I've always had mixed results installing Linux on laptops that shipped with Windows. It mostly works, but there's always been issues of varying severity.
The key is budget... mostly looking at super cheap corporate refurbs.
Gonna take a moment to shill for Bauer, they have a good selection of refurb corpo laptops. I've bought from them many times, they ship from Ontario: https://www.bauersystems.com/price-list/
On Wed, Dec 20, 2023 at 10:35 PM Trevor Cordes trevor@tecnopolis.ca wrote:
I'm looking at getting a cheap, small, light laptop (real laptop, not ChromeBook) for travelling, and I'll probably just hose any Windows and put on Linux. In the $300-$800 space there are lots of laptops with "Windows For Education" and "Windows <whatever> In S Mode". Is there any impediment to me buying those and hosing the Windows and installing Linux?
Have they done any more with locking down the secureboot thing and making it so I absolutely cannot install Linux? If I can't turn it into a Linux box, it's useless to me.
And a second question: is it still pretty normal to install Linux on more "normal" laptops, like HP or Asus ones that are 1-2 years old with normal i5's or Ryzen 5's? I know the old adage is "avoid Acer", but beyond that will most of the core components/drivers work: Intel o/b video, wifi, sound card. I don't really care about webcam or lid-sleeping, though of course wouldn't turn my nose up at them.
The key is budget... mostly looking at super cheap corporate refurbs. Just want to have a couple of nice newer-ish Linux laptops, one for travel, and one for wife stuff, that also can do Win7 virtualized (don't ask! seriously!). _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable