Ask HN: Ultrabook with linux
Hi Linux hackers,
I need to change my laptop, as its aging.. Would like ultrabook for mobility, Full HD display, possibly touch screen with SSD and intel GPU, since radeon graphics had been too hot for my previous laptop in linux (Bad drivers though).
Also I would love some great brand, such as Dell, Lenovo, Hp, MSI and so on...
Would like it work out of box, and I heard Dell xps 13 is having this Sputnik project behind, which sounds great. Whats the expirience there?
please advice
23 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 55.6 ms ] threadOn the flip side, I'm also using a System76, which I've come to love. If you're interested, I wrote a review on my blog (http://www.lyricalsoftware.com/blog/system76-galago-review/)
I had similar touch pad issues with a HP where the sensitivity was either too much or not enough. When I ran Xubuntu, I saw the same issues and could never get it dialed in where I wanted it. I eventually jumped over to using CrunchBang (uses OpenBox for the DE, built on Debian) and my touchpad was pretty much dialed in from the get go. Makes me wonder if the sensitivity issues may be with the touchpad drivers that Ubuntu provides, granted it they are different than what's packaged with Debian.
It's true that Nvidia and AMD has better raw performance numbers, but for some reason - despite all the years gone by since both Nvidia and AMD pledged support - both Nvidia and AMD drivers still suck IMHO. Nvidia seems more stable than AMD, but overall less stable than the standard Intel drivers. It seems there's always something that does not work properly with either of the drivers, being trouble waking up from suspend/hybernate, glitches/hangs (which destroys any notion of "fluidness") and occasional total driver breakage with new laptops, new linux releases or similar.
The only annoying thing is that even though the intel driver works nicely, there are still many things it does not support. If you're using Chrome, type in "chrome://gpu" in your browser and count the number of colored lines in the first section. On my f* up Nvidia Optimus system (yeah, current office standard, oh the number of hours I've wasted on that computer) I get 5 greens, 3 greenorangy and 3 reds. For comparison, my Macbook Air Pro running OSX I get 11 green and 1 greenorangy. I do not have my pure Intel laptop handy, but if I remember correctly it has very few if any greens at all. That means Chrome is doing all the heavy lifting without much hardware support. That often means it's the same for most apps, possibly except the desktop environments themselves who seems to do a decent job on linux desktops already.
Anyway, here's hoping that there will be decent Intel drivers for Linux laptops sometimes in the near future, so Chrome and other apps can get more greens and comparable general graphics performance as Nvidia and AMD on OSX and Windows.
What about lenovo?
The battery life is not very good (especially the moment I listen to music or watch videos while working) and the screen, while very pleasant to work on, sometimes has some "shading" going on (my emacs has a dark grey background and if I look carefully, I can slightly see where my code was a few seconds ago -- I think this is common on touchscreens). It's not annoying by any means and I've heard the new generation has a better battery life and is running cooler.
And the flip option is sturdy and really fun to use. I don't use it as much as I though I would though : it makes a heavy tablet.
I also wasn't impressed with the Ubuntu installation, it didn't work too well out of the box for me (sorry I can't remember specifics, so take this with a pinch of salt). I spent some time installing and configuring the latest Ubuntu, got to something usable but it was some work.
I tried the chromebook pixel before, but installing linux was problematic, and the specs are impractical. A shame as I liked the screen.
I will probably get a T series thinkpad now.
Does it stops the noise if you turn off keyboard lid?!
He installed Fedora on it, the kernels are always struggling with identifying the touch screen properly. Sometimes it thinks the screen is the touch pad and ignores the real one.
After downgrading a few times, he finally found one that worked well enough and froze it to that.
But is it good with linux, does it recognizes touch screen normally?
I was using a System76 panp5 for sometime before, most System76 laptops are at a great price point for the hardware as compared to many other brands, it got me by but the build quality was poor. Clevo chassis are just generally not good. I decided to downgrade to a netbook and upgrade my linode plan. Depending on your needs, buying a cheap and upgradable Asus/Acer netbook, maxing the RAM and putting in an SSD in, then using linode or the like for any heavy lifting might be something to consider.
To get the thing to run Linux properly, you have to disable some bios settings, create a software raid device, and play some games with a recovery CD to get the installation to boot properly. It took me a week to figure it out. I wish it weren't so painful, but the hardware is so light and thin that it was worth the pain.
Highly recommend!
I am running Linux Mint 16 with Cinnamon. Almost everything worked out of the box. Install required turning off secure boot but other than that was easy.
I looked at the other ultrabooks and most top end models, including the newer asus 301x, were selling for around 1800. You can get the UX31a on amazon, from asus, for around 1,000.00.