Looking for New Laptop

[TechSY730]

Well, my 4 year old laptop just died (thankfully the power supply failed, not the hardrive, so I didn't lose anything), and thus I am starting the search for a new one. I am especially interested in laptops with Linux preinstalled.

I've been reading good things about System76 and ZaReason, but I am wondering if anyone else can give some recommendations.

[Cyborg]

Why would you preinstall? You should be specific about the flavor!

[TechSY730]

Why would you preinstall? You should be specific about the flavor!

I am looking for a preinstalled Ubuntu, preferably 12.04 (the latest LTS version).

Under ideal circumstances, I would choose Gentoo. But despite my love of their package management system, how they maintain their package tree has much to be desired.

And why preinstalled? It saves me a bunch of time installing and resolving hardware incompatibilities that can crop up with "out of the box" installations.

Also, I can be reasonably certain that they won't choose hardware known for having poor support in Linux currently.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Laptops come pre-installed with Linux? This is news to me. I've never heard of them at any rate, but that's probably due to a lack of looking.

Also, is this your gaming laptop? My opinion would be to not bother with setting up a laptop to game, but that's me.

[doctorfrog]

Dell has sold Linux PC's for years I'm pretty sure.

Lemme know what you get. I just threw Linbuntu onto an old netbook of mine and I'm pretty happy so far. It's a bit rough, but waaaaaay faster than the old Win7 install that was on it before.

[Kahuna]

Someone enlighten me. Why would anyone use Mac, Linux, Ubuntu or whatever instead of Windows (7)?

[zespri]

Laptops come pre-installed with Linux? This is news to me. I've never heard of them at any rate, but that's probably due to a lack of looking.

Also, is this your gaming laptop?

Linux gaming laptop? What would you play on Linux? Of course you can do wine, but suffering from its idiosyncrasies is certainly masochistic.

[Aklyon]

Someone enlighten me. Why would anyone use Mac, Linux, Ubuntu or whatever instead of Windows (7)?

No idea why you'd use a Mac over any of the above, it both lacks the games of windows and the flexibility of Linux. It works well with itself, I suppose.

Ubuntu is part of Linux, not a separate thing. It is the windows of linuxes, more or less.

Theres far too many different reasons to use Linux over Win7 to list here, but one of them is not gaming. For example, Puppy Linux is good for getting a (7 year old, nearly completely broken but still functioning screen/hdd) laptop's stuff off it without waiting ages for XP to load, since it is tiny tiny OS in comparison and hardly needs much to run.

[zespri]

Someone enlighten me. Why would anyone use Mac, Linux, Ubuntu or whatever instead of Windows (7)?

It all boils down to what you are using it for. linux based systems, are cheaper both on small (desktops) and large (virtual farms) scales. Linux hosting is cheaper, linux virtual servers are cheaper -  you name it.

Often it turns out that there is no reason (financial or otherwise) to use Windows when you are set up with linux.
Windows just reached GUI-less server phase a few years ago with their "server core" offering, which linux has had for years.

And if you are not a gamer, all three windows mac and linux are adequate - they all provide for your basic needs, browsing, emails, document editing, multimedia, connectivity, etc. Mac is of course the prettiest.

[TechSY730]

Recent versions of Wine are actually pretty darn nice. There are still a few issues with Wine audio and PulseAudio, but from my research has uncovered, this is due to really obscure bugs on both sides. Thankfully though, these sorts of bugs are rare now a days.

Anyways, what I am using my laptop for. I would like this to a moderate gaming rig, so a moderate GPU would be nice. Also, I am planning on using this computer for background computation stuff (like BOINC), so a OK GPU and good CPU would be nice. And finally, I am gonig to be doing some dev work on it, so good memory, like 6GB will, and a good CPU will do. I am pretty good about keeping my disk usage in check, so I don't need anything more than 400-500 GB.
All in all, I am looking for a mid-high range system.

[Aklyon]

Sounds like you'd want an i3 (for Intel CPUs, whether you want those or an AMD is yours to pick) at the minimum. Probably better with an i5.

[TechSY730]

So does anyone have any brands to recommend? Any brands to avoid?

I am NOT going to get a Dell again; I have not been pleased with the quality (or lack thereof) of their laptop hardware.

[keith.lamothe]

So does anyone have any brands to recommend? Any brands to avoid?

I am NOT going to get a Dell again; I have not been pleased with the quality (or lack thereof) of their laptop hardware.

I used to work for a large organization that got almost all its workstations (mobile and desktop) from Dell and hardware quality problems were very rare.  But yea, what I've heard is consistent with the conclusion that the hardware quality is proportional to the importance of the customer (and to be fair, it doesn't even have to be a very important customer to get near-zero lemons, but an individual consumer? pah).

I do almost all my dev work on an Acer laptop and I've had no trouble with it from a quality perspective (it's low-ish end, and it gets hot, but I knew that going in and got a really good deal on the machine).  So toss that on the pile of statistically insignificant anecdotal data

[Aklyon]

I've heard good things of Acer and Asus. I got an HP as a gift, and besides the graphics (Intel HD Graphics, while surprisingly capable, is still augh) and the battery which doesn't seem to like staying charged after a point or notifying me its about to die, its good enough.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Someone enlighten me. Why wouldn't anyone use Mac, Linux, Ubuntu or whatever instead of Windows (8.)?

Fixed

@zespri, mmm true point. Still, I was talking in general, with Windows PCs and such. Anytime anyone does moderate-to-heavy gaming on a laptop, they seem to suffer from more hardware problems than those with desktops. I bought a Laptop gaming rig (way overpriced) many years ago and I sent it back to the manufacturer twice and it still died due to some unknown reason after its warranty period. The machine with me now has gone just fine during the same amount of time, no need for repairs. Well, exempting software problems, but that's a Windows problem. heh.  And I've only done one upgrade to it so far.