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Another linux guy here, on the market for a new linux laptop. After reading the article, which linux-compatible laptops, would you say, come the closest to com

Another linux guy here, on the market for a new linux laptop. After reading the article, which linux-compatible laptops, would you say, come the closest to compete with the new generation of Apple products? Long battery life, plenty of power, good screen, good speakers? Is it the inevitable Dell XPS 13 and Thinkpad X1 Carbon, or are there any other darlings among the linux community?

fsflover 6y ago
It's not as good as Apple yet, but getting there IMO: https://puri.sm/products/librem-14 https://puri.sm/products/librem-14.
- pram 6y ago
  lol this is just delusional. The Librem is the build quality of a generic Chromebook. Maybe competitive with Apple in like 2006, as in the polycarbonate MacBook!
eulers_secret 6y ago
Tiger Lake matches M1 in single-core perf, but gets trounced in multi. AMD has some good options, but I haven't seen a thin&light style AMD based laptop come out yet. Check out System76, their Linux support is unparalleled. The lemur pro is interesting. I don't know if you'll find the specs for the screen/speakers, though. I got the XPS 13, myself, but it still requires 'tweaks' - like running thermald master so your system doesn't throttle down too much after a short 'boost', and running kernel 5.10 because it allows your CPU to enter the PC10 power-saving state (Ubuntu's oem-5.8 may have this backported, I haven't checked). As always, install your favorite user-agent spoofer as well. I just ran into a problem with some web videoconferencing software that works fine, but you have to tell it your running Win/Chrome. This is why people say desktop Linux isn't here yet. It kinda is, but only if you're an expert (or want to be forced to become one)... I still love it, though, and always will.
- jamiek88 6y ago
  Tiger lake at 26w compared to M1 at 10W matches single thread. So not really Apple to apples there.
  - harpratap 6y ago
    > In multi-threaded scenarios, power highly depends on the workload. In memory-heavy workloads where the CPU utilisation isn’t as high, we’re seeing 18W active power, going up to around 22W in average workloads, and peaking around 27W in compute heavy workloads. These figures are generally what you’d like to compare to “TDPs” of other platforms, although again to get an apples-to-apples comparison you’d need to further subtract some of the overhead as measured on the Mac mini here – my best guess would be a 20 to 24W range. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... So the Tiger Lake TDP is of multicore usage, not single core.
- azangru 6y ago
  > The lemur pro is interesting. I don't know if you'll find the specs for the screen/speakers, though. I've seen a youtube review demonstrating that its speakers are abysmal [0, around 7:30 minutes in]. I have a feeling that this is the quality that is to be expected of Clevo laptops :-( [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v6u1CbQ574 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v6u1CbQ574
alwillis 6y ago
which linux-compatible laptops, would you say, come the closest to compete with the new generation of Apple products? When there's a technological jump, there's not much you can do. There's not a laptop you can buy that close enough to the M1-based MacBook Air or MacBook Pro to matter really. You can't get something as light, as powerful and with the battery life these machines have. Look, Apple demonstrated Debian running in a VM on an Apple Silicon Mac in June, so we know it's possible. And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts it's blazing fast. You saw the comments in the article; people are talking about more than a day without having to plug these devices in. People are rendering 8k video while doing other stuff with no slowdown and without hearing the fan, in the case of the MacBook Pro. These machines can drive up to six displays using DisplayLink adapters. Just nuts. "M1 Macs Able to Run Up to Six External Displays Using DisplayLink Adapters": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25199444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25199444
nly 6y ago
I'm struggling with the same dilemma at the moment but at the 15" size point. I just bought the XPS 15 (2020 model) in the i7-10750H / 16 GB / 1 TB / 4K touchscreen configuration, with 4 years of extended warranty, and it set me back $3000 USD here in the UK. This was with 16% Dell Advantage discount. For comparison in the US a slightly better package with 32GB of RAM is currently up for less ($2,750, so more like $2,900 after sales tax I guess). Retail. I've also bought the exact same configuration and package, refurbished from the Dell Outlet, in the standard HD resolution for $1,900. This one has yet to arrive. So how does the 4K XPS fair in Linux? I booted in to Ubuntu 20.10 using a USB stick and... the keyboard didn't work. For some reason Ubuntu brings up the on-screen keyboard when I use the touchscreen, but the physical keyboard is completely non-functional. Fedora 33 live? No wifi. Manjaro XFCE worked great. I was pleasantly surprised (once all the 4K related scaling settings were fixed) how good it looked and how well everything just worked. Paying $1,100 for a 4K touchscreen upgrade that causes nothing but problems on Linux is a hard thing to justify and, unfortunately for Dell, the screen on the XPS is probably its biggest selling point right now. Now M1 is a known quantity they really need to discount these laptops imho. On the XPS you only get 3 USB-C ports, and one is constantly in use for me because I rarely unplug. I will be needing a stupidly expensive dock, so I have no idea how anyone can cope with just the 2 on the XPS 13. The keyboard is better than average but still pretty harsh, the touchpad has borderline build quality (springboardy) and is too large for my tastes (and I miss physical buttons), and the although the screen is gorgeously sharp and bright the fact that it's glossy still causes reflections in my home office. I do not think I will be keeping either laptop, and instead I'm looking toward the X1 Extreme Gen3, with its better port options, keyboard and build quality.

fsflover 6y ago

It's not as good as Apple yet, but getting there IMO: https://puri.sm/products/librem-14 https://puri.sm/products/librem-14.

pram 6y ago
lol this is just delusional. The Librem is the build quality of a generic Chromebook. Maybe competitive with Apple in like 2006, as in the polycarbonate MacBook!

eulers_secret 6y ago

Tiger Lake matches M1 in single-core perf, but gets trounced in multi. AMD has some good options, but I haven't seen a thin&light style AMD based laptop come out yet. Check out System76, their Linux support is unparalleled. The lemur pro is interesting. I don't know if you'll find the specs for the screen/speakers, though. I got the XPS 13, myself, but it still requires 'tweaks' - like running thermald master so your system doesn't throttle down too much after a short 'boost', and running kernel 5.10 because it allows your CPU to enter the PC10 power-saving state (Ubuntu's oem-5.8 may have this backported, I haven't checked). As always, install your favorite user-agent spoofer as well. I just ran into a problem with some web videoconferencing software that works fine, but you have to tell it your running Win/Chrome. This is why people say desktop Linux isn't here yet. It kinda is, but only if you're an expert (or want to be forced to become one)... I still love it, though, and always will.

jamiek88 6y ago
Tiger lake at 26w compared to M1 at 10W matches single thread. So not really Apple to apples there.
- harpratap 6y ago
  > In multi-threaded scenarios, power highly depends on the workload. In memory-heavy workloads where the CPU utilisation isn’t as high, we’re seeing 18W active power, going up to around 22W in average workloads, and peaking around 27W in compute heavy workloads. These figures are generally what you’d like to compare to “TDPs” of other platforms, although again to get an apples-to-apples comparison you’d need to further subtract some of the overhead as measured on the Mac mini here – my best guess would be a 20 to 24W range. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... So the Tiger Lake TDP is of multicore usage, not single core.
azangru 6y ago
> The lemur pro is interesting. I don't know if you'll find the specs for the screen/speakers, though. I've seen a youtube review demonstrating that its speakers are abysmal [0, around 7:30 minutes in]. I have a feeling that this is the quality that is to be expected of Clevo laptops :-( [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v6u1CbQ574 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v6u1CbQ574

alwillis 6y ago

which linux-compatible laptops, would you say, come the closest to compete with the new generation of Apple products? When there's a technological jump, there's not much you can do. There's not a laptop you can buy that close enough to the M1-based MacBook Air or MacBook Pro to matter really. You can't get something as light, as powerful and with the battery life these machines have. Look, Apple demonstrated Debian running in a VM on an Apple Silicon Mac in June, so we know it's possible. And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts it's blazing fast. You saw the comments in the article; people are talking about more than a day without having to plug these devices in. People are rendering 8k video while doing other stuff with no slowdown and without hearing the fan, in the case of the MacBook Pro. These machines can drive up to six displays using DisplayLink adapters. Just nuts. "M1 Macs Able to Run Up to Six External Displays Using DisplayLink Adapters": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25199444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25199444

nly 6y ago

I'm struggling with the same dilemma at the moment but at the 15" size point. I just bought the XPS 15 (2020 model) in the i7-10750H / 16 GB / 1 TB / 4K touchscreen configuration, with 4 years of extended warranty, and it set me back $3000 USD here in the UK. This was with 16% Dell Advantage discount. For comparison in the US a slightly better package with 32GB of RAM is currently up for less ($2,750, so more like $2,900 after sales tax I guess). Retail. I've also bought the exact same configuration and package, refurbished from the Dell Outlet, in the standard HD resolution for $1,900. This one has yet to arrive. So how does the 4K XPS fair in Linux? I booted in to Ubuntu 20.10 using a USB stick and... the keyboard didn't work. For some reason Ubuntu brings up the on-screen keyboard when I use the touchscreen, but the physical keyboard is completely non-functional. Fedora 33 live? No wifi. Manjaro XFCE worked great. I was pleasantly surprised (once all the 4K related scaling settings were fixed) how good it looked and how well everything just worked. Paying $1,100 for a 4K touchscreen upgrade that causes nothing but problems on Linux is a hard thing to justify and, unfortunately for Dell, the screen on the XPS is probably its biggest selling point right now. Now M1 is a known quantity they really need to discount these laptops imho. On the XPS you only get 3 USB-C ports, and one is constantly in use for me because I rarely unplug. I will be needing a stupidly expensive dock, so I have no idea how anyone can cope with just the 2 on the XPS 13. The keyboard is better than average but still pretty harsh, the touchpad has borderline build quality (springboardy) and is too large for my tastes (and I miss physical buttons), and the although the screen is gorgeously sharp and bright the fact that it's glossy still causes reflections in my home office. I do not think I will be keeping either laptop, and instead I'm looking toward the X1 Extreme Gen3, with its better port options, keyboard and build quality.