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Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?

97 points by xgbi ↗ HN
All in the title.

We are transitionning from Macs to "whatever you like" and I would like to look around for a good linux laptop equaling what we can get for the price of a MBPro (13", 512Go disk, 16G ram for 2400€).

I bet the competition can do better (I'd certainly fancy 32Gb of ram), but I don't have much experience in PC type laptops. I use linux a LOT at home so I'm confident I'll be able to install it, but I don't have the compatibility story.

What would you suggest? Dell XPS? Lenovo something?

THanks!

102 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] thread
itg
I went with the Lenovo X1 Carbon.
tlb
I'm happy with my System 76. It comes running Linux, and with all the nVidia GPU driver + CUDA setup done.

https://system76.com/laptops

I got the 15" Serval with 4K display and 64 GB RAM. It's big and heavy, but they have light ones too.

cpach
Out of curiosity, may I ask what desktop environment you run? For me, that is the weakest part of the Linux experience.
zwarag
If you can stand up to the shenanigans of the OS X you can handle any mayor Linux DE. They might not be as polished as OS X but they offer you anything you might expect and are well polished by now.
cpach
Sure! I’m more interested though in specific recommendations. So feel free to share what DE you’re using :)
tlb
Gnome on Wayland. A little ugly, but usable. I mostly just have an editor open full-screen, so I don't engage deeply with the window system.
Data_Junkie
There are a lot of Clevo resellers. People have options, but System 76 is the only one people mention anymore.
Data_Junkie
There are alot of Clevo resellers. People have options, but System 76 is the only one people mention anymore. It's a shame.
cpach
Oh, so System 76 are resellers of Clevo? I had no idea. Nice to hear that Clevo are still around :)
onyva
I also moved off a MacBook to dell XPS but will probably not buy dell again. Customer service was shockingly bad compared to what you get from Apple. I mean really bad (bought in Switzerland).

I was looking today at the HUAWEI Matebook X Pro but not thrilled about taking a laptop with nvidia.

jonaswi
Is there still coil whine when running Linux on the XPS?
johnchristopher
It's a hit and miss and some editions don't have it at all.
Lio
Antidata point here but not on my XPS13 9370. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen for other people.
onyva
Never noticed a problem with mine.
somerandomanon
MSI PS42 8RC - https://www.msi.com/Content-creation/PS42-8RX/Specification A powerful 14': the variant with 1050 for some reason is priced same as the one with MX250 (an MX150 with a different name). Only 8 gigs of RAM but you can upgrade. The price is really great, it's very lightweight and has a good battery life. Also: good matte display.

A weird alternative could be GPD Pocket/Pocket 2?

I'd definitely avoid XPS though, afair they've installed MX150 '1D12' gpus which are about 25% slower.

pixelmonkey
Lenovo X1C is the standard-bearer for a Linux notebook experience that is hassle-free, hardware-wise, and includes a great keyboard, trackpad, screen, battery, all in a slim ultrabook format. I wrote up my experience of a 4th gen model here:

https://amontalenti.com/2017/09/01/lenovo-linux

If you care about outdoor usage, opt for the matte IPS screen rather than the glossy options. Lenovo sells both types on almost every model. I'd also suggest skipping the touchscreen.

JoshTriplett
Complete agreement; I've used the X1 Carbon since the first generation.

One issue, though: the 6th and 7th generations currently use a cell modem (the PCIe Fibocom L850-GL LTE-A) that doesn't work under Linux. The USB version works; the PCIe version has no driver.

smacktoward
I'm still using a circa-2013 X1 Carbon, running Ubuntu. Overall it's been great, with the one exception being the battery life, which has always been abysmal. I've never been able to get any more than 2 hours out of the battery, even after extensive tinkering with tools like powertop.

That machine is getting a bit long in the tooth now, so I've been thinking about what to buy to replace it; getting another X1C would be a no brainer if I wasn't worried about whether the battery life in the new ones is as bad as it was in my old one.

JoshTriplett
I get 10+ hours of battery life out of mine, depending on workload. I run Debian, without any special tuning, beyond powertop and running an up-to-date kernel.
pixelmonkey
Yes, on my 4th gen, I get a solid 6-10 hours, depending on usage. I think running powertop is important to identify background power hogs and ensure kernel params are tweaked. I love how ever since the 4th gen, the X1C's also rapidly charge to 80%+ power, and get to 100% not long thereafter. Pretty much the only thing that'll chew through my battery quickly is a Google Meet call, and that's just because Google/Chromium hasn't figured out how to reduce CPU usage on the video encode/decode steps on Linux.
leppr
That's a bummer (the cell modem on older models is awesome and some carriers can provide you with a second data-only sim card at no additional monthly cost), but it's not something someone coming from a MBP will miss.
jdillaaa
I have the X1C. Little thing I noticed about the matte IPS screen (which I selected for outdoor usage much like you said) is that the screen goes black when I wear my sunglasses with a polarized lens, so if your sunglasses are polarized perhaps consider buying some non-polarized ones :-)
basch
or buy polarized lenses with the opposite orientation. if you turn your head 90 degrees can you see the screen?
crtasm
This led me to wonder: why isn't there a default orientation for things you look at and another for things you look through?
inimino
They would need to be the same... and if we can't get people to standardize on internet protocols, good luck with something that actually affects whether the product works well or not!
basch
Monitors dont even come with the same orientation.
ghaff
Probably Lenovo something depending on your priorities. (I'd get a Lenovo X1 Carbon if I were replacing my X270 as I mostly prioritize lightweight.) We use Lenovos at Red Hat for our issued Linux laptops so compatibility tends to be pretty good.
rasengan
Razor Blade 15 works very well, also under heat.

The Surface Pro is also fantastic except the lack of webcam support.

xgbi
What is the Linux story on a surface? I admit I like Microsoft’s products form factor a lot, especially the surface book.
uncletaco
I agree. I went with a 2015 chromebook pixel (running guix system) just because I wanted a 3:2 screen ratio.
rasengan
It works - there is a script for Ubuntu that can be found on github that basically takes care of everything. The only issue I have found is that the webcam doesn’t work.

I also haven’t been able to get the 4g to work yet (I have a surface 5).

AdmiralAsshat
The Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition is the usual recommendation as far as having the most "Macbook"-like design (e.g. slim, unibody aluminum, but powerful).* ThinkPads generally have pretty solid Linux support, and System76 makes a line of Linux-only laptops, although both of them will be a good bit chunkier than your MBP. Neither are bad laptops if you're willing to trade sleekness for a tad more power or durability. It really depends on what you're looking for.

* This excludes Huawei's "Matebook" line, which is more like a Chinese carbon-copy MBA clone, and doesn't come with Linux as a preinstalled option.

Lio
XPS seems to me more like a replacement for the MacBook Air 11” size wise... except that it has a 13” HiDPI screen and a 6 core processor. I keep mine in an 11” MBA case.

I’ve found mine to be really good. They seem to have fixed issues with the trackpad that bothered me.

Only things I’m not keen on are the PgUp, PgDn key positions above the cursor keys and mixing the 4k screen with a 1440 external screen.

I opted to buy it over a Thinkpad because it comes with linux preinstalled and at the time the current X1C had some issues, as I recall. I think whatever it was has now been fixed but it’s still officially unsupported hardware in that you’re not paying Lenovo to support it.

AdmiralAsshat
> XPS seems to me more like a replacement for the MacBook Air 11” size wise... except that it has a 13” HiDPI screen and a 6 core processor. I keep mine in an 11” MBA case.

Well sure, but I have yet to hear someone say that they actually liked the 13" MBP's giant bezel. It was a testament, at the time, to the XPS 13's ingenuity that it managed to fit a 13" screen into what was basically an 11" laptop chassis.

My XPS 13 9343 has served me well for several years, although the battery life on this model was a meager four hours, and the QHD+ resolution on a 13" screen still feels like it's a DPI that modern OS's have yet to handle elegantly, even four years later.

jinnko
It's also well worth using the mainline kernels with the XPS as power management along with any flakey drivers is vastly improved. It's easy when done with the ukuu utility.
koehr
Check out the System76 Galago Pro. You get a monster of a machine performance wise (easily surpassing a MacBook) in a case that's not at all chunkier than a MacBook and for half the price. Only downside is the pretty bad battery life.
srijanshetty
After being plagued with a sideloaded linux on XPS15 which produced enough exhaust to keep me warm in winter, I bought a XPS13 last year and have never been happier!
bebop
I just got a Lenovo P1 Gen 2 and so far have been very happy with it. It has two NVMe slots and I think it can go as high as 128gb of RAM, 64 at least. The build quality and keyboard are very nice and it has an nvidia quadro T1000 w/4gb.

My setup is a 9th gen i7, 16 gigs and 256 NVMe, it was ~1600 USD, and I think it was worth the price. My only complaint is that it took over 3 weeks to ship.

tony
Echoing this. Lenovo X/T/P series with the big warranty. This gets you quality components that should work well across linux distributions.

If you're doing external monitors that are 3K, 4k, etc it's very difficult to pull off. Gnome 3 with fractional scalings (Ubuntu 19.04, debian experimental gnome 3.32+) make this possible. It doesn't work with NVIDIA's proprietary drivers at the moment.

You can also try to meet things half way by using Windows 10 with WSL 2.

xgb84j
I had two Dell (XPS 13 and XPS 15), both had their share of driver issues. The XPS 15 also had severe hardware issues, which support could not help with (sound randomly starting and stopping to work).

Now I use a Lenovo T480s dual-booting Windows 10 Pro and Ubuntu 18.04 and everything just works.

For Linux I recommend getting a Laptop without a dedictated GPU. Regarding Linux distributions, I stopped having issues since I stick to Ubuntu LTS releases.

schlotzisk
I agree. I'm using a T480s with no GPU and Ubuntu 18.04 and have no regrets since switching. If you really need a GPU, consider the P1 and X1E series.
albertomartino
Hey, I moved from a MacBook air (2014) just for programming purposes. now I'm happy with a Asus Zenbook ux430 (1100€) with 16 GB ram, 512 GB SSD and i7 8850U (14 inches) Manjaro OS. Perfect, smooth and clean.
daenz
I had a Dell XPS 9360. Only issue I had was the mouse touchpad would occasionally lock up. I don't remember what I did, but it happened infrequently and inconsistently, and took months of pain to fix it, which involved some custom driver.
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pmorici
Panasonic Toughbook CF-54.
peterbwf
I made the switch to a Dell Precision laptop (or mobile workstation as Dell calls it) for work and speced it to the max a few years ago. I specifically wanted to run Ubuntu. I've had it for 3 years now and it's never let me down.
Old_Thrashbarg
Also very happy with this choice. I'm on my second Dell Precision.

Also nice that Ubuntu comes pre-installed and is officially supported.

ahnick
I would probably still say Lenovo. Although ordering on their website was the single worst eCommerce experience I ever had.

Mine might be a bit dated, but you might be able to find one on eBay for pretty cheap now. I switched from an MBP 2013 to a ThinkPad T480 running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS back in July of 2018. Linux support has been really great and I didn't have to install a lot of special drivers. (e.g. trackpad support with multi-touch scrolling worked from the start)

Things to love about the T480:

- Fairly portable at around 3.5 lbs with a 14inch screen. It avoids the dedicated numeric keypad that some larger 15inch models have, while still having good screen real estate.

- Great keyboard as all Thinkpads have. (media keys are working great under linux)

- Very durable having undergone mil-spec testing.

- Camera placement at top with a mechanical shutter if you get the FHD screen.

- 32 GB of ram if you want/need it

- Hot-swappable batteries. No need to turn off the laptop. just flip it over and replace. (You can buy the extended 72Wh battery for extra battery time)

revicon
I also switched from a Macbook Pro to a Thinkpad T480 running Ubuntu 18.04. Everything except the fingerprint reader worked out of the box, I haven't had any hardware compatibility issues so far, been running for 2 months so far. I picked the T480 because it was the last one with a removable battery.

Initially I installed dualboot w/ the existing windows install, but after a week I found there was no reason to flip back to windows and I formatted the whole thing and re-installed Ubuntu.

I've been using Macs for development for so long that I'd forgotten what using a non-mac keyboard was like. Took a couple days to get used to it, but now there's no way I'm ever going back.

panpanna
Thinkpad X and T series.

Unless you hate money, don't buy current years models. This will also give you better Linux support.

Also, don't forget to purchase the 3-year on-site support.

asoplata
I've read probably every HN thread the past 10 years about this, and the current consensus seems to be either Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition or Lenovo X1 Carbon.
j7ake
I am interested in switching from Macbook to Linux laptop. My biggest concern is the different keyboard shortcuts and layouts (most important ones are cmd vs ctrl for shortcuts, but keeping ctrl+C for terminating processes).

I bought a cheap Lenovo x230 recently, and the most annoying thing is finding an easy to configure the keyboard shortcuts to be the same as the OSX. Does anyone know if there are any OSes or software that helps mimic the OSX keyboard experience for those who don't want to undo the years of muscle memory?

joemaller1
This has been the single hardest thing I’ve found in switching platforms.
panpanna
Honestly, if this is your big problem with Linux I think you should stay with osx.

(of course you can configure shortcuts and there are distros that mimic isx shortcuts)

j7ake
I'm curious, which distros mimic the OSX shortcuts?
Lio
They’re not so bad with a bit of practice. In the terminal Ctrl-c is still terminate (SIGINT) so to copy something use Ctrl-Shift-c

Same for paste and cut, use Ctrl-Shift-v or Ctrl-Shift-x.

What I like is that Gnome now provides me with shortcuts for moving windows about that macOS doesn’t. Eg half full screen on the left windowkey-left.

bastard_op
My xps15 9560 has been a basketcase under ubuntu or arch linux, mostly due to the nvidia gpu never playing well with, well any other gpu.

In general I'd recommend avoiding anything with a "hybrid" gpu solution.

The downside is you're stuck with a crappy intel gpu, which at high-res (4k) on my xps15 is pretty crap, so I wouldn't get anything beyond a 1080p display with it.

I think life would be much better if we could disable the intel gpu in the bios to only let the system know an external solution exists, but then intel might have to admit to world+oems their gpu's are crap to need hard-disabled.

xiii1408
Had a similar experience with an Alienware laptop a few years back. It was a headache to try to configure drivers.

Thankfully, you could actually enable only one GPU in the BIOS! That, paired with AMD gradually improving their drivers over the years, ended up making Linux configuration not too bad. Definitely ate through the battery, though.

johnny22
I'm hoping to see ones shipping with midrange amd gpus soon.
robocat
XPS 9570 (2018): i9-8950HQ, 32GB RAM, 1TB SDD, 15" 4k touch screen, Ubuntu 18.04.

Good: * Fast. * Regular BIOS updates for Linux (none affected me). * No hardware problems (I use Killer WiFi every work day; fingerprint not supported but doesn't matter to me).

Average: * No official Linux Dell support (need Latitude or 13") * No DisplayPort * Keyboard ok

Poor: * Linux support for 4k has problems (even with second 4k screen). * No PgUp/PgDn/Home/End keys * Coil Whine - occasional noise depending on activity - like hearing old CPU on radio. * nVidia - causes fan to run - poor switching support - low battery life - so I just never use it. * Glossy screen (touch screen models always shiny)

mieses
never buy an nvidia gpu for linux unless it's for non-graphical computing.
selfup
Lenovo X/T/P Series. Heavy discounts on the Lenovo website right now. And an abundance of refurbs on ebay that are in pretty much brand new condition.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS / Fedora / Manjaro are all good on this platform.

Have fun picking!

berbec
I'm looking at a X390 really hard, the 32GB is a dream
selfup
Yea that machine looks nice. USB-C charge and I/O. Great for travel (1 charger for phone (android) and laptop). Looks like a slightly heavier X1 Carbon. Otherwise everything seems the same!
berbec
Two non-size differences: 32GB is only available on the X390 and one of the two (I forget which) only has dual-lane Thunderbolt. The other one has full 40Gbps.
rgovostes
I received a (Dell) Alienware at work and no matter what I've tried, the trackpad does not work in Linux. I've tried every supposed remedy on the Internet. So at least I would avoid that brand.