As the title says, I am currently learning to be a programmer, and my tablet does not suffice for the job.
I have already finished a small MEAN-Stack application for learning Typescript, learned some Java syntax (I expect nothing more exciting than a sorting algorithm, but exam language is Java, so…) and the next stop will most likely be plain vanilla C to learn about handling hardware.
Windows I hate with a passion, and I don’t know squat about Macs, so I am thinking of getting myself a decently sized laptop for a sensible Linux install.
History (I started my Liux journey with SuSE Linux 4.4.1, way back when) taught me to be very wary of driver issues on laptops, so I thought I could ask you for recommendations that play fair with Linux.
(as an aside, if I could play GuildWars2 on it in the evening and attach my two big monitors when at home, that would be super cool)
old thinkpad FTW!
got a T430s for 115Euros one year ago
I can not recommend the framework laptop enough. Love their mission of producing a reparable and user-friendly laptop. You can even buy it without windows, to install your own OS from the get go.
I’ve only heard great things about Framework (https://frame.work/) however their laptops are not cheap. I wouldn’t necessarily assume that they fit a student budget. OP didn’t say what their budget is but you can definitely get a laptop that is adequate for programming for less than half of the price. That being said if the budget is there the upgradability and repairability may make it an economical option over the long-term.
Yeah, Framework seems like a premium product for sure. I want one but I definitely can’t afford it anytime soon. Also worth noting that a new framework mainboard rivals the price of some entire laptops. So while it is definitely upgradable and one of the most repairable laptops in the world, it is still a pricy ecosystem to be in.
I had been holding off on a laptop purchase waiting for framework to ship an AMD board, but they took so long that I had to buy another laptop instead. The new models they were showing off at Computex look so cool though. I am really excited about their swappable GPUs.
I would highly recommend a Framework if it’s within your budget and you care at all about right to repair. Otherwise I’d highly recommend a used Thinkpad as they hold up exceptionally. I’ve used Linux on both very smoothly.
pickup a t440p for peanuts, can add more ram and processor if you want
wasn’t the t440p the I’ve that did away with the trackpoint buttons?
Don’t make the same mistake I did and get it with a good CPU. Good CPU bad GPU far outweights good GPU bad CPU
Thinkpads are absolute tanks and support Linux quite well. Would shy away from the T470 and T480 though. The touchpad on those isn’t really well implemented. If you don’t care about reliability my Surface Laptop Go does Fedora Silverblue 38 really well.
Thank you all for your suggestions, I will have a look at used thinkpads or tuxedos. Scratches never bothered me.
You are all very helpful!
Personally I would try to get a ThinkPad from a bankruptcy auction or similar, I got my T15 for around $600.
An old thinkpad (or new). Looking for laptops made with linux (Tuxedo, system76). Or maybe a framework. As far as I know any laptop with a good screen, RAM, and storage. And at least for me a lackibg I/O (ethernet, headphone jack, mutliple USBs) is a dealbreaker
g14 6800s open box is 800 atm at bestbuy , if you’re in the US I don’t think that deal can be beat.
But we’d need to know your budget, and some more of your requirements to help more.
If you dont care about gaming, then an old thinkpad would last you the rest of your life.
Assuming you’re fine with non-free drivers I don’t think there’s too much to worry about nowadays (at least that’s what I’ve gathered from personal experience & the lack of hearing other scomplain).
That said, I’ve never had any issues with HP devices, and even an HP Chromebook worked without too much hassle.
Thinkpads are also a classic Linux machine, and I doubt you could go wrong with those either.
Elitebooks and zBooks are fine. Other HP machines are very hit and miss, and mostly miss. The Pavilion lineup still gives me nightmares.
“NON-FREE Drivers?? How could you use propitery software!!!”
Yeah no who doesn’t use the proprietary drivers and coders. Lol
Laptops these days do much better with Linux than before. But if you really want ~0% chance of dealing with driver issues, I’d go with System76 laptops. They’re made for Linux, and with Linux pre-installed.
Dell and Lenovo also offer laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed and supported.
can’t speak to lenovo, but i’ve had very mixed results with Dell. it certainly isn’t as smooth as system76 or the old (pre lenovo) think pads but they’re workable. the 13in dell models are better supported then the 15in in my experience
Linux is the correct (and only) choice for programmers. 99.9% of the internet runs on Linux. When you get a job, you’ll most likely deploy to Linux servers. Other people (MacOS/Winblows) will spend a significant amount of time trying to emulate a Linux environment.
My daily driver is a Dell XPS 13 9310. The build and finish is pretty good. All the hardware works out of the box.
I also used a Lenovo X1 Carbon for a few years. Also very good. I think the speakers sounded better on the X1 compared to the XPS. I think at this point all the hardware is supported by the latest kernel. When I had it, I think I had to wait for microphone support because the X1 had some fancy array of microphones. Eventually the software support caught up though.
Not recommend: I’ve also tried a System76 laptop. I quickly returned it because the build quality felt super cheap and I had a dead pixel. I also didn’t like that the power adapter was a barrel plug. (Although, yes, you can also charge with USB-C, but then you still have a useless barrel plug.)
Not recommend: Framework laptops. They seem cool, and they are, but the build quality is not as good as the XPS or the X1 Carbon. Also, the biggest reason to avoid Framework is due to the poorly supported HiDPI display. This goes for all laptops, by the way.
Finally, I’d also like to mention to be successful in Linux, you have to adopt a different mindset too. If you go into Linux expecting MacOS or expecting Winblows, you’re going to be disappointed. Linux is Linux. It’s great for computer science. It’s not great for video/image editing, music production, gaming. Sure, technically you can find a way to run those apps, but it’s not going to be the best experience. Similarly, it doesn’t make sense for me to go to MacOS and complain that I can’t use systemd or LUKS.
tl;dr
- Linux is the right choice, can’t avoid it.
- I’d recommend the Dell XPS 13 or the Lenovo X1 Carbon.
- Avoid HiDPI displays (unless you want to debug issues and still end up with slightly fuzzy apps)
- Avoid NVIDIA
- Different tools for different jobs
I disagree with your take on the framework. The inferior build quality alone is not a good enough reason to say they aren’t worth it over an X1 Carbon or XPS. Neither of those offer easy repairability and the XPS has atroucious IO.
I use a Framework and have run it primarily using Plasma Wayland and Hyprland. Both of these have had fantastic HiDPI support. Both can scale Wayland and Xwayland apps seperately so that you do not have any fuzziness and both support Wayland’s newest fractional scaling protocol.
If you’re running a modern distro (one with good wayland support), you should have no problem with hidpi. The more recent comments in the thread you linked support this.
Now Linux is obviously a great OS for development, but there’s so much misinfo here.
Other people (MacOS/Winblows) will spend a significant amount of time trying to emulate a Linux environment.
It’s 2023, most shit is either platform-agnostic (Anything front-end, Java, etc) or runs in Docker nowadays. Or both. I run plenty of Java shit in Docker despite the fact that it’d run natively on any major desktop OS. It’s easier to guarantee an environment in a container than get a bunch of Linux users to agree on an environment. Otherwise you get one dev with Java 8 as default as per company spec and then another with Java 17 because some tool they use requires it and they’re too lazy to set 8 as the default and invoke 17 specially for that use case.
Matter of fact, I know most companies I know people at, either use Macbooks or give you a choice.
Does it really take a significant amount of time trying to emulate a Linux environment? Eh, I suppose. I first install brew and THEN install docker. Whereas on Linux, I’d just use the distro’s built-in package manager to install docker, because everything gets deployed in containers for k8s anyway, so why would I run it without docker locally and complicate things?
Linux is the correct (and only) choice for programmers
Also, funnily enough, according to the latest Stack Overflow survey, Windows is actually the most popular OS among developers. Probably because of all the ancient legacy win32 shit. MacOS is second, but if Linux wasn’t split into different distros, it would likely be second (multiple choice survey, so y’know, can’t just add them together linearly), but it’d be a close call anyway.
99.9% of the internet runs on Linux. When you get a job, you’ll most likely deploy to Linux servers
This part is technically true (I believe the real number is closer to 96%, with Windows Server and FreeBSD accounting for the rest), but it’s highly irrelevant because most modern backend applications run on multiple layers of abstraction to the point where it doesn’t matter if the development takes place in Windows, Linux or MacOS.
At the end of the day, I want my dev machines to always work, so they’re Macs. My personal desktop is mostly used for gaming and tinkering, so it doesn’t matter if I fuck something up and have downtime. That runs on Gentoo. That said, OP is a student and should use Linux precisely because they can probably afford the downtime so what better time to tinker? But for work, reliable and polished > tinkering and infinite customizability.> 99.9% of the internet runs on Linux. When you get a job, you’ll most likely deploy to Linux servers
I highly recommend the X1 carbon too. I run it and fucking love it.
At work we used to roll-out the XPS 13" because Dell officially supports Linux. I personally don’t like it because there’s no USB-A port, but our employees were very happy with it.
don’t go expensive, a 500-700$ laptop is perfect for programming. don’t buy thin, mac-like laptops. go with beefier workstation laptops. I highly suggest buying a good refurbished laptop. if it has a dedicated GPU, AMD is highly preferable over NVIDIA, but both work.
almost all hardware works really fine with linux nowadays. I have a lenovo legion y540, works great, but if I didn’t want to game on it, I would go with a workstation laptop.
slimbook seems to make good laptops made for linux.
Check eBay for ThinkPads from 2-3 years ago. They are usually from offices, in good shape and reasonably priced. I used a W500 for 10 years with Debian and it was awesome, then I used an X220 for 5 years with no issues at all.
