[kwlug-disc] laptops with Linux preinstalled

[Doug Moen]

On Thu, Jun 4, 2020, at 1:17 PM, CrankyOldBugger wrote:
> If you do go with a "made for Linux" laptop, please be sure to tell us how it goes for you.  I'm sure other folks here are thinking about buying soon too.

I did some more research yesterday.

The Dell XPS 13 model 9300 (the 2020 model) can be configured with Ubuntu preinstalled, and lots of reviewers call the XPS 13 the best 13" ultrabook. But Dell Canada doesn't offer the 9300 and Dell US will not ship this to Canada. Even in the US, not all configurations are supported (you can't currently configure it with more than 8GB of RAM if you want Ubuntu preinstalled). So it's off the table.

Lenovo just started offering the Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 8 with Fedora preinstalled. You can configure the hardware any way you want, and they ship to Canada. This is the result of a partnership where Redhat employees have been working with hardware vendors that supply components for the X1 Carbon in order to make Fedora work correctly. Currently it's just the X1 Carbon, but more laptops will be offered later. The news broke yesterday.

This means I can now walk into a local KW shop and buy a brand name laptop with a major Linux distro preinstalled, with tech support and warranty service for Linux from the laptop manufacturer. I think this is a historic first. The local shop is CS Depot on King street Waterloo, and they'll have to order it for you, with a 5 week lead time. This is important if: you want to support local business, you want a 30 day return policy that doesn't involve a hefty restocking fee and mailing the laptop to another country, and you want local warranty service.

The Lenovo Thinkpad T14s with AMD Ryzen 7 is an interesting alternative. Compared to the X1 Carbon, it has 8 cores (not 4), the integrated graphics are more than twice as fast, max RAM is 32GB (not 16GB), slightly better keyboard, in a similar 14" ultrabook chassis, for a lower price. You'll need to install a bleeding edge Linux kernel: 5.6 for the graphics to work, 5.7 for battery reporting.
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