouble installing my ATI drivers on win7 because win7 fallback was 640x480, and the braindead driver installer window was taller than that - you couldn't see the bottom of the window to click on the buttons (and windows wouldn't let you drag the top of the window offscreen). In the XP days, having windows completely fail to work with NICs was so frustrating that a friend of mine slipstreamed a vanilla installation disk with 676 NIC drivers on it, so 'no matter where you installed it, it would get network!' So no, Windows doesn't work on 'practically any hardware' - you need to have the right drivers for it, same as linux/bsd/whatever.

WayneBro 10y ago
> So no, Windows doesn't work on 'practically any hardware' - you need to have the right drivers for it, same as linux/bsd/whatever. Sure. But it seems silly to acknowledge that fact while omitting the fact that hardware manufacturers actually always build drivers for Windows and they hardly ever build them for Linux.

haspok 10y ago

Whenever in doubt buying a laptop for Linux, just consult the Arch Linux wiki on the specific model. If the given model (such as the XPS 13) is popular in the community, the amount and quality of the information collected there is mindblowing. For example: the pages about the past 3 releases of the XPS 13: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9343) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9343) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9360) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9360) From the compatibility point of view, usually more important than the distro is the kernel version. There are some minor exceptions to this, such as Ubuntu vs Fedora 25 on the 9343. Ubuntu compiles the kernel with CONFIG_ACPI_REV_OVERRIDE_POSSIBLE=y (due to Dell asking for it), and Fedora does not. This results in the soundcard working properly in HDA mode under Ubuntu, but not working properly in I2S mode under Fedora. But this can be fixed, it just takes time and effort to find these information yourself. No, the year of the Linux desktop - when you can just buy and use a laptop with Linux just as you do with Apple - has not come yet, and will not come in the near future.

jeena 10y ago

Just buy from a company which specializes in building laptops for Linux, they chose those components for which there are free software drivers already available so it never will be a problem. 1. http://system76.com/ http://system76.com/ 2. http://tuxedocomputers.com/ http://tuxedocomputers.com/ 3. https://www.entroware.com/ https://www.entroware.com/ and so on ... This way you're not only helping yourself but also invest into companies which make sure stuff is working on Linux, as they grow all the other OEMs will see the potential and adapt (hopefully).

mrsernine 10y ago

> Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box" I'm sorry to disagree, but after a fresh install of windows you still have to install a ton of drivers for specific hardware plus a ton of reboots after each one. In fact IMHO Ubuntu offers a way better "out of the box" experience than windows does nowadays.