So I’m looking for a laptop, but before you downvote and move on, I’ve got a twist: I’m looking for a laptop with Linux support that’s going to intentionally be console-only and rely on TUIs to make a lower-distraction device.
I was looking at older Thinkpads with 4:3 screens and the good keyboard before Lenovo went all chicklet with them, but I’m kinda concluding they’re both way too expensive AND way too old to be a reasonable choice at this point.
A X220 or T40-whatever would be great and be the perfect aesthetic, but they’re expensive, hard to find parts for, and using enough crusty old shit that this becomes yet another delve into retro computing and not one into practical, useful computing which is the goal here.
So, anyone have any recommendations of any devices in the last decade that have a reasonable keyboard, screen, use modern enough components that you can source new drives and RAM and batteries and such, and preferably aren’t coated in a coating that’s going to turn to sticky goo?
Thin(ner) and light(er) would be nice, but probably not a dealbreaker if the rest of the pieces align. This will be almost entirely used at a table for writing and such.
I would say a used Dell or HP business laptop would be a safe bet. Most business laptops have decent keyboards, replacement batteries will be relatively easy to find, and user-serviceable RAM is the norm. Given the not especially high processing power needs, probably the middle-specced ones with a few gens-old i5 will be dirt cheap and work fine for your needs.
Plus 1 for a refurb or gently used Dell Latitude series. My daily beater for the last 5 or 6 years has been a pre-2020 Dell Latitude 7390 13". Works really well with the *bian distros I’ve run on it, decent battery life, OK mic and speakers.
I’ve had to replace the battery once, and the keyboard once (which I damaged myself by applying a small amount of Coca Cola).
Refurb ThinkPads are also great, but they have a high resale value.
My Dell XPS is my most hated computer. 90% stable with Ubuntu but that 10% really stings.
My Dell XPS-15 9560 is my most loved laptop ever. Great Linux support, although not the fingerprint reader which does sting a bit. I’ve only needed to replace the battery after 5 or so years, it’s currently about 7 years old and running as new.
Wow. I might have the same model. What distro are you running?
I’m running Ubuntu Budgie Jellyfish. My biggest gripes are battery life and notifications (only low battery warning I get is the screen flickering 1 min before it dies at around 5% power), video (maybe once a month the screen will go black and I can’t do anything but hard reset), and Wi-Fi (5G connection is much more likely to drop than 2.4G if I’m between APs). Might be a bit of a lemon since I had to get the mobo replaced in like the first 2 weeks.
I’m running (Ubuntu based) Mint Cinnamon. My laptop came with Ubuntu pre-installed and thus the BIOS pre-configured.
If I put the laptop to sleep and wake it from sleep again, it messed up the fonts but only VEEERY occasionally.
The fingerprint scanner doesn’t work with any of the drivers/software I’ve tried, which is a huge bummer.
When I dual-booted Windows on it for software for school, I noticed it worked splendidly on Windows without any installation.
The battery life went from 11h to 40m during my normal usage, this happened in a span of 4 years.
I’ve replaced the battery with an aftermarket one, which also went from 9h to 2h battery life in about 2.5y.
I’ve rarely had the battery drained below 5%, but it did run until the last percentage the few times it happend (on the original battery)
I’ve never had black screens or screen flickering like you described on this laptop, but putting my desktop PC to sleep on Linux Mint does cause it to wake up to an unrecoverable black screen.
My laptop’s also never had the connectivity issues.
Nor anything else.
My experience has been really good, and I plan to continue using this until even a new battery won’t do good.
That might be due to Mint’s pre-installed software, I don’t know.