[TriLUG] Laptop recommendations

[Ken MacKenzie via TriLUG]

What was not stated clearly is why they are not an option.  And when
someone is setting a $1000 budget for a laptop to run linux for the sake of
grandma internet usage I have to question why they are not thinking
chromebook or for that matter any 3 year old craigslist hardware that will
work fine for under $200 bucks.

I mean I don't know about you but if told I can spend less than 500 to do
what over a 1000 bucks will do....

Ken

On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 12:04 PM, Thomas Delrue <delrue.thomas at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Forgive my snarkiness but... (all in good humor, not trying to bash you :)
> )
>
>
> On 02/19/2017 11:05 AM, Ken MacKenzie via TriLUG wrote:
> > That is a lot of money for what basically a chrome book can do, which
> > at its core is gentoo linux.
>
> As stated (relatively clearly) in the original mail, chromebooks are NOT
> an option.
>
> > I consider for most cases a chromebook to be one of the best linux
> > laptops you can buy, for any money.
>
> As stated (relatively clearly) in the original mail, chromebooks are NOT
> an option.
>
> > If you need more than what chromeos offers then you can put it in
> > developer mode and use crouton to install linux along side chromeos.
> > If you do plan to do that I would recommend avoiding the ARM based
> > chromebooks.
>
> As stated (relatively clearly) in the original mail, chromebooks are NOT
> an option.
>
> > Still with chromebooks (not all yet) supporting android
> > apps as well as chromeos and the crouton linux install option they
> > are pretty much a very powerful platform for just about anything you
> > can imagine.
>
> As stated (relatively clearly) in the original mail, chromebooks are NOT
> an option.
>
> > I am on my second chromebook of 3 in this house.  I am typing to you
> >  from it on an Acer R11.  It has android app support, and right now
> > typing this from within the ubuntu trusty chroot in qtile and opera.
> >  But for testament of power I have used chromebooks with the crouton
> >  chroot to run realtime audio synthesis and dj mixes from stage.  Do
> >  not under estimate what can be done with a chromebook.  And because
> >  it is already a linux based machine all the hardware pretty much
> > works from within the chroot.  And yes you could run a full blown
> > unity setup if you wish.
>
> This is all great, but as stated (relatively clearly) in the original
> mail, chromebooks are NOT an option.
>
> > Caveats on distro, crouton is pretty much debian or ubuntu based
> > distro install only.  And if you want touch screen support at present
> > it is ubuntu based only.
>
> As stated (relatively clearly) in the original mail, chromebooks are NOT
> an option.
>
> > On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Matt Pusateri via TriLUG <
> > trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> >
> >> I happen to know that Lenovo T450’s and T460’s run RHEL and Fedora
> >>  pretty well.  So I imagine that they’d run other distro’s well
> >> too.
> >>
> >>> On Feb 19, 2017, at 10:47 AM, Thomas Delrue via TriLUG <
> >> trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hey all,
> >>>
> >>> A friend of mine is looking to buy a new laptop(*) with a budget
> >>>  of roughly 1000-1200 USD. Obviously, this device will run
> >>> $YOUR_FAVORITE_DISTRO Linux. It's purpose is not to do heavy
> >>> computing but mostly use it for what your grandma would use it
> >>> for: i.e. browsing, listening to music, some minor photo editing
> >>>  and -but this is aspirational- maybe some video editing.
> >>>
> >>> What are the recommendations for laptops these days and what are
> >>>  some common pitfalls that could prevent putting Linux on it?
> >>> We've looked at System76 and I think he's looked at those offered
> >>> by Costco but he was underwhelmed by all of them.
> >>>
> >>> (*) chromebooks are not an option
>
>