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Re:Updated ThinkPad Laptop Portfolio by eloisant on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @09:00AM (#22413207)
So what would be the best brand of laptop to buy and put Linux on?
Re:Updated ThinkPad Laptop Portfolio by blaser-waffle on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @09:05AM (#22413249)
Dell is selling XPS and other business laptops with Ubuntu installed at the factory. Not sure if it's a Dell spin of it, but it'll save you ~$40 by not paying the Microsoft tax.

Purism has an open source laptop that looks good. Expensive, though. Voting for FOSS hardware with your wallet ain't cheap.

Re:Updated ThinkPad Laptop Portfolio by windexh8er on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @09:15AM (#22413337)
I'm typing this on a T470 running Linux. It has been a fantastic laptop all around. In general I find it more productive than my work issued MBP. Others have stated hardware failures with their Lenovo, however I use mine daily and, generally, do not treat it any different than other laptops. The keyboard has fared better than the last three MBP I've been issued / reissued. YMMV, obviously. All hardware can fail and all hardware can have manufacturing defects. Overall, however, I feel as though my T470 is a more durable machine. And I'm excited to see AMD in the T lineup. While I might not purchase the first iteration, I'll definitely be watching the space.

Lenovo is supporting Linux on a lot of their hardware moving forward [0]. Lenovo also joined LVFS in 2018 to provide native Linux firmware updates [1].

[0] https://www.lenovo.com/linux [1] https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/08/lvfs-lenovo-firmware-upd...

Re:Updated ThinkPad Laptop Portfolio by nobleach on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @09:34AM (#22413504)
I typically tell people, "Everything but the fingerprint reader". On my X1C the only tiny battle I had to fight was for S3 suspend. I'm not even going to bother with the fingerprint reader.
Re:Updated ThinkPad Laptop Portfolio by diffeomorphism on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @09:59AM (#22413675)
Red hat is apparently paying for some work on this: https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2019/06/24/on-the-road-to-fed...

So I guess it is going to land in fedora first and then make its way to other distros.

That said, under windows the fingerprint reader is frustratingly bad (lots and lotsof false negatives and slow). How can they be almost perfect on phones but that awful on laptops?

Re:Updated ThinkPad Laptop Portfolio by nobleach on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @10:48AM (#22414069)
My Macbook Pro's reader has been great. But yeah, I've had readers on my PCs for the past 10 years, and every one of them has been just a notch above terrible.
Re:Updated ThinkPad Laptop Portfolio by helb on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @09:21AM (#22413398)
After many years with old X and T Thinkpads i got a Dell Latitude at work and i'm pretty happy with it. Everything works well, including the thunderbolt dock. Even the keyboard is pretty decent, just the trackpoint (they call it a "pointing stick") sucks, nobody except IBM/Lenovo seems to get it right.
Re:Updated ThinkPad Laptop Portfolio by meddlin on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @09:15AM (#22413341)
I'll be opting for a Darter Pro from System76 later in the year. Like others have stated, going with FOSS hardware/software isn't cheap, but it looks to be the best compromise for myself.

Dell's XPS "Ubuntu edition" looks like a great device. However, limitations on repairability at that price are a non-starter for me.

Re:Updated ThinkPad Laptop Portfolio by lathiat on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @09:25AM (#22413436)
System76 or the Dell Ubuntu systems