3 ms·
Is Alienware a good choice for laptops now? I’d always heard they were overpriced for the hardware you get.
by sgillen 8y ago
Is Alienware a good choice for laptops now? I’d always heard they were overpriced for the hardware you get.
- ufo 8y agoI would recommend avoiding laptops with nvidia cards if you are planning to run linux. They are a big hassle due to bad driver support.
- Erlich_Bachman 8y agoOnly if you HAVE to use the open source driver. Running linux with the driver from NVIDIA themselves works really well these days.
- snazz 8y agoThen again, it’s proprietary software, and much of the reason for using a System76-esque machine is for the FOSS-all-the-way-down (as much as is practical on modern-ish hardware).
- ufo 8y agoNot only that but when it comes to Linux the FOSS-only systems are also easier to install and maintain.
- Erlich_Bachman 8y agoNVIDIA driver is in the repositories and is installed just as easily as the rest of a modern repository-based distro. It literally just works.
- eropple 8y agoTwo of my last three laptops have had nVidia graphics and neither of those have had problems with the nVidia drivers; the newest one, a Lenovo T480 with an MX150, is completely fine with Nouveau.
- ufo 8y agoThe really big problem are the systems that don't work well enough with nouveau. If you are unlucky you can even end up with a computer that only boots to a black screen, which requires some nomodeset trickery to install the proprietary graphics.
- eropple 8y agoThat's true. My go-to is to do nouveau.modeset=0 on any machine with even a hint of trouble, which gets me where I need to go. Currently on that T480 I use the Nouveau drivers with the built-in panel plus two external 1440p monitors via a Lenovo Thunderbolt dock and it's great.
- maxsilver 8y agoI'm really happy with my Alienware 15 r4. The hardware has been great. But I don't run Linux, so I can't speak to any hardware/driver support issues.