I’m considering buying a laptop from Tuxedo, but I’m in Australia and I’m not sure how bad that idea is. Does anyone have experience or recommendation? I would not buy from any american company though. Is there a risk to not go through the country, or that I would have to pay a massive tax on it?
I bought 2 lenovos before. It seems to be getting worse for Linux and Amd. My first one was awesome, the second one had so many issues and I have to use a usb wifi and blacklist the internal one, so I probably want to skip lenovo this time, even if I have to pay a lot more.
I went with Laptopwithlinux for my last one, I don’t remember the reason (probably the shipping too). I’m quite happy, don’t recall having to do any workarounds to get my distro running.
I’ve also had Slimbook and Tuxedo (when I was living in the EU) and my takeaway is that no laptop is perfect. The Slimbook was great because of the aluminium case, like dialectalraveling says, but the monitor’s light leakage was a bit too much for my taste (same goes for LWL). Tuxedo was great because I have never found such a great power/weight balance, but the case (magnesium I think) took very few years to start chipping. LWL feels like a reasonably priced in-between (but I miss the others’ FlexiCharge, now I need to unplug the charger manually).
You could also try and find the corresponding white label model (TongFang, Clevo…), maybe some Australian company sells them without having to go through customs. Unfortunately I can’t recommend Metabox though: at work I have one, the specs are good but the trackpad and the most used letters on the keyboard started “peeling”(?) after very little time of use (I swear I don’t eat at my desk).
When you say it took very few years to ship, do you mean days, weeks, months, or actually years?
They seem to have some nice stuff too. It seems that all Linux oriented shops do. All this enshitified garbage of not letting you upgrade memory or hard drives seem to be bullshit of big companies just like the mobile phone ones do too…
But so far I’m researching, it seems that since amd embraced “AI”, talking about enshitification, the CPUs are barely better than my current one, while using a lot more power. It seems that if I want to have the same power consumption I’ll actually have to downgrade, while paying more.
I may be better trying to find a used laptop that has the stuff I want and just replace the battery. Weird days where buying a new laptop after years will get you something worse and more expensive than you bought…
Intel’s new core ultras are aparently extremely power efficient.
I would pay thousands of dollars to kill intel, not to help them.
I still have very bad memories from when they became a near monopoly with criminal ways and set back the world of cpus by many years. Luckily the market is different now so that’s unlikely to happen again, but I don’t ever want them on the top again.
And that’s not even counting their massive support for israel. Anyway, of the evil companies I don’t want to support they are close to the top of the list.
Years. I don’t know how many, but less than 4 or 5, not super bad, but annoying enough specially in the corners. Also by the 5th year the rubber “feet” had started to crumble.
Oh… chipping. The case was breaking. Sorry… I thought you mispelled “shipping”, that it took a very long time for them to send you the laptop.
Yeah, that’s important for me. My current lenovo, although higher end than the previous, doesn’t compare. The first one is all metal. I dropped it several times on concrete and it survived without barely any issue. While this one even being so careful gives me a headache.
No point buying something expensive that will die on the first time I’m not careful and I’m usually not careful.
If you need sturdy, nothing like a refurbished old Thinkpad, but probably the expertise needed is too much for me.
My ones are thinkpad. I’m not sure why people praise them so much. There’s all different kinds.
My first one like I said is a tank though. I never thought laptops needed to be that sturdy, but now I know that, like phones, they need to be as strong as they are expensive (and it’s usually the opposite).
I had a ThinkPad X200 (IIRC) that I could literally stand on. Still working (with limitations). I wish things could last that much nowadays.
Dell is good for Linux (especially Latitudes and Precision models). They’re also relatively reliable and build quality is great (if you ignore the stupid XPS-s).
For laptops, you have https://linux-hardware.org/. It’s also better to avoid MTK network cards(many are still fine). Otherwise, I think linux support is good for mostly all hardware.
Lenovo’s ThinkPads are still as good as any other models.
I did have a cheap dell netbook in the past and it’s true I didn’t have issue with any driver. But it I have an option outside of usa I would prefer.
About the site, l keep getting ‘too many requests’ error. I’ll keep trying. My network card is qualcomm. Apparently a common problem with people who have this model.
My lenovos are thinkpads, and the second one I had was far from as good with Linux compared to the first one.
I run a Slimbook as an American. I chose it because it was hard to find a powerhouse laptop with ANSI keyboard layouts. The keyboard was the only reason I did not go with Tuxedo. It’s fine. Not good, not great. I think my previous System76 had better integration with the hardware. However, I like the aluminum shell on the Slimbook more for daily abuse.
I did not have to pay exorbitant taxes to import. But your mileage may vary.
if your concern is hardware support then buying from a Linux installed company like Tuxedo is a good idea. If following from that your concern is hardware failure or part availability ask a local repair shop their opinion, they’ll tell you better than us.
If you buy from buy brands, e.g. Lenovo, then in my experience checking online forums for the exact model is enough.
FWIW I’d also consider Pine64 (geographically closer to you) and a RPi5 seeing your power consumption concerns but that implies no very demanding workflows.
I’ve indefinitely borrowed an old underpowered Lenovo Miix from my friend which I pretty much fucked up. It used to run Windows 10 b4 I nuked it w Arch the instant I got it. it installed just fine and connected to the WiFi in the live ISO but it doesn’t on baremetal. doesn’t matter if I do lspci or whatever, the NIC’s a bloody ghost. I’ve yet to figure this out but tried a remedy that failed. can’t even distro hop to LMDE or downgrade to Win10. none of these ISOs even load to memory cuz it barely has any. this “laptop” even has an Arch Wiki entry. apparently the NIC works on Ubuntu but even that I can’t install lol. my PC doesn’t have WiFi so this’ the first time I experienced the Linux WiFi NIC debacle.
regardless if you ever buy Lenovo again, please make sure to identify the NIC and that it actually works on Linux rn. don’t buy one that’s planned to be compatible.
Yup. That’s my lesson. Or avoid lenovo altogether and go with a company that respects Linux, like old lenovo used to.
On my one the wifi is just blacklisted. Might as well remove it. I use a tp-link tiny usb dongle. It’s a pain to have it always connected but I can live with it. Definitely not acceptable for what I paid for the laptop though… not even counting the headaches with the battery.
But… you borrowed someone’s computer and installed arch? I imagine they were never expecting to get it back…
for the most part he didn’t really have a use for it, so I asked if I can buy it off him. he told me it’s really underpowered and told me to test it out. if I could live w it then I can pay him. it’s been a few months now and we’ve both got busy w our lives and it comes up once in a blue moon. I’ve asked him a few times if he wanted it back but neither of us have a use for a shitty laptop w no WiFi lol.
