[clug] linux friendly vendors

[Ivan Lazar Miljenovic]

On 29 July 2014 14:50, Jason Nielsen <j.lee.nielsen at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am looking at replacing my work machine, I do not have a firm price
> point yet. What linux friendly vendors are people going with?

I  bought a Lenovo Thinkpad a couple of months ago.  Reasonably happy
with it (especially since my uni email address let me sign up for the
Affinity program), with the biggest compatibility issue being the
clickpad (though it isn't that great on Windows either).

>
> My current machine is a 2009 MacBook Pro (4GB RAM, Nvidia and spinning
> rust) that was running Ubuntu but has fallen back on MacOS because I
> loose external monitor support each time I do a Ubuntu upgrade and
> have been too busy to rediscover how to fix it. I am not that
> impressed by their build quality or design so I am fine to go with any
> vendor. (sharp edges, usb too close together, needs an adaptor to use
> an external monitor).
>
> I had a look at System76 but I am not sure about
> support/warranty/shipping since they do not seem to have an AU
> presence at all.

When I was investigating a Clevo-based machine, Logical Blue One
seemed to have the best reputation out of the Australian resellers.
There are a few others though (Pioneer Computers [though they don't
admit it], Affordable Laptops and P4 Laptops off the top of my head).

>
> Are dead pixels a solved problem? What else do I need to watch out
> for? I think Optimus support is the root of my current problems.

I wanted an "ultrabook" so was quite happy to stick with Intel-only
for my laptop.

>
> I do not need a laptop for portability so would go with a desktop
> happily as long as it has good dual monitor support and is fairly
> quite.
>
> As fas as performance I am not gaming or anything by PyCharm loves to
> eat ram so looking at 8-16 GB RAM and a solid state drive (I do not
> use the optical drive, SD reader or firewire etc).

One thing I found: the cost of an aftermaket 500 GB SSD (about $300) +
paying the official Lenovo repairer $70 to install it (as opening it
was too fiddly for me) was cheaper than the upgrade from 256 GB to 512
GB via Lenovo, so I downgraded the drive it came with back down to 128
GB (as there seemed to be some issues people had noticed when
replacing a HDD with an SSD, and it was thus recommended to pay the
bit extra to have the 128 GB SSD to start with) and now have a spare
2.5" SSD lying around.


-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
Ivan.Miljenovic at gmail.com
http://IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com