After posting a thread on which linux will work best on a specific brand and model of laptop, I realize I've been doing this backwards. Instead of getting a laptop and then saying "what will run on it" I should be asking, "what laptop(s) will run *nix easily".

My goal is to have a laptop that will dual-boot WIndows (probably 7, if only to take advantage of more than 4 gig ram, though i would not say "no" to XP) and a *nix. The laptop should be able to run unix/linux/bsd without me having to hunt for drivers or recompile the kernel. While running on the )nix side, the laptop should not use up battery power at an unusally high rate. The laptop should not be hot enough to make toast. Power management should use sensible CPU scaling "out of the box".

If any one can recommend such a machine, that would be wonderful.

Thank you very much, in advance.

p.s. Not directly unix-related, but I'd like a laptop with a full keyboard (num-pad, home, page up and page down and end keys) and it would be most excellent to be able to change the battery and the hard drive without difficulty. Say just open a door or, at worse, remove a regular screw or two with a regular screwdriver.

Sorry to be a petty arse, but *nix is a reference to all unix like environments, including MANY that do NOT run at all on any intel based architecture. Good luck finding any laptop that will run AIX or HPUX.

I've not had to tweak ANYTHING to run ANY version of linux on ANY laptop I've had for years now.

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I'd recommend you get one that is current within the last few years. I also agree with Windows 7 over 8.

I've had no problems with Acer, Asus, Dell, Leonovo, and HP.

One comes to mind and I just walked over to check it's make and model. Toshiba NB305. We've had it for a couple of years and I think we paid under $400 for it, maybe even under $300. Either case, we have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse attached up to it, so we have full sized desktop additions; we use that machine a ton under Windows (XP actually) and it works pretty well, not like a top end device, but it holds it's own. I've also run Ubuntu on that machine.

The ones I've used the most are Acer and Asus; however in those we bought the equivalent of netbooks; they're 7 or 8 inch screens, very lightweight, almost like cheap throwaway plastic. The reason we bought them was we always needed a "computer" nearby certain stations to be able to test and take outside when we test equipment outside. Since they're so lightweight, have WIFI, most are ATOM processors or equivalent, hence the batteries last a long time too. The downside is that while they can run Windows, they can't run too many applications under Windows, well. All runs, it just takes longer.

It you want to go ultra-slim, try a Samsung Series 9; that's my personal laptop; not a bad machine. I run Windows 7 and do C# development on that, but also boot to Ubuntu on it. I'd say the most striking thing about that one is that it boots so fast that it's not even noticeable. From power on to full Windows screen takes about 15 seconds. The drawbacks are if you wish to attach an external monitor or cabled Ethernet you need adapters, the Ethernet one comes with it, but not a VGA, it will plug directly to HDMI; we just don't have many HDMI monitors. I've also never found it to be hot, in fact it's mostly cool because the case is metal and so when you touch it you feel the metallic coolness versus some very hot spot in a certain area.

They all run Linux fine, many of those come with a Linux offering free and it costs extra (of course) to get them with Windows. We run Ubuntu and MINT on those.

In the end it depends what you want to do with it. If it's work and a spare like we've been doing, consider my recommendations. If it's for personal use and your intentions are gaming, movies, or something multimedia related, then get fastest processor and highest RAM, highest hard drive space. All that will make it high temperature.

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i would check out system76.

related thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post5055922

I've used Linux on Dell and Asus laptops and had it run quite nicely. The only quirk is that Dell likes Broadcom, and Broadcom can take some extra steps to set up.

One of my LUG members swears by Lenovo. I've also installed it on an old HP.

Generally, I would say the brand of laptop is less important than the architecture of the individual machine. Intel architecture, which is what I have most experience with, tends to work very well with Linux.

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As does AMD.

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Whoa whoa whoa ... I just wanted to avoid any distro wars by being as general as possible in my wording. also, I don't want to limit myself to just Linux when I know that there are variants of BSD out there.

Thank you, everyone, for the many recommendations. Much to think on.