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I don't see myself ever bothering to keep the default windows install on a thinkpad but this really hurts my impression of the company regardless. I've had my e

I don't see myself ever bothering to keep the default windows install on a thinkpad but this really hurts my impression of the company regardless. I've had my eye on the new X1s and had planned to upgrade my X201 this year but now I'm having second thoughts. Who if anyone has taken over the place of great laptop for linux / development?

ertdfgcb 12y ago
I don't know about dev, but here are three linux computer/laptop companies in descending order of how nice their websites look: https://system76.com/ https://system76.com/ https://zareason.com/shop/Laptops/ https://zareason.com/shop/Laptops/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/
- lkbm 12y ago
  I bought a Bonobo in 2011. The fan's loud sometimes nowadays, and the battery's kinda shot (mostly because it's old, but also because it's trying to run a 17" 8-core beast), but it's still my primary machine nearly four years later. They're basically rebranded Sagers/Clevos, I believe, so you may be able to get essentially the same machine for a little less money, but weigh that against supporting a Linux laptop seller.
davidw 12y ago
The new Dell XPS 13 looks like a very nice laptop. I have the previous version and it works very well with Linux.
- crdb 12y ago
  I used the XPS 13 as my main machine from 2013 to late 2014 (when I switched to a MBPr). It was a nice machine initially but I found that it ended up looking pretty tattered (particularly the plastic edge, which looks and feels cheap and a bit fragile in the long run). Most annoyingly, it had a tendency to overheat, particularly when dual booting into Ubuntu. After about 20 minutes, I couldn't leave the thing on my knees - had to find a table. Both the "tablet/screen" and the base were affected. It was portable and powerful enough, but the MBPr gives me a much better overall experience. At half, perhaps 2/3 of the price of the 13" MBPr, it might still be worth it.
  - davidw 12y ago
    Yeah, I just can't stomach the thought of paying more for something where Linux isn't officially supported, so not only do I pay more, but have to deal with getting rid of MacOS and installing Linux. I can't stand the lack of focus follows mouse in MacOS X and a lot of the other little things I'm used to in Linux.
    - crdb 12y ago
      I've used both Bootcamp and Fusion for running Windows 8 and 7 (client insisted on using some Excel files, and some of the plugins only worked on Windows Excel...) and found both really quite pain free. In fact, whenever I can't get away with OpenOffice, I just use Fusion/Excel as a standalone app. In fact Fusion on the MBPr was the first VM app I used that didn't suck; I used to run various VMs in VirtualBox on the XPS which had, in theory, the same specs and a better CPU and the lag was worse than ssh into a server on the other side of the world (not to mention the overheating)... I hear you on moving away from Linux. You do get a feel, often, that OSX is consumer oriented and just "gets in the way". On the upside, when you need stuff, you can usually find it quickly and it just "works". That's the ecosystem. Still, if I was to go back, it would STILL be on a mac. One of my former colleagues wiped OSX and installed http://nixos.org/ http://nixos.org/, so I'm sure a more popular distro would work out. The thing is, well, this will sound like every other Apple addict out there, but, the hardware quality really makes a difference, and it is quite hard to explain. The MBPr is the first machine I've ever used that feels "perfect", as if they got everything right. And with most of my work done on the cloud anyway, I didn't need absolute top line specs; portability and things like battery life mattered more. Amongst the other machines in the house is an X230, which I wanted to get and boost instead of the XPS, but it feels almost ten years older. As for price, in early 2014 I spent a few weeks looking for a good standard dev laptop for the company (which I've since left) and got a good feel for the alternatives. In raw specs, you can get a cheaper "laptop", something that will fit a backpack and work for a while unplugged, yes (think W530). If you need portability though, all ultrabooks at the time were more expensive if specced to the same level. We did buy a couple W530s and upgraded them a bit (32GB RAM, etc.) and all their users ended up using them like desktops. I do not know if this is still the case, probably not, but I've seen many nominally more powerful "ultrabooks" (like the YogaPad, whose user assured me he had better resolution than me) fail in other ways; battery life is one, creaky joints is another. It took me a few more months before I got over my psychological block and got the base spec MBPr when it came out in August... One thing to note is that there are corporate discounts; if you or your friends are employed by a big corp, you can save a few hundred. Also, the upgrades are REALLY expensive compared to alternatives - why pay 300 dollars for extra SSD when you can get an SSD-grade, flush-with-the-side card from Transcend on Amazon for under 50?
- regularfry 12y ago
  The new one has hardware issues that are still being worked out. Follow @majorhayden on twitter for more.
- lmm 12y ago
  I used an XPS 13 for a little while. It had a horrible keyboard that I can only describe as "rubbery", and the battery lasted literally less than two hours. Have they fixed that in newer revisions?
- boothead 12y ago
  I have one of the Ubuntu XPS 13s. It is a nice machine but battery is woeful after < 2 years of use.
  - davidw 12y ago
    The battery is not awesome. It's supposed to be better in the new version.
technomancy 12y ago
The Novena laptop was created specifically because you can't trust any of the big manufacturers not to do this at a deeper level. (Detecting this kind of attack in software is way easier than finding something deeper.) https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop
SixSigma 12y ago
I was tempted by the 4k Dell http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-15-9530/pd?oc=cnx9525 http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-15-9530/pd?oc=cnx9525 But I bought a second hand X201 instead :)
justinludwig 12y ago
There's also another crowdsupply linux laptop that's a little more practical than the Novena: Purism's Librem. Its whole raison d'etre is to be a high-end laptop that's libre everything -- pretty apropos, I think: https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop

ertdfgcb 12y ago

I don't know about dev, but here are three linux computer/laptop companies in descending order of how nice their websites look: https://system76.com/ https://system76.com/ https://zareason.com/shop/Laptops/ https://zareason.com/shop/Laptops/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/

lkbm 12y ago
I bought a Bonobo in 2011. The fan's loud sometimes nowadays, and the battery's kinda shot (mostly because it's old, but also because it's trying to run a 17" 8-core beast), but it's still my primary machine nearly four years later. They're basically rebranded Sagers/Clevos, I believe, so you may be able to get essentially the same machine for a little less money, but weigh that against supporting a Linux laptop seller.

davidw 12y ago

The new Dell XPS 13 looks like a very nice laptop. I have the previous version and it works very well with Linux.

crdb 12y ago
I used the XPS 13 as my main machine from 2013 to late 2014 (when I switched to a MBPr). It was a nice machine initially but I found that it ended up looking pretty tattered (particularly the plastic edge, which looks and feels cheap and a bit fragile in the long run). Most annoyingly, it had a tendency to overheat, particularly when dual booting into Ubuntu. After about 20 minutes, I couldn't leave the thing on my knees - had to find a table. Both the "tablet/screen" and the base were affected. It was portable and powerful enough, but the MBPr gives me a much better overall experience. At half, perhaps 2/3 of the price of the 13" MBPr, it might still be worth it.
- davidw 12y ago
  Yeah, I just can't stomach the thought of paying more for something where Linux isn't officially supported, so not only do I pay more, but have to deal with getting rid of MacOS and installing Linux. I can't stand the lack of focus follows mouse in MacOS X and a lot of the other little things I'm used to in Linux.
  - crdb 12y ago
    I've used both Bootcamp and Fusion for running Windows 8 and 7 (client insisted on using some Excel files, and some of the plugins only worked on Windows Excel...) and found both really quite pain free. In fact, whenever I can't get away with OpenOffice, I just use Fusion/Excel as a standalone app. In fact Fusion on the MBPr was the first VM app I used that didn't suck; I used to run various VMs in VirtualBox on the XPS which had, in theory, the same specs and a better CPU and the lag was worse than ssh into a server on the other side of the world (not to mention the overheating)... I hear you on moving away from Linux. You do get a feel, often, that OSX is consumer oriented and just "gets in the way". On the upside, when you need stuff, you can usually find it quickly and it just "works". That's the ecosystem. Still, if I was to go back, it would STILL be on a mac. One of my former colleagues wiped OSX and installed http://nixos.org/ http://nixos.org/, so I'm sure a more popular distro would work out. The thing is, well, this will sound like every other Apple addict out there, but, the hardware quality really makes a difference, and it is quite hard to explain. The MBPr is the first machine I've ever used that feels "perfect", as if they got everything right. And with most of my work done on the cloud anyway, I didn't need absolute top line specs; portability and things like battery life mattered more. Amongst the other machines in the house is an X230, which I wanted to get and boost instead of the XPS, but it feels almost ten years older. As for price, in early 2014 I spent a few weeks looking for a good standard dev laptop for the company (which I've since left) and got a good feel for the alternatives. In raw specs, you can get a cheaper "laptop", something that will fit a backpack and work for a while unplugged, yes (think W530). If you need portability though, all ultrabooks at the time were more expensive if specced to the same level. We did buy a couple W530s and upgraded them a bit (32GB RAM, etc.) and all their users ended up using them like desktops. I do not know if this is still the case, probably not, but I've seen many nominally more powerful "ultrabooks" (like the YogaPad, whose user assured me he had better resolution than me) fail in other ways; battery life is one, creaky joints is another. It took me a few more months before I got over my psychological block and got the base spec MBPr when it came out in August... One thing to note is that there are corporate discounts; if you or your friends are employed by a big corp, you can save a few hundred. Also, the upgrades are REALLY expensive compared to alternatives - why pay 300 dollars for extra SSD when you can get an SSD-grade, flush-with-the-side card from Transcend on Amazon for under 50?
regularfry 12y ago
The new one has hardware issues that are still being worked out. Follow @majorhayden on twitter for more.
lmm 12y ago
I used an XPS 13 for a little while. It had a horrible keyboard that I can only describe as "rubbery", and the battery lasted literally less than two hours. Have they fixed that in newer revisions?
boothead 12y ago
I have one of the Ubuntu XPS 13s. It is a nice machine but battery is woeful after < 2 years of use.
- davidw 12y ago
  The battery is not awesome. It's supposed to be better in the new version.

technomancy 12y ago

The Novena laptop was created specifically because you can't trust any of the big manufacturers not to do this at a deeper level. (Detecting this kind of attack in software is way easier than finding something deeper.) https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop

SixSigma 12y ago

I was tempted by the 4k Dell http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-15-9530/pd?oc=cnx9525 http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-15-9530/pd?oc=cnx9525 But I bought a second hand X201 instead :)

justinludwig 12y ago

There's also another crowdsupply linux laptop that's a little more practical than the Novena: Purism's Librem. Its whole raison d'etre is to be a high-end laptop that's libre everything -- pretty apropos, I think: https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop