Linux laptop: recommendations?

[lethargic_man]

I upgraded coronium, the laptop I got, factory-reconditioned, for when I went to the Conservative Yeshiva in 2007, to the latest version of Red Hat Fedora Linux a couple of months ago, and it's struggling with it. Actually, it's managing fine, just slowly, with most things, but when I tried calling the Skype call testing service I got "We-e-el-co-o-me to-o-o the-e-e Sky-y-y-pe Ca-a-a-all"... you get the picture. In addition the battery rolled over and died at the end of July, and the CMOS battery is also on its last legs. I think, rather than try and replace these and continue putting up with a machine trying to run an OS designed for a much more modern machine, it's time to get a new laptop.

Last time, I got a cheap, factory reconditioned model because I was worried about the nickability of a shiny new laptop, but on reflection, I think I shouldn't have worried: I never really left coronium anywhere it could have been nicked; I always took it with me. So this time I want to get somethingmore powerful, to future-proof myself so I don't need to get another one for, shall we say, the remainder of the decade.

Beyond that requirement, I'm not really looking for speed or power: I don't intend to play games on it, for instance. My only other requirement is that I get a model on which Linux is known to work. Now, I could go online and be presented with huge lists of laptops, but I thought before I start floundering around, I should see if anyone here has any recommendations.

So, do you?

Comments

[pseudomonas]

I have a cheap (I think it was about £350 a few years ago) Acer Aspire. The battery life is pitiful by modern standards (you get about an hour) but it runs Xubuntu with minimal fiddling (I think I had to set my wifi to WEP and install one firmware-tweaking package before it'd talk WPA).

[lethargic_man]

That's similar to the price and battery life I got from coronium. (When I first got it, it could manage about an hour and a half.) What surprised me is how fast the battery died: On 22 August, I got an hour out of it, sitting in Golders Hill Park. I got some more reasonable use of out of it a few days later, but by the 26th I tried using it to write email whilst I was on the train to my German lessons in Berlin and it ran out of steam within a couple of minutes. (I later discovered that if I switched it to a text-based console the moment it had come fully out of hibernation, I could eke it out to twenty minutes' use, which was long enough to cover my train rides.)

As for wireless, coronium, being an ThinkPad T30, didn't come with any, so I got a wireless dongle for when I was on the Conservative Yeshiva five years ago. At the time, using wifi on Linux meant running a script, waiting sixty seconds, scanning the logs and praying. Then I came home and the dongle disappeared; I found it years later under the freezer. I've just tried plugging it in now, and as I'd hoped, it's all plug and play now, but whether it would actually work is a different, yet-to-be-resolved question.

[pseudomonas]

Depending on your window manager, might be worth trying XFCE or LXDE and see if they overload your computer less.

[lethargic_man]

Ah, I didn't know those existed—I still use FVWM on Cygwin at work, but the thought of trying a lighter-weight window manager hadn't occurred to me.

<has a play> Even more interesting: The problems I'd had with Skype had been when accessing the Internet over aviva_m's mobile dongle (as she can't get broadband where she lives); on her equally ancient computer Skype managed fine. I've just tried running Skype on coronium on my broadband, and it managed much better; and then installed LXDE and tried again, and it managed perfectly fine.

Sooner or later, I will have to retire coronium and upgrade to something more future proof, but it looks like I might have pushed that day a few years further off yet: Time to head online and get a replacement IBM ThinkPad T30 battery.

Oh, and thanks!

[green_knight]

While I have absolutely no idea which laptops will be suitable for Linux installation, I noticed that Groupon has, from time to time, promotions offering considerable savings so that might be worth looking out for when you feel ready to buy.

(As for the 'worried about computer' - well, yes, I worry a lot, but the alternative would be to work forever with a crappy computer. I notice that a lot of people are taking expensive laptops everywhere (including cheap hostels) - just as they're walking around with expensive smartphones - so the overall risk probably isn't too bad.

But yay for fixing your problems - wanting to buy when the time is right beats needing to buy NOW.

[bluepork]

coincidentally:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/best-laptops_round-up

[lethargic_man]

Thanks; I'll bear that in mind for the future (if I remember), but as you'll see in previous comments, I've decided to get a replacement battery rather than a new laptop atm.