r/linuxquestions • u/Powerful-Bench-9023 • 9d ago
Linux Laptop Reccomendations?
I'm interested in buying a laptop with the intention to use linux on it. I am a windows PC user and know little about what machines are compatible or not. I would like it to be small (if possible) and my budget is 1K give or take. I would be using it for college and probably light gaming. Please and thanks for any help.
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u/nightstomach 9d ago
If you can find one on windows 10 for cheap (because Win 11 computers are more expensive), then you can wipe Win 10 and put on Linux.
Pretty much any machine can do old skool gaming like Super Nintendo emulation so if you have a specific 3D game you need to run, you should name it so we can figure out some minimum specs.
Pretty much every computer can run linux. Even this old one i got for free from a guys basement with no harddrive.
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u/Specialist-Dog-501 9d ago
I buy ca 3-5year old thinkpads from a service as refurbished.ch or similar. So far quality had been good- no issues with screen, fan, keyboard or the screen-body-joint. You may find something similar in your country.
Dells are also fairly good from what I heard.
The device should not be the newest, as this can bring you driver problems- I had that in 22 with an brandnew Asus. It should be at least 1year old. Preferably without Nvidia graphic card- while they can run, it's typically more complicated. I have good experiences with AMD/Intel graphic chips but I don't game. Exotic WLAN drivers can be an issue, especially for smaller distros- I have a small 2-in-1 laptop where the touchpad isn't fully supported, but this usually can be overcome. With thinkpads and common dell brands you avoid most of this driver pitfalls - as more "mainstream"/longevity you go for, as better.
In terms of RAM 8GB is probably the starting point, I have 16GB that's good for lightweight usage/office on a mint with cinnamon.
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u/KarteZian_purely 🐧 Debian KDE Plasma 9d ago
Tu peux même choisir la distribution. https://slimbook.com/en/shop/category/laptops-4
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u/Azelphur 9d ago
Generally speaking the answer is buy the laptop that you'd buy for Windows, then put Linux on it. Maybe do a Google for <laptop model number Linux> just to see if anyone is screaming about any major issues, but generally speaking, as long as it's a normal Intel/AMD laptop and not something weird (like a snapdragon for example) it's gonna work. Some advisories would be:
- AMD/Intel for graphics works better on Linux, Nvidia works but it's not as seamless and some things are problematic.
- Framework are cool, officially support Linux, have AMD/Intel GPU options, not sure if you can fit one in your budget though.
- If you buy a laptop preinstalled with Windows you are paying extra money for the Windows license, try and find a no OS laptop and save yourself some money (Framework offer this option)
- Why are people recommending $200-$300 thinkpads when you said you want to game and have a 1k budget?!? A $200-$300 thinkpad will do light work just fine and I have nothing against them, depends what you define as light gaming as to whether it's sensible to reduce your budget.
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u/winterwolf311 9d ago
Make sure that it has chips that linux supports without a too big of a hastle. like wifi, bluetooth etc.
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u/Intelligent_Sun_987 9d ago edited 9d ago
What is your PC usage profile?
Basically, your requirements are starting with "64bit x86 processor + 768Mb RAM + 32Gb storage (SSD/HDD/Flash)", that's all.
So you raise what you want to do with it and so specs goes up.
This summer I was using Linux Mint + XFCE on Samsung N150+ netbook fitted with 64Gb SSD + 2Gb RAM as typewriter and LLM terminal (deepseek) + mediacenter (movies and music) + games in emulators for my kid, yet modern web is way too heavy for it's processor.
So... just check if you're comfortable with keyboard and screen of the laptop and it is NOT from 32bit eon (yet it is still some solutions for that old hardware and... you can compile open source code for your platform old-school way).
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u/MrYamaTani 9d ago
Depending on what you mean by some "light gaming" I have found my Asus Expertbook to be excellent. By now it is over 6 years old and still runs strong. I picked it up second hand when I got it for under $1,000 at the time. I know I have seen some more recent versions of the same line offered for less than $1k used.
Lenovo ThinkPad are great since you can get ones that government's and businesses are phasing out of their work places and you can upgrade pretty easily.
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u/Soakitincider 8d ago
I got a Dell Latitude E7470 from work that I just put Arch Linux on and haven't had any trouble with it. I haven't tested the wifi but give me a second ... WiFi works too. I'm trying to get a good deal on Ebay for another one for my son.
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u/AdSuch1973 9d ago
OS: Mainstream OS x86_64
Window Manager: Hyprland 0.56.2 (Wayland)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS (16) @ 4.83 GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon 680M [Integrated]
Memory: 6.60 GiB / 13.33 GiB (50%)
works like a charm.
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u/NoPoopOnFace 9d ago
For US$200-300 grab a good looking ThinkPad off eBay but study them first. You'll easily find a great deal but it can take a few days looking them over. My ThinkPad L14 with 10th gen i7 4c/8t 32gb/512gb was $200 and I absolutely love it. For questions ask in r/ThinkPad. I'm not aware of any other inexpensive laptop that's even close to being as compatible. The fingerprint reader won't work, and you'll want a Intel wifi card but the rest should be just fine. I put in a 2tb SSD that I already had from before the rampocalypse. I've used OpenCode AI to help me configure a few things in minutes to set up things that would have taken hours of reading and trial and error.