For some years now I have been using Dell Latitudes 74xx series, 14"
corporate style black laptops. Mint goes on them without any problem and
works without complication. I get one off of ebay every couple of years
and mint backup transfers all my stuff, no worries. I do all my work on
it. I don't need gaming or fancy sound.

I am looking at buying another so I will replace my 2018 model with a
2021 version or thereabouts. Wondering if there is another laptop range
which will give me confidence of an easy install? Some people use
thinkpads I believe. If I search the vast jungle of the mint forums for
"thinkpad" I get hundreds of results which are all problems and
difficulties but that may be a false reflection of reality?

Tim W

On 1/26/24 07:20 AM, TimW wrote:
> For some years now I have been using Dell Latitudes 74xx series, 14"
> corporate style black laptops. Mint goes on them without any problem and
> works without complication. I get one off of ebay every couple of years
> and mint backup transfers all my stuff, no worries. I do all my work on
> it. I don't need gaming or fancy sound.
>
> I am looking at buying another so I will replace my 2018 model with a
> 2021 version or thereabouts. Wondering if there is another laptop range
> which will give me confidence of an easy install? Some people use
> thinkpads I believe. If I search the vast jungle of the mint forums for
> "thinkpad" I get hundreds of results which are all problems and
> difficulties but that may be a false reflection of reality?
>
> Tim W
I have had (3) Inspirons from Dell. 15".
All have worked flawlessly.

I will make an observation. My wife got a new HP that has keys that are
silver with engraved labels, very fine (small) engraving. Looked fine
in the store, but.... The backlight does not show thru. Hard to see.
All the backlight does is light up under the keys.

My dell had black keys/white letters and the white is semi opaque and
the light shines thru. My keyboard is easier to see.
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 2024-01-26, TimW <timw@nomailta.co.uk> wrote:
> For some years now I have been using Dell Latitudes 74xx series, 14"
> corporate style black laptops. Mint goes on them without any problem and
> works without complication. I get one off of ebay every couple of years
> and mint backup transfers all my stuff, no worries. I do all my work on
> it. I don't need gaming or fancy sound.
>
> I am looking at buying another so I will replace my 2018 model with a
> 2021 version or thereabouts. Wondering if there is another laptop range
> which will give me confidence of an easy install? Some people use
> thinkpads I believe. If I search the vast jungle of the mint forums for
> "thinkpad" I get hundreds of results which are all problems and
> difficulties but that may be a false reflection of reality?
>
> Tim W

I've had very good luck with E74s as well. I have tried one Lenovo and there
was an issue with it and Linuy Mint. (Can't remember what now, sorry.) I
ended up installing Windows 10 on it and giving it to one of my wife's
relatives. (It was an older ThinkPad, however, so this issue may have been
with this particular model.) I like my E7450 quite a bit.

These show up on Shop Goodwill (in the U.S.) all the time.

--
"Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence good."
-- Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

On 1/26/24 5:20 AM, TimW wrote:
> For some years now I have been using Dell Latitudes 74xx series, 14"
> corporate style black laptops. Mint goes on them without any problem and
> works without complication. I get one off of ebay every couple of years
> and mint backup transfers all my stuff, no worries. I do all my work on
> it. I don't need gaming or fancy sound.
>
> I am looking at buying another so I will replace my 2018 model with a
> 2021 version or thereabouts. Wondering if there is another laptop range
> which will give me confidence of an easy install? Some people use
> thinkpads I believe. If I search the vast jungle of the mint forums for
> "thinkpad" I get hundreds of results which are all problems and
> difficulties but that may be a false reflection of reality?
>
> Tim W

Maybe worth browsing, at least for the Ubuntu-based Mint OS:

https://ubuntu.com/certified/laptops

On 26/01/2024 14:52, Arti F. Idiot wrote:
> On 1/26/24 5:20 AM, TimW wrote:
>> For some years now I have been using Dell Latitudes 74xx series, 14"
>> corporate style black laptops. Mint goes on them without any problem and
>> works without complication. I get one off of ebay every couple of years
>> and mint backup transfers all my stuff, no worries. I do all my work on
>> it. I don't need gaming or fancy sound.
>>
>> I am looking at buying another so I will replace my 2018 model with a
>> 2021 version or thereabouts. Wondering if there is another laptop range
>> which will give me confidence of an easy install? Some people use
>> thinkpads I believe. If I search the vast jungle of the mint forums for
>> "thinkpad" I get hundreds of results which are all problems and
>> difficulties but that may be a false reflection of reality?
>>
>> Tim W
>
> Maybe worth browsing, at least for the Ubuntu-based Mint OS:
>
> https://ubuntu.com/certified/laptops

Probably a good start, but there may be many others usable. I got a
Clevo P150EM (rebadged) 9 years ago and loaded Ubuntu 14.10 on it
without problem. A couple of years later I changed to Linux Mint 17.3.
I'm still using the same laptop, recently updated to Linux Mint 21.3.
These days it's no problem loading a Mint iso on a usb stick and trying
it on a laptop to see if runs the live version. I guess it's just up to
whether or not the vendor will let you try it.

--

Jeff

On 1/26/24 04:20, TimW wrote:
> <snip>. If I search the vast jungle of the mint forums for
> "thinkpad" I get hundreds of results which are all problems and
> difficulties but that may be a false reflection of reality?

Zero problems with Thinkpads. I've had 6-7 different types.
Using a ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 currently.

In article <up081q$2qmro$1@dont-email.me>, timw@nomailta.co.uk says...
>For some years now I have been using Dell Latitudes 74xx series, 14"
>corporate style black laptops. Mint goes on them without any problem and
>works without complication. I get one off of ebay every couple of years
>and mint backup transfers all my stuff, no worries. I do all my work on
>it. I don't need gaming or fancy sound.
>
>I am looking at buying another so I will replace my 2018 model with a
>2021 version or thereabouts. Wondering if there is another laptop range
>which will give me confidence of an easy install? Some people use
>thinkpads I believe. If I search the vast jungle of the mint forums for
>"thinkpad" I get hundreds of results which are all problems and
>difficulties but that may be a false reflection of reality?
>
>Tim W
I have been using Thinkpad and IdeaPad for years without any problems.
Only laptop manufacturer I have had problems using with Linux Mint
is Acer. Usually related to their BIOS.

On 1/27/2024 1:15 AM, dbnnet wrote:
> In article <up081q$2qmro$1@dont-email.me>, timw@nomailta.co.uk says...
>> For some years now I have been using Dell Latitudes 74xx series, 14"
>> corporate style black laptops. Mint goes on them without any problem and
>> works without complication. I get one off of ebay every couple of years
>> and mint backup transfers all my stuff, no worries. I do all my work on
>> it. I don't need gaming or fancy sound.
>>
>> I am looking at buying another so I will replace my 2018 model with a
>> 2021 version or thereabouts. Wondering if there is another laptop range
>> which will give me confidence of an easy install? Some people use
>> thinkpads I believe. If I search the vast jungle of the mint forums for
>> "thinkpad" I get hundreds of results which are all problems and
>> difficulties but that may be a false reflection of reality?
>>
>> Tim W
> I have been using Thinkpad and IdeaPad for years without any problems.
> Only laptop manufacturer I have had problems using with Linux Mint
> is Acer. Usually related to their BIOS.
>

Laptop manufacturers are OEMs, and they
contract out to ODMs.

For example, Eurocom (OEM) uses Clevo (ODM) for quite
a few of its items. Acer uses someone too
(Quanta for gaming laptops). Asus has their own
ODM division (Pegasus). There is Compal, Mitac,
and so on.

There are a limited number of BIOS companies. when
you get a BIOS kit, you don't get source for all of it.
There is a tool for turning BIOS settings on and off
in the BIOS screen. that's how the Insyde BIOS in
my Acer laptop, only has one setting. Presumably they
could not make the number of settings exactly zero :-)

Dell seems to make at least a part of their own BIOS,
on some classes of machine. But it's hard to say whether
the entire thing is their source code (the chipset bringup).

The BIOS is modular, and you add modules to support,
say, some specific hardware item you added. Maybe you
need to be able to boot from an Asmedia USB3 chip.

Sure, laptops can have fit and finish issues. Like a
laptop where the chassis isn't stiff enough. Or, a bad
choice was made for how the barrel power connector works.

The keyboards are likely to all be coming out of the
same factory.

But really, the rough edges on install, the laptops
share a lot in common. How many companies put Wifi modules
in your laptop ? There used to be a few players. Today,
you might see an Intel AX200 module (Wifi 6 or Wifi 6e),
or you might see a RealTek 8188 of some sort (the laptop
advert will just say "Wifi" which means they don't want you
to know). You don't seem to see as much Broadcom as you
used to . Qualcomm bought Atheros, and that source is
hardly visible any more.

As far as install problems go, there's a lot less to
trip over. On the RealTek 8188, there was initially a
problem (no Linux driver, or "some guy" was the only
source of the driver code), but those sorts of things
seem to get settled with time.

There are fewer sources of chipset. Intel makes their
own PCHs now. So as long as Linux has "support for the
current generation", the install is going to work. AMD
seems to have a chipset with their own brand on it, but
it is made by Asmedia (the "deluxe" chipset is two
Asmedia chips daisy-chained, the "regular" chipset is
just the one chip).

They can still foul up battery management, charging,
and so on. There can definitely be rough spots. But the
number of potential rough spots is less as time goes by.

That's why the treatment of laptops as "pure mystery meat",
is unfair to meat. These are largely commodity items, with
only the occasional appearance of something Linus did
not get advanced warning of.

A small set of issues will be OS install affecting.

A more important set of issues is with the physical design,
and whether the products hold up. And if you're buying
a new unit every three years (effectively leasing frequency),
you hardly care about longevity. Even a gaming laptop, you
might squeeze three years out of it.

Thicker laptops are likely to last longer, but nobody
cares about metrics like *that* any more. Or tell a
person to only buy a laptop with a lot of ports on it,
and they'll just go out and buy a machine with a single USB-C
and "pretend they bought Apple" :-) A laptop has no expansion
capability any more (no PCMCIA, no ExpressCard), so
whatever you buy, is what you get.

I would not buy a laptop with fewer than three USB ports on it,
at a minimum. I have a USB to Ethernet adapter here, so
if faced with a laptop with no Ethernet, that is easily
fixed... if I have a USB port for it. If my Wifi is broken,
I have USB Wifi here... if I have a USB port for it.
And so on. Sure, a docking port works, but with my handful
of crap here, I can remain mobile... if I have a USB port.

For NVidia graphics, I have the option of a binary blob.
Which can make quite a difference to functionality
(acceleration available, video decoders and so on).

Paul

TimW <timw@nomailta.co.uk>:

> I am looking at buying another so I will replace my 2018 model with a
> 2021 version or thereabouts. Wondering if there is another laptop range
> which will give me confidence of an easy install?

I have an HP Pavilion with LM. Easy install, no problems, upgraded to
LM 21.3 today. On the downside: it came with a M$ Windows license,
which I never used.

Yrrah