[SOLVED] Buying my first Linux laptop

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RogueDK

[SOLVED] Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by RogueDK »

So hello. I'm new here. Been trying out Linux (mostly Ubuntu) a few times before but it never stuck.
This time I thought I would take a more serious stab at getting myself a Linux PC. I've chosen Mint because I thought it's UI resembles Windows a bit and could only help in making it easier on me to find my way around.

SO. I have been looking around for a nice laptop to install Mint onto. I would like to have as much comparability as possible. I'm sure Mint was made to accommodate most laptops but I also know that sometimes things don't work quite as well as they should.

Are there any companies that make laptops that support Linux OS better than others? I've noticed Dell sells laptops with Ubuntu on them from their Homepage. I was thinking I could get one of those, remove Ubuntu and install Mint instead without too much to worry about?
Basically I'm looking for info on a good place to start.

My plans for this laptop is very basic: Email, Youtube, basic web searching and maybe some Open Office work.
I don't think I'll be doing a whole lot of gaming on it but I would have to give it a go at some point. If nothing else to see if I can get away with installing Linux on my desktop gaming rig, which would be a whole other ballgame. But I'll start with a laptop for derping around on and trying to find my way around.
Well that's the plan anyway.

Any suggestions / warnings?

Thank you.
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wallyUSA
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Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by wallyUSA »

Hi RogueDK,

Welcome to the forum. This is a great resource for answers and suggestions to your questions and issues. Many of the friendly members will freely share their suggestions. You may even find your own answer(s) by using the SEARCH option above.

My personal preference is Dell. I have one that uses Mint in Virtual Box and another that uses Mint in a Dual-Boot with Win10. I am satisfied with both. However, I do not recommend Dual-Boot since you have to re-boot to switch to another OS. Quite annoying and time consuming!

You can experiment Mint Live to test drive it before you commit to an install.

You can also experiment with other OSes using a VM (like Virtual Box). Easy to install (and remove multiple GUESTs). Your HOST can be Windows or Linux and you can have several GUESTs which can be Windows (if you have a licensed copy) and/or different Linux GUESTs. If you have enough resources, you can run multi-OSes at the same time.

So you have many options with or without M/S Windows!

Cheers,

Wally
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RIH
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Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by RIH »

These are Mint specific, if you want to be really sure - although I have always bought the laptop/desktop that I liked the look of the spec. & have, maybe, been lucky that Mint very much seemed to work out of the box - except for needing a USB wifi device to kickstart wifi once in a while.. :D
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/

This article is worth a short read...
https://mintguide.org/other/471-how-to- ... -mint.html
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RogueDK

Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by RogueDK »

wallyUSA wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 9:08 pm Hi RogueDK,

Welcome to the forum. This is a great resource for answers and suggestions to your questions and issues.

My personal preference is Dell.

You can experiment Mint Live to test drive it before you commit to an install.

Cheers,

Wally
Thank you.
I think I'll give Dell a call and ask them about their Ubuntu laptops and installing Mint on them.
That Mint Live sounds good. I'll give that a go before formatting the HD.

Thank you for your advice.
RogueDK

Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by RogueDK »

RIH wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 9:18 pm These are Mint specific, if you want to be really sure - although I have always bought the laptop/desktop that I liked the look of the spec. & have, maybe, been lucky that Mint very much seemed to work out of the box - except for needing a USB wifi device to kickstart wifi once in a while.. :D
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/

This article is worth a short read...
https://mintguide.org/other/471-how-to- ... -mint.html
Thank you for your suggestion,
That thinkpenguin -site looks interesting. My only concern would be the AC adapter, as I live in Denmark and am not sure which one I should use from their list. I would also have a problem with english keyboard, as danish one is different - We use a few extra viking runes in our alphabet. :P The number of keys on the keyboard itself is the same of course, but the printing would be different.
Anyway. Sorry about the rant there. A nice site but not one I would use for my first Linux adventure since language setting would not be english.
The other link to the guide was very informative. Thank you for that.
vansloneker

Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by vansloneker »

I suppose if you buy a Dell from dell.dk it would be Danish specific. For what you want to do with it a basic i5 would be sufficient. You may expect a pre-installed Ubuntu to run without problems. Once you found your way to the applications you use you could live with Ubuntu I am sure. Only drawback I see is they have a conventional hard disk installed and I could not find an option for a SSD. You'd have to buy a much more expensive Dell for a SSD. You could always replace the drive yourself and install Mint on a SSD though. On any laptop having a SSD is a key element for the best performance and a good user experience.
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Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by norm.h »

You could buy a laptop of your choice without an OS and do your own installation.
If you feel happier, post the spec. here for comment before you buy.
If you can't source such a laptop in Denmark, it might be worth having a look here: https://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/home/
They do trade with Europe, and you can configure the spec. [within limits].
RogueDK

Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by RogueDK »

norm.h wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 10:44 am You could buy a laptop of your choice without an OS and do your own installation.
If you feel happier, post the spec. here for comment before you buy.
If you can't source such a laptop in Denmark, it might be worth having a look here: https://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/home/
They do trade with Europe, and you can configure the spec. [within limits].
Yeah I did consider that. And I know that I always have the forums to turn to if I need help with something. But for my first Linux machine I find it wise to have it under warranty. Just so I have the option to call them and be like "RELP!"

I'm also planning on grabbing a book or two on Linux. One of them on Mint (Unless I end up using Ubuntu) I still haven't looked into that yet however. But a book with all the common commands for that terminal that everyone will tell me to use to fix issues, might be a really good idea I think.

At the end of the day I think I just need to buy one and see what happens and deal with any issues that comes along as they happen. I have been using Windows since 3.1 and Linux is spoopy to me. :lol:
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Larry78723
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Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by Larry78723 »

An excellent Linux Command Line Reference is here:https://superb-dca2.dl.sourceforge.net/ ... -19.01.pdf.
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Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by songhuijohn »

When someone tells me they want a laptop computer, I always question their need for a laptop computer. Do their really need the portability of a laptop and are willing to put up with the short coming of a laptop - cost more, small screen, very difficult to build one to your specifications. It is so much more fun and educational to build your own desktop.

No matter what you do, an SSD should be in your solution.

If your target is still a laptop, you should look at a used laptop and replacing the HDD with an SSD - do not have to pay the high price of new.
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Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by deepakdeshp »

If I have helped you solve a problem, please add [SOLVED] to your first post title, it helps other users looking for help.
Regards,
Deepak

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RogueDK

Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by RogueDK »

songhuijohn wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 1:36 pm When someone tells me they want a laptop computer, I always question their need for a laptop computer. Do their really need the portability of a laptop and are willing to put up with the short coming of a laptop - cost more, small screen, very difficult to build one to your specifications. It is so much more fun and educational to build your own desktop.

No matter what you do, an SSD should be in your solution.

If your target is still a laptop, you should look at a used laptop and replacing the HDD with an SSD - do not have to pay the high price of new.
My gaming rig is a desktop. Always will be. The laptop is for watching Youtube, browsing the net ans such. And going portable means I can take it with me to bed ... or the can. ^^
RogueDK

Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by RogueDK »

Larry78723 wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 1:02 pm An excellent Linux Command Line Reference is here:https://superb-dca2.dl.sourceforge.net/ ... -19.01.pdf.
Hey thanks for that. I'll have a read of that for sure.
RogueDK

Re: Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by RogueDK »

Alright.
I think I have enough info to get started now.

I would like to thank everyone that contributed so far. All good friendly advice. I think I'll stick to a Dell machine with Ubuntu on it and try out Mint Live to start with. Then see how I do.

I'll update this thread with something relevant if it comes up. (such as Dell supplying a Linux PC that don't work or w/e) and hope this thread will help others to make up their own minds about this.
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AndyMH
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Re: [SOLVED] Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by AndyMH »

Buy a second hand thinkpad and save money. I have three T430 laptops, so I am biased. Latest bought last week, £90, 500G HDD (which is being replaced with an SSD) and 8G RAM. This generation of thinkpads are very linux friendly and a stock T430 is more than fast enough to run cinnamon.
Thinkcentre M720Q - LM21.3 cinnamon, 4 x T430 - LM21.3 cinnamon, Homebrew desktop i5-8400+GTX1080 Cinnamon 19.0
RogueDK

Re: [SOLVED] Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by RogueDK »

Don't mean to grave post. Just a quick update of how things went if anyone stumbles across this in the future.

So this is how things turned out for me:
I went ahead and bought myself a brand new Dell G3 15-3579 from their homepage. I picked one that came with Linux preinstalled (Ubuntu).
When it arrived I had some issues with it crashing the package manager every time I tried to open it. I discovered that the version of Ubuntu they had put on it where 16.x. current version is 18.x. Apparently 16.x had issues with package manager.
So I decided to go ahead and install Mint right away. I had planned on waiting a little bit with that and use Ubuntu to get my feet wet before setting out and reinstalling a distro from scratch, but seeing as the thing did not work right I had little choice.
Mint installed without a hitch. I did have to plug in an Ethernet cable to get the update needed to get my wifi working but it did it all automatically so no problem.
The PC did lag a whole lot to begin with but I found out that it was due to the graphics card drivers. All I had to do was to switch them over to the ones Nvidia supplies. (again no install needed, they where already on the machine, just not active)
My latest adventure was to try my hand at gaming. I installed Steam from package manager, logged into my Steam account and went for a game on my list that where not that demanding to try for an easy start. I picked Stardew Valley. It installed without a problem. In fact it downloaded and installed and then played exactly like on my Windows machine. Zero difference. I was very impressed. The 360 controller I prefer to play this game with also just worked. Not even a driver install needed. That's better than what Windows can do. They require a driver download first to get controller to work lol.

All in all I'm quite pleased at how smoothly this thing has worked so far. It's not Windows, but with a little bit of homework before you start you can make things quite easy on yourself when you start looking into Linux. Mint is most definably staying on my machine and I doubt I'll miss Windows 10. Ever.
My only regret now is that I still need Windows 10 for my deskop as it's a gaming rig and I need Windows 10 to be able to play all the latest and greatest games. But maybe some day... Some day...

I hope I'm welcome to ask more questions here in the future. Next post I make is most likely going to be "How the heck do I get new themes to work?" - so look forward to that. lol.
Thanks to everyone who replied here. Your input was invaluable.
Last edited by RogueDK on Tue Apr 23, 2019 12:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Moem
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Re: [SOLVED] Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by Moem »

RogueDK wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 12:19 pm I hope I'm welcome to ask more questions here in the future.
You most certainly are. Congratulations on your sucessfull installation!
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vansloneker

Re: [SOLVED] Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by vansloneker »

Thanks for updating us! I'm sure we all appreciate it! Enjoy your new Dell!
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Re: [SOLVED] Buying my first Linux laptop

Post by AndyMH »

Naughty Dell - ubuntu 18.04 has been out for some time, so no excuse for supplying 16.04.
Thinkcentre M720Q - LM21.3 cinnamon, 4 x T430 - LM21.3 cinnamon, Homebrew desktop i5-8400+GTX1080 Cinnamon 19.0
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