Laptop Recommendations

[Hairyloon]

I think this laptop is on its last legs, so I am in the market for a replacement.
I don't need anything flashy, but I don't want to be paying for Windows, which is rather difficult; it seems to be compulsory.

Any recommendations?
Or come to that anyone got one they want to sell? (UK).

[proxima_centauri]

* Moved to Open Chat forum from Newbie Questions

[tdockery97]

Actually buying a laptop preloaded with Windows can be a little cheaper than one with no operating system. The laptop manufacturers are paid for offering Windows and the accompanying adware, allowing them to discount the laptop itself. It is easy once you have a DVD/CD with your favorite distro to wipe the HDD and install the OS of your choice. Since most Linux Distros, including Mint, run well on average spec'd laptops, it should be easy to find one at a good price.

[minitrucker]

^^^+1 and if you don't need new, ebay. Is there a craigslist equivalent in the UK? People get rid of computers fairly quickly nowadays and you don't really need the latest and greatest to run and Linux. It's such a lightweight system most anything can handle it (within reason)

[Hairyloon]

Actually buying a laptop preloaded with Windows can be a little cheaper than one with no operating system. The laptop manufacturers are paid for offering Windows and the accompanying adware, allowing them to discount the laptop itself.

I do not believe that is how it works.
I believe the manufacturers pay a bulk rate for the Windows license and spread that across their products whether they're installed with it or not.

I gave never understood how it manages to comply with the competition laws but I assume that topic has been done to death here.

[minitrucker]

Yea it's has been about 10 years since that court battle....

[Hairyloon]

Yea it's has been about 10 years since that court battle....

Don't think it has ever been to court in the UK...
Even so, it is perhaps time for a rematch?

[Hairyloon]

Oh, while I am happy to discuss the market position of Microsoft, and the best way to avoid buying Windows, I'd still like advice on what is or isn't a good machine to run Linux on...

[minitrucker]

Well it all depends on what you want. My Dell is about 3 years old specs something like 4GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, and it is running Katya (gnome) like a dream! Much faster than windows, and my battery even lasts longer. If you can settle for a 32 bit version of Linux, you can pick up some laptops that are about 10 years old and be absolutely fine. Especially if you get deep off into things and learn to configure and run fluxbox. Then you'd have a 10yr old computer with the speed of todays machines. But if you want flashy, go ahead and splurge on some Alienware or a Dell XPS system. Once you put Linux on something that powerful, the possibilities are endless.

[Bob E]

I've got an 8 year old Dell Inspiron laptop that I use as a test computer for checking out other Linux distros, and it hasn't refused any current versions, light or heavy. It can't handle anything like rendering video and screen recording, but that's to be expected due to its age. So, I think anything you buy will work just fine.

I agree with minitrucker, watch the local cassified ads for someone selling. You know somebody will think they have to have a new iPad, so they're going to sell what they have to get the extra bucks. I'm actually writing this on a 10 month old Asus EEE I got CHEAP on Craigslist from someone who could not live another day without an iPad. I wiped the drive and installed LM 10 main. It runs great!

[Hairyloon]

A quick rummage on ebay has turned up a local machine that seems to have a problem with Windows...
Any top tips on diagnostic tools on a live CD to be sure it is not a serious hardware fault?

[The-Wizard]

not knowing its spec i would take an LXDE [CD rom not dvd] in case it doesn’t have a dvd reader or has minimal ram

wizard

[Aging Technogeek]

Hairyloon,

Try either Parted Magic http://partedmagic.com/doku.php or SystemRescue http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page. Either one should have the tools you need to check the hardware in an older laptop. Both run entirely in ram so they are quick and easy to use.

[grey1960envoy]

I have a 3 year old Dell Inspiron 1525 that runs triple boot, Mac 10.6.6 Snow Leopard, Linux Mint 9 and Win XP SP3. The same laptop also has a spare HDD that I can swap in to run test distros and to this day I have found NO Linux OSs that my unit won't run well or fast!

[minty33]

I don't see why you need advice on which laptop to buy. they all run linux fine in my experience . laptops were an issue for linux many moons ago. As for a good laptop despite hp's issues lately their dm series is a good deal at least when I bought it it was basically a powerful netbook only slightly bigger. In that it had no optical drive but had 4gig memory and a 2ghz(not powerful as most notebooks but I never noticed) processor but it only cost $400 USD new. I had an external light-scribe optical drive so I didn't need one and pen-drives where more portable anyway and with unetbootin I can still run live iso's on them. It even had enough ram ect.. to run a couple of vbox instances simultaneously plus I dual booted it with windows 7 oem it came with as well as the now defunct HP webstart which was cool at the time and linux. to do so just resize windows and install linux and web-start and windows will show up on grub with linux. Of course you can use wubi also but I prefer not to. Just be aware since there is no optical drive the windows installation is on a hidden recovery partition and you boot to it to install windows . you can just back up this partition though in case you want to use it in the future and erase it along with the rest of the drive for a linux only install.

[Garvan]

Actually buying a laptop preloaded with Windows can be a little cheaper than one with no operating system. ...

In SE Asia where computers are frequently sold without windows installed, then the price difference is $100 or more. For example yesterday I noted that the list price of a DELL E5520n Laptop with DOS operating system at a DELL dealership was $899 while the DELL E5520 with Windows 7 Pro installed has a list price of $999. All the DELL computers with DOS had a 'n' designation, but were otherwise identical to the windows versions.

From my experience with laptops, you should avoid the HP Mini because the unusual touchpad does not work properly with Linux. Every other laptop I tried, Toshiba's, Leveno and DELL have worked.

have a look at http://community.linuxmint.com/hardware

This is a good resource but I wish people contributed more to keep it up to date.

Garvan

[minty33]

my touchpad worked fine on the DM4 i believe was the model i'm not sure if thats a "mini" or not. It's not their netbook I was just comparing it to that because of size. Its much more powerful than anetbook.

the real reason I posted again however was the keep posts updated comment. I agree its a problem with this forum and following threads that's why we need an option to follow a threads activity if we want the answer is not posting just to keep current. check out this thread about just that suggestion.

viewtopic.php?f=58&t=83912

[Hairyloon]

I got me a 2nd hand Dell Latitude 4300.
Had less trouble getting Mint working than I did Windows 7.
Still a few glitches but nothing major.

[steffytailor]

I think this laptop is on its last legs, so I am in the market for a replacement.
I don't need anything flashy, but I don't want to be paying for Windows, which is rather difficult; it seems to be compulsory.

Any recommendations?
Or come to that anyone got one they want to sell? (UK).

If you are really looking to replace your old laptop with a new one, why don't you try this time a mini laptop. These mini laptops are available in the market with all the required features in it. You will find these mini laptop prices much less than the normal sized laptops. And the best thing is that, it is always easy for you to carry it any where. For more information, you can also visit : http://mini.laptoppricesindia.net

[z06gal]

I think this laptop is on its last legs, so I am in the market for a replacement.
I don't need anything flashy, but I don't want to be paying for Windows, which is rather difficult; it seems to be compulsory.

Any recommendations?
Or come to that anyone got one they want to sell? (UK).

I recently bought the Verix laptop by ZaReason and so far am extremely happy. They will ship it to you without an operating system or install the linux distro of your choice


http://zareason.com/shop/home.php