User:Niedzielski/2019 Linux laptop survey

Although the title specifies "laptops," what I really mean is any portable Linux device which could include tablets that have a decent hardware keyboard. My primary use case is MediaWiki development, which includes heavy Docker container and Visual Studio Code usage on approximately stock Ubuntu v19.04.

Requirements

 * Web cam
 * 2+ USB 3+ ports
 * Good battery life (4+ hour battery life under development load)
 * Good portability (less than 5 lb, cool running, with a decent keyboard and trackpad)
 * High DPI display

Avoid

 * Discrete NVIDIA GPUs. I've used a variety of Linux laptops for the past 10 years and it's been my personal experience that those with discrete NVIDIA GPUs are effectively semi-portable waffle makers. That is, they have extremely poor battery life and stay toasty regardless of whether or not the GPU is disabled in software. I believe this has in part caused two of my batteries on two different laptops (an XPS and a MacBook Pro) to expand.

Devices considered
Most of this section is anecdotal but I'm just recording my own thoughts for my own reasoning as to which device to purchase and not submitting an objective and perfect survey.

✗ Apple
My best device to date has been a 2012 MacBook Air 13" with maxed out specs but Apple products have become increasingly more difficult to run Linux on well. So much so that I can't justify the risk of purchasing one. As such, despite being a consistent industry leader for high quality builds, I haven't considered any Apple device.

✗ Chrome OS
I have a Pixel Slate that I use the Linux beta container functionality on. I can effectively execute a MediaWiki Docker container and have done about a month of development on it. However, the feature was extremely unstable and Chrome OS appears to be extremely rudimentary (no back button on file browser, no recycle bin, ...). In the course of normal development, I had on several occasions my entire Linux container just stop booting requiring extensive debugging just to get my files off of it. There are far too many game over bugs currently but the battery life is amazing. I would consider it given a more featureful, stable, and open OS. I don't think GalliumOS is used widely enough to seriously consider for primary PC usage.

✗ System76
I had a maxed out desktop replacement System76 laptop. I think it's the worst laptop i've ever own. The keyboard and trackpad were cheap, the screen was washed out, and the chassis was garbage. Just from the standpoint of a laptop containing all the human interface devices necessary for efficient development, it fails. THe device was very expensive and the build quality very poor, so although I like to root for smaller, independent companies that value Linux, I cannot justify the risk of purchasing another one.

Dell XPS 15 9560
I have an XPS 15 9560 with more or less maxed out manufacturer specs running mostly stock Ubuntu v19.04. Overall, it's a great machine and it meets all of my needs when at a desk. I use Docker containers with Visual Studio Code extensively for MediaWiki development and it runs them very well. In my spare time, I like to play mostly old games and do a little WebGL programming which it also handles nicely.

Overall, I think it's a great Linux desktop replacement but not very portable.

Pros

 * The performance, stability, screen quality, and GNU / Linux software compatibility have been superb.
 * The keyboard is ok and the trackpad is pretty nice. When I'm at home, I normally use external peripherals.
 * The chassis and ports are decent.

Cons

 * The portability (battery life, heat, thickness) has been awful. In particular, I think the NVIDIA GPU basically turns any Linux machine into a grill, even when disabled in software, and the 9560 has been no exception. Due to heat, I think, my battery had to be replaced within a year. It's basically a semi-portable waffle maker and, because of this, is more of a desktop PC than a laptop.
 * Suspend and hibernate have been pretty flaky so I stopped using them. However, I've never had much luck with either on Linux.
 * The speakers are crap but I always use headphones.
 * There's a little background fuzz on the headphone jack so I attach over USB.
 * The webcam placement sucks.
 * The fans are a little noisy and always on.
 * The coil whine is ceaseless.
 * The screen is glossy and its lowest dimness setting seems at least twice as bright as it should be.

Lenovo ThinkPad T480
Anomie runs Debian unstable (with Window Maker) on a T480 with the following enhancements:
 * i5-8250U processor: "...From what I read online the i7 wasn't worth the extra cost and I didn't need vPro from the 8350U or the NVIDIA graphics card that seems tied to it."
 * 14.0" FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS anti-glare display: "...I didn't care about a touchscreen or the extra-high resolution. Reviews online say the brightness on the WQHD is better, but since I keep my brightness low I didn't care about that either."
 * 16GB RAM: "...Hopefully enough for several years of new tools needing more RAM. I could in theory upgrade it if I would need to." He also notes: "I wanted enough RAM to comfortably run mediawiki-vagrant on the occasions I need to (I mostly run things directly though), which my T430 with 4GB was having trouble handling."
 * No fingerprint reader.
 * 256GB SSD, SATA3: "...From what I read the M.2 didn't seem worth the cost either."
 * Upgraded battery.

Anomie says they'd buy it again and notes "From what I've read they made some weird decisions with the T490: the basic T490 is more of a successor to the T480s (trades ports and upgradability for "slimness") while the T490s goes even further down the "remove features for slimness" path. I hope they reverse direction by the time I'm looking to replace this one."

Pros

 * "In the past at least ThinkPads have been known for quality keyboards. ... I use the built-in keyboard and touchpad for everything."
 * "My T480 seems to generally stay very cool. OTOH, I hear there's some BIOS issue that makes the T480 over-aggressive at throttling." "I seldom hear my fan."
 * No trouble with suspend or resume.
 * No coil whine.

Cons

 * "Occasional freezes. No idea if it's Linux, BIOS, hardware, or what."
 * "I like the PC beep, but the sound card doesn't seem to support it under Linux."
 * "CPI events for brightness adjustment sometimes stop working after boot or resume from sleep. Reboot usually fixes it."
 * "It has a built-in battery and an external. For some reason they have it drain the internal battery first."
 * Speakers face down and aren't very good.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon
LWirzenius runs Debian buster on an X1 Carbon (6th generation). The config is standard with 8 GiB RAM and 500 GiB NVMe SSD. LWirzenius adds: "Everything I've tried works, but I haven't tried some stuff, like the fingerprint reader. I've only used a USB Ethernet adapter (works). ... I'm reasonably happy with it, thought it's not as nice as my personal laptop, mostly due to the keyboard. If I needed a new personal laptop and had the money, I might buy one like this, or a previous generation (not the 2nd generation, though, which has a really awful keyboard). I don't like that it's thin in the modern style, which means, among other things, that there's no RJ45 Ethernet port, the battery and disk aren't easily replaceable."

tgr runs Ubuntu v18.04 on the standard Foundation config. "Overall, it's pretty decent (I only had it for a few months so grain of salt and all that): it's very light and thin, everything other than the fingerprint reader works fine under Ubuntu, the keyboard layout is not completely horrible, the battery life is a bit under 4 hours (more if I dim the screen / stop stuff I don't need) which is way less than it should be capable of in theory but I'm not bothered by it enough to try the scary-looking fixes on ArchWiki."

"I added my experiences to the officewiki page (although pretty much everything there just duplicates the ArchWiki page which is really comprehensive)."

Lenovo ThinkPad X220
LWirzenius also runs Debian buster on a 2012 X220 with a non-standard 16 GiB RAM and a 2.5" (7 mm high) Samsung SSD. LWirzenius says it works lovely but is a little old, especially the screen. This is the second one they've purchased and they may buy another!

TCipriani runs a 2011 X220 with 16 GB RAM, i5-2540M CPU @ 2.60GHz processor, 500GB SSD primary, 256GB mSATA SSD secondary, and an IPS display. The OS is Debian testing with coreboot and ME_Cleaner to truncate the Intel Management Engine backdoor.

"Overall I really like my setup, but it's starting to show some age... I also own a ThinkPad X230t which has a less-nice keyboard than the X220, is harder to coreboot, but has a way cool Waycom tablet screen. I don't think I plan on upgrading anytime soon."

Pros

 * "Best keyboard ever."
 * Old enough hardware that all drivers are supported.
 * Hardware is very hackable / extendable.
 * Fast enough for me.
 * "Secondary hard drive has been a boon (where all my git repos go, mounted at /srv/, everything goes into /srv/git which I have symlinked in ~/Projects)."

Cons

 * Poor battery life.
 * Intel Wi-Fi chip.