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I've had the best luck with laptops which are "pure" Intel based, including graphics. For most non-hardcore gaming uses, Intel integrated graphics is fast enoug
by Kjeldahl 13y ago
I've had the best luck with laptops which are "pure" Intel based, including graphics. For most non-hardcore gaming uses, Intel integrated graphics is fast enough, and it seems well supported on most of the traditional Linux desktops (meaning it uses hardware for compositing, windowing effects and similar).
It's true that Nvidia and AMD has better raw performance numbers, but for some reason - despite all the years gone by since both Nvidia and AMD pledged support - both Nvidia and AMD drivers still suck IMHO. Nvidia seems more stable than AMD, but overall less stable than the standard Intel drivers. It seems there's always something that does not work properly with either of the drivers, being trouble waking up from suspend/hybernate, glitches/hangs (which destroys any notion of "fluidness") and occasional total driver breakage with new laptops, new linux releases or similar.
The only annoying thing is that even though the intel driver works nicely, there are still many things it does not support. If you're using Chrome, type in "chrome://gpu" in your browser and count the number of colored lines in the first section. On my f* up Nvidia Optimus system (yeah, current office standard, oh the number of hours I've wasted on that computer) I get 5 greens, 3 greenorangy and 3 reds.
For comparison, my Macbook Air Pro running OSX I get 11 green and 1 greenorangy. I do not have my pure Intel laptop handy, but if I remember correctly it has very few if any greens at all. That means Chrome is doing all the heavy lifting without much hardware support. That often means it's the same for most apps, possibly except the desktop environments themselves who seems to do a decent job on linux desktops already.
Anyway, here's hoping that there will be decent Intel drivers for Linux laptops sometimes in the near future, so Chrome and other apps can get more greens and comparable general graphics performance as Nvidia and AMD on OSX and Windows.
- bugBunny 13y agoI had so many problems with nvidia mobile and its was getting too much heat out of the fan BOX, while comparing other laptops with Intels GPU it was completely different story. I had to install nvidia drivers as I had to have external display support. As a developer with just a few graphical requests in total, I don't need nvidia or amd ati... ;-) Also, I have no time to tweak it up and make it work, I would like something that works out of box, I think thats normal request, right :)
- Kjeldahl 13y agoYes. It also means you should definitively go for a pure Intel-based laptop (with Intel HD graphics of some sorts) whatever choice you end up with. Good luck!
- bugBunny 13y agothanks mate, so far I am in between xps 13 and xps 12... I really like how they look and feel, even the price is not advantage though :)