I would like to buy myself a second hand and install Linux on it. I was looking into ThinkPad T14 gen1 or gen2 devices because of their maintainability and repairability. I found one where I live with a Ryzen processor but it has the wrong keyboard. How easy and expensive would it be to swap this with US English? Are there any good alternatives to the ThinkPads? I fancy the X1 but don’t like the fact that I cannot change or swap anything on it. The T14 looks very bulky and unattractive but at least can have the RAM upgraded and the battery changed.
I fancy the Framework laptops, but don’t want to spend so much on a laptop. Especially the latest 16 inch with Ryzen AI CPUs.
The T14 G1 is at least cheap, like 350€ with the 400 nits low power display and the battery is at 99%. I guess with tlp installed and autocpugfreq I can get 5-6 hours out of it.
Look at the Framework Refurb store.
Older MacBooks and MacBook Airs (pre-2018 or so) make awesome Linux machines and have really come down in price. If you can find one cheap, I highly recommend them.
Intel machines later than that have T2 chips and are still good but take a bit more research.
M1 Macs are pretty well supported now but that is a different universe.
Thinkpads and Framework are top tier. Then there’s the “Linux first brands” like System76 and Tuxedo. All of those will work flawlessly.
Then the “generally work well with Linux” like Acer, Lenovo, and Asus; maybe some HP, LG and Samsung. Then the “probably runs Linux fine, but it’s a weird brand” like Redmi, Chuwi, and Gateway.
Then the “avoid at all costs” like Dell, Apple, Microsoft Surface, a lot of HPs, and anything with a Qualcomm ARM processor.
Nowadays with Apple, the bigger issue is the ARM Linux ecosystem being neglected in terms of support rather than the hardware compatibility (that is for M1/M2). The hardware for the most part works except for USB-HDMI and fingerprint (which didn’t work on my HP laptop either).
I really like my 2019 thinkpad x1 carbon for coding/light gaming. It runs vms pretty well as well. It cost me $250 a couple years ago used off of eBay.
I got an X280 with 8 GB of RAM a few months ago, works great with Linux. Paid just $175. It even works with Haiku OS! Pic: https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/731/895/755/005/386/original/1b09c5a0d636d9a5.jpg
You may want to specify what your needs are. What is this for?
For personal use, I will use it just when traveling, as I have a more powerful desktop. Nothing too fancy, a bit of programming, tinkering. Will run probably Hyprland. What’s important is to have 5-6 hours of battery life. I will probably run some containers, YouTube watching, browsing, should be portable and support charging over USB-C.
About the last bit: There are these now. Available for all usual laptop plugs and voltages. Much easier to carry with you than a separate AC brick.
Yes, that’s why I want to have a USB-C charging. I have a 60W GAN charger.
Yeah, but if your dream second hand laptop has everything but USB-C charging, you can easily get such adapter and basically make it USB-C charging capable. 😉
I tend to lose adapters to be honest. And right now I am trying to get everything possible to support USB-C as it is super convenient and the chargers are also really small.
Install the adapter and epoxy it to the laptop :D
This is basically the opposite of a thinkpad/framework, but m1 macbook airs are cheapish second hand, plenty of battery life, USBC, lightweight and durable. Definitely not repairable or upgradable though, so if thats important forget it.
Can install Linux (asahi project), but macos is Unix like enough that I found it good enough.
X13 gen 1 thinkpad with Debian, the touchscreen worked out of the box with no additional config needed
I found a good T14 gen 1 with Ryzen CPU and 400 nits low-power display, but I read that the 4650U CPUs don’t support amd-pstate and only auto-cpufreq, meaning that it will affect negatively the battery life. The T14 gen 2 are unfortunately with the 300 nits display, which is quite mediocre. How much worse the battery would be on the gen1?
If you’re going to install Linux, Dell and IBM are generally very compatible. I’ve got a Dell 1500 series that runs Linux beautifully except the battery has given up the ghost and I need to replace it, also going to swap out the hard drive for an ssd. But Mate runs well on it, even the touch screen features work.
I’ve never had a Dell that didn’t have issues with Linux. The fingerprint reader never works, sometimes the webcam doesn’t work, sometimes the WiFi doesn’t work, and sometimes the ambient light sensor doesn’t work. But, there’s always a problem. After having four different Dells, I finally swore off the brand for good. Never again.
