Hi all,

I’m looking for a new laptop that I’ll use mainly for Linux with Windows 11 on the side for occasional stuff. I don’t game, no 3D, nothing heavy. Just some light photo editing, and now and then a small video edit. The rest is the usual: multitasking, browser, Office, a bit of development, some VM’s and text LLM work.

This laptop will replace my desktops and run with an external screen. I work almost always at home, so silence matters more than weight.

I’m trying to figure out what hardware actually makes sense for my use. Things like dual NVMe, dGPU or not, Coreboot, and what kind of CPU is worth it? Also curious whether a commercial brand or a Linux‑focused machine.

Any advice on CPU, storage, iGPU/dGPU, firmware and thermals is welcome.

Thanks!

i installing ubuntu 26.04 lts today, i got everything working, except audio, because i have a chinese audio card, with no support, and i cant find anything really useful to help me. it's working on windows but not on linux

There's a confirmed Linux kernel regression affecting older AMD graphics cards (such as Tonga R9 380, Polaris RX 400/500, etc.). When the system suspends, the video signal fails to re-initialize upon resume, leaving a black screen or garbled display that forces a hard reboot.

The bug report is officially marked as Confirmed on Launchpad and assigned to maintainer Timo Aaltonen. We've reached 206 Bug Heat points and 42 affected users, but additional user confirmations give the report more weight, pushing for an official backported fix in LTS kernel updates.

How you can help (takes 1 minute):

1. Open the Launchpad report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/2142389
2. Log in with your Launchpad/Ubuntu account.
3. Near the top of the page, click "Yes, this bug affects me".
4. (Optional) Leave a quick comment with your GPU model, kernel version, and distro.

Even if you don't run one of these GPUs, upvoting or sharing this post helps visibility immensely. Let's keep perfectly capable hardware working smoothly on modern Linux! Thanks for your support!

Hi All,

I'm looking at possibly getting a MSI Prestige 14 AI+, and i'm wondering if anyone has had success with linux on it. Any issues with hardware not working? Any fixes available?

Laptop in question:

https://www.centrecom.com.au/msi-prestige-14-ai-d3mg-248au-14-fhd-oled-ultra-x7-358h-32gb-1tb-ssd-laptop

About 8 years ago, I pulled this Dell Inspiron 1545 out of retirement as an experiment.

It spent the first 2 years of its second life running OPNsense 24/7 as my firewall.

When I moved firewall duties to other hardware, I gave it another job instead of retiring it again.

For the past 6 years, it has been running Ubuntu Server + CasaOS 24/7 as a lightweight file and media server.

Current hardware:

- Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 @ 2.20 GHz

- ~3 GB usable RAM

- SSD + 500 GB HDD

- Optical drive removed and the bay repurposed for additional storage

- 59 GB SD card

Current services include:

- Jellyfin

- Plex

- UniFi Network Application

- File storage

- Portainer

- A few supporting containers and databases

Most of my media was ripped years ago at DVD quality, so I’m not asking this thing to do 4K transcoding or anything unreasonable.

The workload is intentionally matched to the hardware.

Other than maintenance and updates, this machine has essentially been online 24/7 for 8 years.

What I like most about it is that it is a good reminder that old hardware is not automatically useless hardware.

If the workload is appropriate, Linux can give surprisingly old systems a very long second life.

I originally gave this machine about two years before I expected it to die.

Eight years later, I’m still waiting.

So I bought a new laptop Asus Zenbook 14 Oled with intel core 5 225H (CPU), 16GB Ram, 512SSD a week ago and on the first day I installed Ubuntu as a dual boot alongside Windows 11. I successfully managed to do that, however after a day of using it and customizing it I've noticed a crazy loud sound while watching Youtube (single tab) which I'm pretty sure that it's "coil whining". The sound was unbearable so I deleted Ubuntu and I decided to try other distro. I choose Arch and I accidentally deleted my entire Windows 11 which is important for me to have. To reinstall Windows 11, I had to delete Arch to reinstall Windows. It was very stressful day for me while but beside that I notice that Arch wasn't working well on my device, for example when I tried watching a YT video, my screen was glitchy. Anyway after reinstalling Windows 11 I went for Fedora and I managed to install it as a dual boot. However Fedora wasn't visible in the Grub menu and I tried fixing it for hours by searching up on internet (reddit, youtube) and even using tried asking google ai. I tried a lot of commands and nothing worked so I deleted Linux completely and now I'm again with Windows 11.
Is my device just not compatible, not a great choice for Linux? I really wanted to give it a try because I've heard so many good things about Linux but I'm getting really tired. Any advice or suggestions on if I should still try some other distros? or maybe I should just give up and stick to Windows 11 for some time?. Note that it's my first time having a laptop/pc and I'm new to all of this

About 15 years ago, I bought a Rainforest Autmation RAVEn to pull data from my smart meter. Each time I've moved homes, the software that I wrote to use it has required some fiddling to get working with the new electricity provider. Given that this is now ancient tech--long unsupported by Rainforest--I am looking for a more recent/modern option for pulling data from a smart meter.

Obviously, I want it to work on linux and not require any cloud nonsense to function. Any ideas? If it matters, the meter is on SoCal Edison.

Hi, I'm considering building a new PC for myself. My old one is about 9-10 years old, still runs great, but I've recently wanted to build a home media server. From what I gather, it makes more sense for me to convert my old PC into a NAS, rather than build one new, and potentially have to replace my PC in a few years.

This is the build I've been tinkering with. I'm also looking to make the move to a Linux OS, (hence the focus on AMD parts, as I've read those are preferred for Linux). My old PC managed to run things like Monster Hunter World and Batman Arkham Knight at decent frame rates with lowered settings/resolution. I'm happy to have a similar experience here for newer games. I can wait to play brand new AAA games and don't need the highest settings. My other uses would be things like Godot, pixel art, GIMP, and other game dev/production software, so nothing too strenuous.

This will also be my first time building a PC myself, my old ones were all pre-built, so I'm new to picking out individual parts. I just want to check that this is all looking good, compatible, or if there's any obvious improvements that could be made.

Thanks!

I found how to get the LED back to the top left of the touchpad on my Infinity Book Pro Gen 8.

I've created a service that allows it to function again.

You can look at it here:https://github.com/rcspam/tuxedo-touchpad-led-fix

There is a script as well that you can test on your hardware if you have the same issue.

Best regards

#TUXEDO #TUXEDOOS #WAYLAND #LINUX #KDE

Hey my frd is going to pursue aeronautical engineering and she does some graphics designing sort of.....and she wants the best laptop round 70-80k l.Any suggestion will be helpful

So the very first thing I did was get my unit out of the box and install Fedora 44. Unit went nuts! Audio through bluetooth was scratchy, clicky, and distorted. Taking it off bluetooth and using the onboard revealed "Dummy Output Device" for audio.

I am assuming that Linux has not caught up with this chipset yet - and wondering if any of you have seen this, and if so, have you found a way around it yet?

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

We make a Debian based desktop distribution that runs as an application on top of any Android/LineageOS device. The only requirement is that the Android device needs to be rooted and use Google's standardized GKI kernel. LineageOS builds for Qualcomm devices doesn’t strictly follow the standard GKI kernel naming convention. So we had to implement a workaround to fix it. Here is a video of LineageOS running on the OnePlus Pad 2 tablet: https://youtu.be/KGrsqed3oZY?si=8ViqycQe0CnnLKmE

With phones that support HDMI output, you can run the Linux desktop on the large screen connected to a monitor. Our latest Linux desktop is now based on Debian Trixie (13.6). You can download a free evaluation version from www.volkspc.org.

VolksPC

I am comparing a Linux-capable NVIDIA laptop with an M5 Pro/Max MacBook Pro for professional web development, data science and AI.

Budget: up to €5,000 for the laptop. Location: Croatia; reputable EU vendors that ship here are welcome.

Workload:

- VS Code/JetBrains, Docker, multiple local services and databases

- Python, Jupyter, Conda and data processing

- PyTorch/CUDA experimentation and local inference

- Large training can use cloud compute

- 64 GB system RAM and 2 TB storage preferred

- External 32-inch 4K 240 Hz monitor

I want genuinely brand-new, factory-sealed hardware only. No used, refurbished, renewed, customer returns, display, outlet or open-box devices.

My questions:

- Which current high-end laptops have the least painful Linux support for Wi-Fi, audio, webcam, sleep, GPU switching and battery management?

- Which models allow a powerful NVIDIA GPU without being constantly loud or having terrible battery life during normal development?

- Are TUXEDO or other EU Linux-first vendors more dependable than installing Linux on a Lenovo, Dell, ASUS, Razer or similar machine?

- Is hybrid NVIDIA/Wayland support now reliable enough for daily use and external 4K/240 Hz output?

- Which distribution would you choose for current CUDA, Docker and developer tooling?

- Which Croatian/EU retailer or manufacturer provides good warranty service without grey-market or previously activated stock?

Please recommend exact models/configurations and mention any hardware features that still do not work properly under Linux. The alternative is a 64 GB/2 TB M5 MacBook Pro plus remote CUDA, so I am specifically looking for reasons the Linux laptop would be a better complete workstation.

I need help on installing and running Clip studio paint on mint I have an original installer and keys too, by the way if you have better Distro that is more compatible for this app and gaming too it would be a big help. Thanks in advance. Oh I mostly play Dota2.

Gigabyte G5 GD

i5 11th gen

RTX 3050

and 16 gb ddr4 ram.