I will say that a second-hand ThinkPad is a great option. They can be real cheap, but you can also get a pretty decent new one for your budget.
You can likely find great T480-T495 that fits your needs really well.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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I HIGHLY recommend against the T495. That thing has a great keyboard, fingerprint sensor, okay camera and mics, okay ports. But it is underpowered af, and Thinkpads always have the Thinkpad price.
It has a great chassis, but my coreboot Clevo NV41 has double the performance and kinda same battery life.
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I'm farting around on a T480 for school and light retro gaming. Works great! Super easy to upgrade too
Another vote for the T480. I have a T480s running Mint and it's been lovely. No driver issues and for office/light media creation/consumption it seems to work without a hitch.
Agreed, I love mine.
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Look at frame.work they have good documentation about various Linux distros on their machines
Their firmware updates are pretty late and they ditched coreboot.
But I guess the hardware is awesome. Keep in mind that these thunderbolt adapters suck quite some battery, so having a laptop simply with the ports you need uses up less battery. Also, the modularity may not be needed and causes it to be less stiff.
They ditched Coreboot?
They gave some coreboot devs laptops but didnt invest anything apart from that, afaik. The result was not working well enough, so they use insyde (which has pretty cool features but also past security vulnerabilities and it is backdoored by Intel & the NSA)
Like, UEFI being backdoored by the NSA is not a conspiracy. "Persistence" in "end user device data retrieval" was one big goal. Persistence means than an OS reinstall, Secureboot, boot integrity, QubesOS disposable Cubes etc. will all not protect you, as that shit is in the firmware!
No security or privacy without coreboot. Google knows that and has all their servers on coreboot and also all Chromebooks. Android is ARM so that is different but also WORLDS more secure than any secureboot garbage.
It looks like work is still being done on Coreboot for the Framework. They got it running on the AMD version. It's not ready for use yet, but at least there is some progress.
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Used ThinkPad or Framework laptop should be a copypasta at this point.
If it were me, I'd first be looking at used Thinkpads (with the caveat to make sure the specific Thinkpad has hardware which is generally supported). I'd also look into Linux-friendly manufacturers, like frame.work or System76.
Ive had great success with their all amd systems, and older machines go on sale often, so you can score a Ryzan 6850 w/ 16GB of RAM for 700-800CAD if little else matters.
System76 or Framework
https://www.asus.com/us/laptops/for-home/zenbook/zenbook-14-oled-um3402/
22 hours battery life.
AMD.
Slim, gorgeous. Runs Linux like a champ.
I have bought only Asus for my last 4 laptops (previously I was Thinkpad), and I have never regretted any of them. Since switching from Windows to Linux earlier this year (Aurora-DX) I have had no issues.
If you want to go even smaller and lighter, this one is awesome but is Intel and doesn't have as long battery life.
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That depends on where you live.
In europe I recommend Novacustom or 3mdeb if you want coreboot, Starlabs too.
In the US System76.
Tldr Amd & amd
My mantra with Linux hardware is "as normal as possible."
I make sure it doesn't have certain brands of Wi-Fi card in them :/ miserable times with broadcom leave me wary
To have one ready out of the box with linux maybe look at the System76 offerings? https://system76.com/
Edit: just got a chance to check and they are slightly above your $1000 criteria. So maybe on his recommendation.
Buy a laptop from a vendor that preinatalls Linux. Not because you need them to do that for you, but because it means its more likely to work on Linux without issues.
I run Qubes, but I think this is a great list of Qubes-certified hardware
https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/certified-hardware/#qubes-certified-computers
Depending on your budget, I would suggest tuxedo‘s aura 15 gen 3. starts at around 800 bucks and is linux first and made in germany.
If you have a lower budget I would go used as someone suggested since a new laptop is nice but unnecessary if you have budget constraints.
Wish you tons of fun.
I've got a similar use case and went with an X13 Thinkpad (AMD). It's good for hardware support, but if you want a good experience for watching videos, I'd look somewhere else. The display and audio are not that good.
I've just been through the process you've described and bought a laptop. Your budget is way overkill for your use (documents, browsing, video watching).
I recently bought myself a "like new" second hand Dell Latitude (5300, I think), 8th gen i7, 16GB Ram for £150 and it is amazing with OpenSUSE.
I got my wife a new HP Aero 13 (Ryzen) a couple of years ago and even that was £580 brand new and has been great.
Consider the secondhand market. A lot of laptops will meet your criteria.
You're right. I actually bought my current Pixel phone secondhand, so I'll check out the market for computers. Do you know of any red flags to watch out for in secondhand computer ads?
I used eBay so I could get a refund if the laptop wasn't as advertised. I spent weeks looking at new listings looking for a good deal. I eventually found an amazing deal from a hospice that was selling excess stock. I've worked in a hospice before and know this would have only ever been used sparingly in an office and be very well looked after.
On eBay I would avoid anyone who hasn't written out a complete description and detailed pictures of condition and specifics. Like the other comment says, the BIOS being unlocked is very important. Read descriptions carefully. People fall victim to buying expensive things that can't be returned because it was mentioned in the listing (e.g. buying a box only for a very expensive price). For any laptop I find, I search for forum posts from other users about how that model works with Linux and videos for a teardown to make sure that RAM, WiFi module, etc can be upgraded. Make sure the charger is included.
Search eBay for "8th Gen 13 inch 16GB", then sort by lowest price for buy-it-now. That's what I did for a number of weeks. Got one for myself and a great one for my dad as well. Good experience both times.
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Used/off-lease ThinkPad T-series.
If money wasn't an object I think I'd get a Framework but I've always had a good experience with Lenovo for a more budget-friendly option. My last two laptops have been Lenovos and have both worked super well with Linux.
If there's a decent (even online) used market where you live buying a refurbished computer that's just a few years old can be amazing bang for your buck. 9th-11th gen Intel or Ryzen 2-4th gen. Any of the more business focused lines tend to be fairly well-built and are designed to be relatively long lasting while being relatively well-maintained during their service life. HP Elitebooks, Dell Latitudes, Lenovo Thinkpads, etc.
If I had to replace my Linux laptop right now, I'd probably go for a ThinkPad T14 AMD. They also sell them with Snapdragon ARM chips now, which is a very interesting option, though I'm not sure how viable as a daily driver.
You could run Linux on it with no issue ofc, but I wonder how good the support for ARM arch from common Linux software is nowadays...
I love my dell 5300 latitude with fedora. Touchscreen, 13 inches, super compact. And a dime a dozen as you can find used enterprise laptops on eBay/Facebook market.
Slap a large nvme in there and you're good to go for like, under 300. With the leftover cash, you can even get a docking station and monitor if you wanted a dank setup at home.
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I've had a lot of thinkpads and currently use an ideapad flex 5. I prefer the smaller form factor for a portable machine I take travelling or out to biz meetings etc. The autorotate and touchscreen work great in Debian with gnome-shell out of the box. No pinch-to-zoom but I believe that works on KDE plasma out of the box.
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Go team red would be my advice.
Old Intel systems are solid as well. Something 2022 or older
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