Introduction

I was recently contacted for advice on for buying a laptop with Linux already installed. Below is my response as well as some extra thoughts on the subject.

Laptop Advice

Howdy!! Thanks for reaching out about this! From my experience the preinstalled Linux sphere is usually expensive gaming, developer, or other specialty type systems for enthusiasts. (NovaCustom, System76, Purism)

The Pinebook Pro is the only budget device for daily driving that I can think of, and you may be able to buy an SD card with an OS preinstalled. It has an ARM processor rather than a normal desktop type processor, but depending on what you’re doing it may not matter, like for web browsing.

It looks like both Lenovo and Dell allow choosing Ubuntu and maybe other Linux distributions when configuring some of their laptops. It knocks down the price some too since they don’t have to license out a proprietary OS. This option would probably be ideal for someone with no tech background. There may be other companies too.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/d/deals/custom/?visibleDatas=1014%3ALaptops%3B699%3ALinux&sortBy=priceUp

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/scr/laptops/appref=ubuntu-linux-os?sortBy=price-ascending

Otherwise I’ve always bought the device which fits my needs best and then wiped it and installed the OS of my choosing. Used laptops are great for that if you don’t want big tech companies getting kickbacks from places like Best Buy which sell laptops with licensed OS’s.

Linux can run on most hardware, and can give life back to devices over 10 years old which people thought were too slow to be useful anymore. I’d avoid Apple since they can be a pain to set up. Otherwise anything with a working battery, screen, and keyboard would be fine. If it has 8GB of RAM or more then it will have plenty of power for today’s needs.

Also, I recommend keeping backups of important documents on an external flash or hard drive in case of drive failure. Especially if going the used device route. Private cloud storage can be okay too if you trust the owner. Most drives last a long time but I’ve been burned by one going out early, it’s not fun. 🙃

I’d love to hear what you end up doing! Let me know if you have any other questions. :)

Final Thoughts

The requester already had a refurbished laptop and opted to back up their files to an external device and give installing the OS a go.

If you have a spare USB drive, the process is fairly simply. There are applications for putting the installer on the flash drive, then you just plug it in and reboot the device. When it shows the laptop’s brand name on the screen, you press a button, usually F10 or similar, choose the USB device, then follow the prompts from the installer.

There are plenty of guides on how to do this. I’ve listed a few below. It can be a very educational process, especially if you already have some experience at the terminal or with Linux in general. Then once you get fairly experienced, installing a system like Arch is extremely rewarding and teaches you a lot about what it actually takes to make a distribution and what all the running components are under the hood.

All in all, getting away from big tech is highly recommended. Windows, MacOS, and ChromeOS are all spyware meant to keep you in a locked down consumerist cycle. iOS and Google Android are no better. Liberating your devices by installing a FLOSS operating system! As of this writing I choose to use Debian on my desktops and servers, and on my smartphones I run LineageOS with microG.

Feel free to give me a holler if you make a dive into this sphere and need any pointers! :)

Installation Guides (Desktop)

Walkthroughs of how to put a new operating system on your device.

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

Installation Guides (Mobile)

Beginner

Intermediate