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I've had incredibly good luck for the last several years with Linux on a laptop. You just have to be a bit careful. Here's what I've found: - Backlight bugs ar

I've had incredibly good luck for the last several years with Linux on a laptop. You just have to be a bit careful. Here's what I've found: - Backlight bugs are usually related to ACPI tables in the BIOS. Doing a BIOS upgrade will often fix them. This is especially true on the Thinkpad line where Lenovo explicitly supports Linux in its BIOS. - Be careful with switchable graphics. While they have gotten a lot better, especially with open source drivers, they are still a pain (even on Windows). Choose a laptop with an Intel, or AMD APU. Or, barring that, make sure all of the scanouts are connected to the Intel card, like in my Thinkpad W540. The new Macbook Pro Retina 15" is exactly what you want to avoid - it forces all inputs to be connected to the discrete card when you boot Linux. - Make sure you have a good wifi card. Intel or Atheros is the best. - Do a bit of research before buying, like on the arch wiki. - If you buy a bleeding edge laptop chipset, expect to need to use a bleeding edge distro for complete support.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Only the highest end rMBP has a discrete card, the cheaper one is just integrated.
d23 12y ago
For most people, eyes will start glazing around the second paragraph or so, which doesn't bode well for your "you just have to" argument.
- fixedd 12y ago
  How about this: just by a system with all Intel chipsets and you'll probably be fine.
  - TD-Linux 12y ago
    Yes I agree, this is the short version of my advise. What I wrote above was for the HN audience.
morganvachon 12y ago
> Do a bit of research before buying, like on the arch wiki This, a thousand times. While I haven't used Arch for a few years, and probably never will again, they have some of the best and most complete documentation in the GNU/Linux world. Chances are, if there's ever been a Linux-specific issue, some Arch user has run into it and either fixed it themselves or found the answer in the Arch community. Their wiki is quite thorough as well. Another great source is linuxquestions.org. Half a million members and still growing, and they cover all major distros (though there's a ton of Slackware power users there, which suits me fine).
javawizard 12y ago
The very fact that this list needs to exist demonstrates the problem.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

Only the highest end rMBP has a discrete card, the cheaper one is just integrated.

d23 12y ago

For most people, eyes will start glazing around the second paragraph or so, which doesn't bode well for your "you just have to" argument.

fixedd 12y ago
How about this: just by a system with all Intel chipsets and you'll probably be fine.
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  Yes I agree, this is the short version of my advise. What I wrote above was for the HN audience.

morganvachon 12y ago

> Do a bit of research before buying, like on the arch wiki This, a thousand times. While I haven't used Arch for a few years, and probably never will again, they have some of the best and most complete documentation in the GNU/Linux world. Chances are, if there's ever been a Linux-specific issue, some Arch user has run into it and either fixed it themselves or found the answer in the Arch community. Their wiki is quite thorough as well. Another great source is linuxquestions.org. Half a million members and still growing, and they cover all major distros (though there's a ton of Slackware power users there, which suits me fine).

javawizard 12y ago

The very fact that this list needs to exist demonstrates the problem.