Advice for a Linux Laptop in 2025
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I bought the Asus Tuf A16 AMD Advantage laptop. I installed Arch on it and it's been great. Got it for $600 on eBay. Put 32gb of RAM in it and a 2tb nvme drive into the second slot. Left the 512gb drive it came with.
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Maybe not what you're looking for, but I use Asahi Linux on an old M1 MacBook Air and it's quite nice. I bought it used for $480 last year.
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Does everything work on it? Sleep/hibernate too?
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I think hibernate is a missing function - I've never tried it though. Here's a good write-up on the pros/cons and potential issue depending on your use case :
https://www.anuragrao.site/blog/05-asahi-linux -
especially in the Apple space
Offtopic, we are discussing linux laptops.
With Framework its 5 screws
Aw gee, then Framework wins! With Focus IR16 its nine phillips screws...
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Whether a Thinkpad has soldered RAM or not is model-by-model thing. When I was laptop shopping I tried to stick to the only non-soldered ones, but they are definitely more expensive, as they are the higher-end models. I absolutely cannot wait for CAMM to, if it ever does, become a normal thing for RAM modules.
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Pretty sure the mic does not work if you need to have video meetings.
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Do you want mainstream brands that work well with Linux? Lenovo or Dell
Do you want smaller brands that are specialised and support Linux? Tuxedo, System76, Slimbook, Purism...
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Tuxedo is a bit hit or miss. Used one for 2 years and wasn't happy with the case quality. The plastic basically broke at some edges and screw holes
The hardware also wasn't as Linux compatible as they claim. 5Ghz wifi just didn't work reliably. With their support page saying the fix is to disable 5Ghz
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Been happy with my Purism Librem 14, and soon they'll have a 16". I think today, I'd probably buy their 11" tablet. Perfect travel size and you don't need to put it away during takeoff and landing of flights.
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They're a bit expensive up front, but I'm really enjoying my Framework.
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I want to support tuxedo, as an European brand, but the last one I bought had such a shitty screen that got worse and worse over the years. They seem to have improved the hardware somewhat but the experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
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I had system76 and now on tuxedo. I will buy tuxedo again...
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Currently in the process of fixing up my old Asus TUF FX505DU with Debian & KDE Plasma.
Setting up Nvidia Optimus would be a pain if it weren’t for Envy Control, run one command and boom GPU’s speak nicely to one another.
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StarLabs
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I have not had many issues in the past 15 or more years myself running Linux exclusively aside from a shorter Macbook period. Perhaps I have just been lucky.
We sported (in guessed cronological order of first buy): Dell, HP, Lenovo, Slimbook, Tuxedo, Starlabs, BTO all running Linux at our company. We have not had big issues with any except for keyboard on a Dell, Tuxedo, Slimbook and cooling on a Lenovo. Since I chose the Slimbook many have followed on the path of smaller suppliers and I think we rarely buy from the big makes now.
I have been very happy with slimbook. I came from a macbook (bad idea) with the bad butterfly keyboard and the slimbook was a big upgrade on that front. It's still not the greatest keyboard for some but I do like it. I have been wanting to buy a new one but whenever something broke or was insufficient I could either upgrade (2 x nvmeSSD slots and RAM can be replaced) or they still supplied spare parts when I sent them an email (keyboard replacement after 4 years). I wanted a framework but Slimbook has offered me spare parts as needed for longerbtham could buy a framework and the slimbook still works well. Plus it's less expensive. Replacement of the keyboard was not toolless requiring glue to be heated but I did manage to quickly do it with a sleepy head at night. I'd buy their new 13" if this one would be out of service. I'd buy one now but it feels such a waste.
Things I did not like 6 years ago: webcam and microphone of lesser quality, display nice and matte with good color rendition but lower resolution than I'd prefer, no USBC charging on USBC port. Display and USBC are resolved on the new models, no clue about webcam and microphone.
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Thinkpad t480, they can be found pretty cheap second hand, then install libreboot.
Can be upgraded with 64 GB of ram and a 4K screen. -
I have an all amd alienware m17 r5 I got $2000 off at around 1200$ pretty fire, 6850mxt = 3080 laptop, ive had no issues running most things, msfs needs hella tweaking on windows but past that even vr stuff mostly works fine
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I recentlly swapped to cachyos, works way better than windows, had hella driver issues on windows, I forgot and reinstalled my windows os (shrunken partition, just in case I need it) had the same issues.
All I've had to download is like two extensions in the package manager for the amd gpu to work in blender, everywhere else it workd well instantly (because of cachyos and all it installs)
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Frameworks cool if you can afford it, but if you want the best perfomance/deals, then laptops go on sale for half off or 70% off often, you just gotta check daily since they sell out within the day for those deals
