Linux-ish Laptop Question

[Richard Pieri]

On Apr 6, 2011, at 10:41 PM, Dan O'Donovan wrote:
> 
> I've promised the Mrs. a lovely new laptop for her to do some serious thesis writing on, and before making a large $ jump I thought I might take the time to sound out the BLU. I say linux-ish as she will definitely be running Windows 7 + Office on it for the first few months, but I'm hoping that when she's done I can get a go and install a real OS. 

Yeah, yeah.  Apple makes remarkably good kit for the most part.  The last batch of MacBook Pros (the Sandy Bridge units) have some overheating problems so you should keep away for the near future until those problems are worked out.  That aside, MacBooks are well-supported by Ubuntu, and supposedly Gentoo but their wiki is unresponsive so I can't say for certain.

Lenovo is a perennial favorite.  I would avoid Dell unless the unit ships with some kind of Linux pre-installed.  As a rule, it is best to buy something that has Linux as a BTO option even if you get the unit shipped with Windows.  That goes a long, long way towards ensuring that what you do with it down the line works.

--Rich P.