So, I’m finally getting around to buying a Linux first laptop. I’m familiar with Macbooks, and so far liked them. I’ve also live stick used Fedora w/ KDE (though Gnome might fit too) and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and liked them.
But I do want to have more freedom and privacy. My most important considerations are:
- The laptop is European (or at least, not from the US, unlikely to go Chinese either).
- Good specs for gaming (if need be I could virtualise for playing Mac games). I don’t play shooter games, but do play Paradox games which iirc are more CPU heavy. Edit: the most intense user case is probably Cyberpunk 2077. I have no idea what makes a good processor - at least with SSDs and the like it’s clear that ‘higher number = better’. For me, battery life is important, as well screen resolution, clock speed, and graphic card and processor.
- Looks - I like the Macbook touch and feel. I don’t want a numpad.
The four main laptops I’m considering are in no particular order:
- Star Labs (Starbook Horizon or Starfighter). British. Lookswise they are a great match but the specs I’m not sure. How well would they hold up to an Intel Macbook Pro from 2017?
- Tuxedo (Infinitybook Pro 14 or 15) Bit more well-known German brand.
- Slimbook (most likely the Evo). Spanish brand. Seems more customisable but again, I do not know shit with graphic cards and processors.
- Novacustom (PrivacyGuard V54). Dutch brand. Not a fan of the tiny ass arrow keys. 7 hours for battery life is also not much, imo.
If any of you know something better, please do tell!
As someone running Debian on an old MacBook Pro from 2012, MacBooks are not Linux first. You can run it on all but the newest M-series, but be warned you’re likely to encounter some broadcom driver issues with the wifi/bluetooth. They can be fixed, then they may break again with some random kernel update. It’s not a fire and forget solution.
Have you looked at Framework yet? Linux friendly, designed to be upgradeable and user-repairable. Definitely plan to buy a Framework for my next laptop (ideally once ram/storage prices stabilize)
Yup, I noticed wifi and bluetooth issues as well when running Linux on my Intel macbook.
RE Framework: I did check it. It looks nice, but it is American and I’m a bit wary of whether they have ties to rabidly right-wing tech bros, considering the Hyprland controversy.
Framework sponsors a lot of open source projects, the Hyprland controversy is overplayed IMO and they aren’t really worse than mainstream brands
For the M* series I haven’t noticed wifi/bluetooth issues but it’s an entirely different platform that requires a custom kernel and it has a different set of quirks. Overall the hardware is really nice aesthetically and the processing power is good, but you have to put up with Apple’s bullshit.
Not what you’ve asked, but I’ll give you this as a perspective (which you can discard if you wish):
Gaming laptops combine too many compromises to be worthwhile. Big, hot, noisy, expensive. Portable gaming can’t really be portable if you have to find a desk and a power socket.
I would recommend:
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Buy a secondhand enterprise laptop (Dell or HP or whatever you like, as businesses like these and they tend to flood the secondhand market after spending their prior life on a desktop dock in some office). If it’s just for office work, browsing, etc then just get an 8th or 10th Gen Intel or something. I got a pristine condition Dell with i7 10th gen and 16gb RAM and 512GB NVME for £150 (couple of years ago). It has been great for work. Put Linux on this.
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Buy a proper handheld console for games. Steam Deck used to be the obvious option, but after the price hike some of the secondhand ROG devices give better performance and price. Put Bazzite on this.
Both of the above combined will probably still be cheaper than most decent options for gaming laptops.
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“Might try out cyberpunk if I have the time” is a terrifyingly vague system requirement.
Haha fair point, I mostly said that because I’ve heard it’s intense regarding system requirements.
Well its going to push it to high end gaming laptops as the only options.
Tbf, the main priority on the gaming regard is Paradox games.
“Maim priority” doesn’t really work. Do you want to play cyberpunk or not, you can’t just half meet the requirements.
Let’s say no, but I do like to play the Paradox games without too many issues (using virtualisation, steam deck or whatever).
In that case probably start from i5/ryzen5 and 16GB RAM as a starting point and go higher if budget allows.
Arent Tuxedo, Slimbook and Novacustom just rebranded Chinese Clevo/Tongfang laptops?
I dont know about Star Labs though.
Laptop with Linux def is, they also explicitly label it as such. Novacustom’s laptops seem very similar to Laptop with Linux’s ones.
Doubt it for Tuxedo and Slimbook, though.
Tuxedo/Slimbook are 100% Clevo/Tongfang rebrands because the Tuxedo Stellaris 15 is the exact same laptop as the Slimbook Hero.
Look at the ports on the back and the vents. They’re exactly the same.
I don’t know of any end-to-end electronics fabrication in Europe… Having the final assembly done in EU is kinda misleading if everything else comes from elsewhere, no?
Gotta begin somewhere. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Framework 13 pro. Its US, but it looks like a solid laptop with excellent battery life, premium build quality, it has modular forward and backwards compatible upgrades between generations, and ships with Linux. Not a lot left to be desired with this one in my opinion.
System76 is Linux first. They’re the ones developing the cosmic desktop environment, which is a gift to humanity, and may help ease your mind when buying from the US.
Tbh you should just get a mac.
You can have privacy on them with a little less effort than on windows and they’re already decently secure. They can play cyberpunk and you already have the linux (bsd) toolkit. They’re already the kind of computer you like with the good trackpad etc.
I would drop your “be European” requirement.
