A good Linux laptop below 1000€

New old stock Thinkpad T480's ;) Should be around 600-700

Though it seems they might be harder to find these days.

This also looks more then decent: https://outlet.bluelink.nl/product/20HJS0XA07?path=NOTEBOOK/

The thinkpads. Their product lineup is super confusing. The r/thinkpad wiki is very helpful... https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/wiki/intro

Also look for promo codes there. Never buy a thinkpad at MSRP, you can usually get them heavily discounted through various promotions (but still add on first party warranty and on site support if you need).

Their hardware quality isn't always the best but their support is good. Last time my screen hinge broke (a early foldable tablet thinkpad) and someone came out the next day to my house in a rural area and fixed it on the spot while I watched.

They're proper business / dev machines with a legacy going back to the IBM days.

Dell Latitude line is a close imitator/competitor also worth considering.

Razer gets you a lot of power but with tradeoffs in heat management and noise. If you don't need a GPU there isn't a good reason to choose them IMO. They are like MacBook wannabes but tailored for gamers.

I'd personally stay away from consumer laptops if I were you.

If I had to pick one, it would be the ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

TongFang makes several laptops with AMD Ryzen processors and Radeon graphics that work well with Linux for well under uiur budget. The PF4NU1F is supposed to be a good one.

https://laptopwithlinux.com/tongfang-pf5nu1g-amd-ryzen-is-no... sells a version under $800 USD.

There are many other companies selling rebranded TongFangs with various configurations and prices; spend some time finding a good one.

An even better option is to buy used/refurbished. Used ThinkPads are a solid bet. See if you can find someone selling laptops nearby, in your area; you'll be able to hold/inspect/use/open it before you buy.

If you're not using Windows/macOS then avoid Nvidia. Handling their driver issues is a nightmare. With Intel and AMD, you basically never have to think about drivers.

For good official support, Lenovo officially supports upstream Fedora on some of its laptops. System76 and Slimbook are other good options for "official Linux support", but System76 can be pricey. TongFang laptops have a community of Linux users to help, but you won't get much "official" support.

For a very low-budget ARM laptop, the Pinebook Pro is a great option with lots of community support. Don't expect to play 1080p video on it without a few framedrops, though.

One of the biggest battery hogs is video decoding/encoding. If you plan on watching online video, your device should ideally support good hardware-accelerated VP9 decoding. AV1 might also be popular in a few years. That would mean that Braswell-and-older Intel chips are out.

I’m not sure why people aren’t recommending the Dell Developer Edition laptops.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem...

Fantastic machines we easy access to everything inside.

I’ve got a Tuxedo laptop for four months now, which is a really nice piece of hardware.

https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

Both software support and hardware quality are very good. Bonus points for having a Tux key instead of a Windows key ;-) . Maybe they’ve got something in your range?

Among friends the most popular options look to be Dell XPS 13 and on sale it can get close to that price point, and the Thinkpad T4xx models, which are good cheaper options refurbished.

System76 makes nice gear and I've heard good things about the Galaga Pro, but hardly any of their models are currently available.

I've been looking into this too. I'm running Ubuntu 20.04 on an older MacBook Pro and apart from the occasional kernel update sending CPU use through the roof, the experience has been good. But it looks like a less appealing option on the newer models with the touchbar sadly. I wish Apple would include regular hardware function keys as well as the touchbar. It would make the touchbar 10x more useful on macos also.

I have seen the recommendation of X1, I can second that, with addition of x280.

The serviceability is great, Google “thinkpad x280 hardware service manual” gives excellent doc, from the vendor ! (In fairness the same true for most thinkpads I think).

I got a used X280 - very happy running Ubuntu on it. But the exact model I got had a bit bleak LCD screen and 8GB ram - via AliExpress I first upgraded the screen to bright IPS FHD screen (replacement part cost ~60 euro, half an hour and no tools needed to replace);

Then I got brave and got a 16GB RAM motherboard (vs the 8GB that it had). Was about 400 euro, and also relatively easy, though required a bit of gentle disassembly.

And then I wondered “rather than throwing away the old parts, how hard would it be to get all the missing bits and build yet another x280 laptop from scratch ?” - I grabbed the hardware manual and went shopping… I think the overall list turned out about 250-300 euro. Still awaiting for some bits, but based on my motherboard replacement experience the assembly shouldn’t be a big deal of a project.

If you are looking to buy new IdeaPads have reasonable build quality beyond the basic specs. You can always add a bit more RAM if need be.

If you go for a thinkpad, I advise going for a model that still uses the dual battery system. Some models I can think of: t480, x270, p51s, p52s. Since you'll be running Linux, you'll need all the battery power you can get and having dual batteries make hotswapping possible. Also avoid getting models that have an nvidia dedicated gpu if possible.

I suggest you consider the warranty as well.

My Razer laptop works fine with Linux, but their warranty specifically states it holds for OS it came installed with. Multiple people reported Razer support demanding payment once they discover they had duel-booted Linux.

So either buy a laptop with Linux pre-installed, or be prepared to be "on your own".

I got an Asus ZenBook UX305 that cost ca. €850 in 2016. 8GB RAM, Intel Core m3, 13-ish inch 1080p display.

It runs openSuse Tumbleweed, and I am very happy with it. Bluetooth is a tiny bit flaky sometimes, and the backlight for the keyboard doesn't work on Linux, but otherwise it works well. Battery life is not quite extremely good, but I've gotten six hours out of it, having done no special tuning to optimize for that.

The touch pad is a wee bit too large for my taste, I sometimes touch it by accident with my palm when typing, but it can be disabled/enabled easily and has not been a serious problem.

It has no builtin Ethernet, but a USB-to-Ethernet adapter was included.

A counterpoint to those suggesting thinkpads, specifically the pxx range. I have a p50 thinkpad -- It's a wonderful laptop, but as a linux machine, it's not great, yet. For one, I have a M2000 graphics card, which sometimes doesn't play nice with external monitors. I also have a 4k screen, which linux is NOT optimized for. My GRUB menu is microscopic, and I just haven't gotten around to fixing it. Ubuntu seems to handle this all OK, but it is by no means flawless. I also generally have terrible battery life, even with TLP and a bunch of hackery to disable the 2nd GPU.

Another vote for second-hand / refurbished Thinkpads, specifically Tx/Xx/Wx/Px series.

X-1 Carbons are good but avoid the touchbar (think it was gen 2), you want physical Fn keys.

I have an X-1 Carbon and a W520, W520 has a gorgeous keyboard, X-1s have chiclet keyboard which isn't as good as old school Thinkpads but still a step up from most laptops.

Thinkpads all good for Linux in terms of hardware. Probably avoid dedicated graphics cards on older models because they're not worth the hassle.

Just watch the screen resolutions and make sure there's no BIOS password problems when trawling eBay.

This is not a recommendation because they haven't shipped yet but I am looking forward to getting one of these - https://frame.work/

Hey everyone, OP here. Just bought a X1 Gen 5, per your suggestions, and it is awesome. Thank you!

I’m currently happy with a T14 Gen1 Ryzen with 8 cores. I don’t care about “proper support” though, and I don’t think you should either.

What I do is buy a laptop from Best Buy or anywhere I can physically return it.

Get 2 usb drives , one to create windows installation media, and one to install Ubuntu. Then ether Ubuntu works or not. Normally it does, but generally a slightly older laptop will work better as more Linux support is available. Intel is miles better here

Thinkpad X1 Yoga - You can get an older one, like a 3rd/4th gen for well under $1,000 and they work great with Linux. I have a 3rd gen on Arch. It is a touchscreen with stylus and fully folds to tent and tablet modes too.

Get a refurbished thinkpad x1 carbon. Great hardware, good ubuntu support out of the box.

I use a Dell Precision 5530 daily with Ubuntu 20.04, works great with no problems. I believe Ubuntu is officially supported by Dell, and it does get the occasional firmware upgrade.

Switched from a MBA to a Lenovo Thinkpad X395. No ragrets. I specifically sought out an AMD Ryzen chip, which affected my final model choice. I knew I was going thinkpad though.

Consider a used thinkpad. I recently picked up a pre-owned Thinkpad X1 gen 6 for 600. 16G RAM and modern enough CPU. Its wonderful and works well with Fedora.

Thinkpads have always been good. I even have a T480s upgraded to a 4K screen (not my work) that works fine.

For some definition of "good" and if you would add some 80 USD more over 1000€... recent year LG Gram - https://www.amazon.com/LG-Gram-Thin-Light-Laptop/dp/B07MNDYX... .

Razer Blade Stealth 13 works well with recent flavors of Ubuntu.

r/linuxhardware has a lot of recs.

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