PPS: Please at least TRY to read the following (if possible, not just the title) with an open mind and in a spirit of tolerance. It was written in good faith by a Linux user who will be staying on Linux.
PPPS: Among all the mean-spirited downvoting and insults and calumny (hey, this is social media) I actually learned a few useful things from this discussion. Perhaps the highlight was the tip about an obscure crowdfunded project which really fits the bill. Too late this time but I’m hopeful such projects, including Pine and Framework, might be become more available and more affordable in future.
PPPPS: I do not reply to downvoters (after all, you’re declaring you don’t care what I have to say). Or to people who obviously have not read beyond the title. Sorry. My post is very clear and I cannot express what I wrote better. In summary: There is a worsening problem with Linux compatibility on low-end hardware, due to the decline of desktop computing and in particular to the insurgency of ARM and Mediatek. It may hurt to hear it but it’s true and we should care about it. Thanks to those who offered constructive feedback.
I’m frustrated. Once again, I have had to buy a computer I didn’t want in order to stay on Linux.
Some background. Compared to most people in this forum, I am a somewhat normal computer user. That is, I have not touched a mouse in decades, I use a small lightweight low-end laptop (which is not slow on Linux), and I do not take anything to pieces. To be clear, I’m a programmer and a massive FOSS idealist. But I’ve never been interested in hardware, and in this respect I’m a complete normie. Let’s not forget that for most ordinary people, a “computer” these days is the tethered corporate toy in their pocket.
For me this slide away from free personal computing is now getting impossible to ignore.
- 20 years ago I could buy a laptop (a Fujitsu) from a major European electronics retailer which came with a Linux CD - a Linux CD! (Kanotix, a Debian variant).
- In the late 2010s, I had a nice choice of cheap Taiwanese Wintel netbooks. So there was a Windows tax to pay but at least the hardware worked fine.
- 4 years ago, the options were getting thin on the ground. For 400€ I could find only one Linux-compatible X86 laptop, made by Acer. And since I didn’t have a Linux live USB, I had to (fake-) register the thing with Microsoft in order to get access to the damn web.
- Today, there’s almost nothing left. Intel laptops have all but disappeared from the budget aisle, replaced by ARM-powered Chromebooks and, increasingly, big Android tablets with keyboards. Putting non-spyware Linux on these things is often possible, sort of, but it’s a nightmare. You’re back to the 2010 era of ROM-flashing on Android, using repos from random developers and wading through impenetrable forum discussions. It’s a massive PITA. This is not the way computing should be done, and normal users will never do it even if they were capable. It’s hardly secure either.
The geeky suggestion which I can hear coming, “buy a secondhand Thinkpad”, is not a proper solution. It’s a band-aid fix with a timeout (PS: meaning it’s on the way to EOL). Hardware from the likes of Tuxedo and Framework is nice but too heavy (PS: correction, Framework is not heavy) and way too expensive for me. The Pinebook Pro is always out of stock.
And anyway, for years I have wanted to move from a laptop to a convertible tablet (like the Surface or Lenovo’s Yoga and Duet lines) (PS: meaning the form factor pioneered by those models, the cheap options these days are invariably on ARM). It makes so much sense ergonomically and even in terms of maintenance. (Keyboards have moving parts. I have to change my Acer because it has a faulty keyboard which cannot be fixed except professionally at prohibitive cost. Crazy.) But none of these computers are easily compatible with Linux. It’s possible, yes, but hardly simple.
I considered, for a fleeting moment, throwing in the towel. After 20 years.
And then bought yet another laptop, basically the same model as last time except a Chromebook. I know I’ll get an OS I control onto it without too much stress. That’s a relief. But I’m more worried than ever about how this story is going to end.
PS: I should have predicted the bitterness and negativity and cynicism I would provoke simply by sharing my thoughts and feelings in good faith. Social media is absolutely incorrigible. In the meantime I will of course be staying on Linux, as I thought I described.
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https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bundleId=21R3CTO1WWUS1
New Lenovo ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Intel (14″). You get a $94 Windows tax deduction when you configure it with Ubuntu.
Yeah, after reading your whole post, I don’t understand why you are so frustrated.
You mention finding a Linux compatible laptop, but it doesn’t seem hard. I didn’t even go the thinkpad route, I got an IdeaPad. And even afterwards, I swapped it for a OneXPlayer. On top of that I have two XPS’s running Arch. And that’s just laptops, I also built a gaming PC for it. And I have a docker host plus a dual socket hypervisor both running Linux.
I just don’t feel like it is particularly hard to find a Linux compatible laptop, sure I had to update a wireless card to use my Bluetooth 5.3 headset, but beyond that I simply haven’t had an issue. In terms of a convertible laptop, check out the company I linked the product I got may suit you, or if it is too small look at the Super. Even way it is literally an x86_64 tablet with a magnetic keyboard.
Edit: fair warning, the display is top right (1600x2560) and I had to rotate it via limine Linux kernel parameters and hyprland. Also, it doesn’t like cachyos for the same reason. Arch with linux-cachyos via chaotic aur? That works fine. No idea what breaks it, but I rather like omarchy anyways and didn’t wanna change back.
I’m not really sure what you’re complaining about here. Laptops are too expensive? Yeah, so is everything else. That has nothing to do with Linux. And why would buying a second hand machine be a temporary solution? Laptops are always being phased out and flogged off for cheap. And you can run Linux on pretty much any x86 machine, now and in the foreseeable future.
At this rate there won’t be any left. Did you read what I wrote closely, or just the vibes part?
PS: to be clear, literally all your questions are answered in my post.
400€ in 2006-money is 600€ today. Starlabs used to have a cheap model, but I guess it’s hard for anyone to be in the budget segment with RAM prices these days. I bought a huawei matebook a few years back for about 600€ - they’re sold with Linux pre-installed in China, but not here. But that means that stuff is well-supported.
In my mind the landscape is quite a bit better than 20 years ago. You’d have to pick and choose a model that worked well then. Chipsets are usually well supported by the time they are in laptops today.
The Microsoft tax has been under pretty heavy NDAs lately, but it wouldn’t surprise me if M$ were paying to be pre-installed. They’re in the data mining business, not operating systems in 2026.
But yes, we’re all still waiting for the year of the Linux desktop.
Chipsets are usually well supported by the time they are in laptops today.
I don’t get where you’re coming from, unless you’re talking exclusively about expensive, heavy, Intel-powered laptops. The cheaper ones are now moving en-masse to ARM and Mediatek, along with the convertible tablets that are replacing them. All this stuff (and there’s lots of it) is all but incompatible with Linux.
I’m coming from the past, back when the distribution came on two HD diskettes named Linux 0.99b. It was a gradual change to come to the point where you could just assume that you’d have a good time on Linux. I guess static kernel modules was the starting point, and even then it took years. Remember, We’ve only had loadable kernel modules since 2011.
linux-on-laptops.com was invaluable before making a purchase.
ARM is a different story, mostly hindered by not having any universal way of booting and detecting hardware.
I see what you mean and as someone who owns a surface pro collecting dust they’re still working towards putting Linux on, I understand the barrier to entry that a normal computer user like my mother would face in the event that they needed to do this. You are correct about it being similar to loading roms on Android phones or tablets during the early 2000’s, and even though there are a lot of reputable repos and flavors of Linux to choose from, I can see your point about the dwindling number of computers that either come with Linux out of the box, let you choose to buy without an operating system, or don’t require you to load up windows to download that necessary bootable USB.
And you’re right about buying used hardware. That hardware is dwindling in stock and even if it wasn’t it’ll only operate for so long without needing repairs.
Linux users (as someone who’s newer to Linux) very often talk over the heads of the people they talk to online, assuming a certain level of knowledge that’s absolutely not there for a normal person. Some of us need step by step instructions and a lot of the solutions I see here and other forums just throw out a bunch of jargon as a solution without a guide.
We need guides, people. Or at the very least something we can Google.
But we also need hardware that’s reasonable and affordable which is a PITA now that AI has just taken over the consumer hardware space and pushed it to the back burner.
There’s absolutely a reason that people are excited about Valve popularizing hardware that comes stock with Linux. I still don’t have a driver for the fingerprint reader on my ROG Ally X and I can only imagine the problems when the laptop or computer you can afford isn’t one targeted by a dev to be compatible.
Just because most things work doesn’t mean everything works as it should. There will absolutely be headaches a normie computer user will have no idea how to fix.
Everything you just said can be fixed by buying Thinkpads. All of them are supported because some companies use Linux at an enterprise level. Until those corporations disappear, Linux will never stop being supported on them. I see a lot of doom and gooom that is frankly unhelpful especially now that the Microslop monopoly is clearly breaking down and there is more potential for Linux than ever before.
The average person. I’m going to repeat that because apparently you missed it. The average person isn’t buying used computers from enterprise resellers.
A new entry level Thinkpad from Lenovo is $935.10 on Lenovo’s website right now and it comes with copilot. Buying used is a crapshoot because lots of those surplus or used business ones are being resold without RAM or in some cases Harddrives, which will obvious drive up the cost and that supply will be finite going forward as the RAM and components shortages continue. You don’t even have to take my word for it.
Here is a guy who was salvaging business class laptops, refurbishing them and installing Linux to sell them to people who can’t afford the new tech price increases and even he has been forced to give up doing that.
It’s not about Linux not being supported. It’s about barrier to entry.
My mother is not buying and installing RAM. My mother would not know what to do if she had driver issues on Linux.
And where with windows there’s an assumption that you don’t know anything about anything so guides with step by step instructions exist, with Linux, a lot of the time you’ll get some lackluster instructions that assume you have a set amount of knowledge already.
So either you didn’t read everything I said, and you’re just responding to what you think I meant, or alternatively you wrong about what can be fixed by buying thinkpads.
The average person. I’m going to repeat that because apparently you missed it. The average person isn’t buying used computers from enterprise resellers.
The average person is most definitely buying second-hand laptops they can afford from Facebook Marketplace or similar, enterprise-grade or not.
It’s not about Linux not being supported. It’s about barrier to entry.
Linux inherently has a barrier of entry by virtue of having essentially zero manufacturers selling hardware that ships with Linux installed. However I don’t understand why you think price is a barrier of entry. If the majority of laptops are priced from 300 euros up to 4000 in some shops, then that’s what customers are willing to pay. I don’t mean now with the AI boom making everything more expensive either, I mean for the past few years this has been the market. Common people buy new from stores, or buy second-hand.
My mother is not buying and installing RAM. My mother would not know what to do if she had driver issues on Linux.
This issue is not specific to Linux. The used market is flooded with Windows laptops that no longer support windows 11 well due to only having 4-8 GB ram. Same with 8GB Macbooks.
I don’t know why you’re pretending that shopping for an older laptop model is only a problem for the average person if you want it to be Linux compatible. Also your grandmother doesn’t have to do anything. She, like the average person, can take her laptop to a repair shop for servicing and upgrading.
This said, you’re not the average person. You already went the extra mile by installing Linux on devices that don’t ship with from factory. Further, you’re specifically interested in small devices when the average person wants bigger screens, you want your device to be underpowered when the average person wants them as powerful as possible in a slim form factor without compromising on battery. Your rant has nothing to do with what the average person wants, your rant is, sorry to say, a completely self-absorved rant that just shows you’re mad your niche preferences aren’t supported by the Linux community, or the world consumer preferences as a whole.
“The sacrifice of staying on Linux after 20 years”
I mean honestly could this title be any more self-absorbed?
I would ask if you’re a Debian user (or use a Debian-derivative), but what even is the point when I already know the answer.
Lots of companies sell laptops with Linux on them. One is in the Netherlands.
Yes, for 1000€-plus. A decade ago you could go to a big-box store and get a Linux-compatible computer for a fraction of that. Today you cannot.
Starts at about 40% higher than my budget with nothing in the convertible category, or fanless, or just small. All of which is available today from any electronics retailer, but basically incompatible with Linux.
Hopefully specialist sellers like this will begin to move downmarket into these new niches.
Sorry.
No you tried and OP was appreciative of all, just noted it wasn’t within their budget.
Not gonna lie I’m really struggling to sympathize with OP right now. People are trying to drag him out of the doom and gloom and OP just keeps moving the goal posts into a position that nobody can defend.
Frankly, this could be a post complaining about how Macbooks don’t support Windows. Yeah, they don’t, there are multiple options out there though that do, but OP is not interested in them. They want to go back to a time when stores sold hardware that they can no longer sell, and think this post can do it vengeance. Seriously it sounds like a Reddit post. I thought I ran away from there to avoid these types of posts but alas.
Cost: 2x, 3x, 4x what normies are paying for laptops. To repeat myself: unlike 10-20 years ago, you cannot easily put Linux on a low-end commercial laptop any more. I say that’s a problem.
It’s still the same process as it was 20 years ago: boot with CD or USB key, install. What is your problem?
I installed Mint on a very old ThinkPad, and on the cheapest Beelink micro-computer (150 euros).
