My 1 year old XPS15 has recently failed, and Dell has failed to fix the issue in 3 consecutive services.
It seems I am back in a market for a new laptop, and I intend to use it with a POP OS or other Debian-based distro 100% of time. It will be a software dev purpose most of the time.
Any suggestions for a good alternative to Dell products?
Are these available in Oz? How's their service?
They ship globally. Forgot to include Purism.
Service level I cannot comment on, but it's not going to be at the level of Dell's. Only HP and Lenovo will be able to compete on that front.
From the big guys, maybe browse the US stores for Linux preinstalled options and try to match the hardware on the Australian store. We don't get preinstalled options here.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem…
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/search?text=ubuntu
HP don't have a Linux page that I can find.
I bought a System76 Adder WS a couple of year or two ago. I'd like to say I love it, but honestly I think it is a bit of a lemon for the price. They've since discontinued the model (I suspect because I was not the only one with issues). The main problem I have is the fans on it constantly spin and rev up to 100% even under light load, I don't know if it's a thermal paste issue or what but it can be quite frustrating.
Having said that, their support/comms is top notch and I was happy to pay the extra to support them since there are basically no competitors in the Linux-first market. Go for one of their established models and you should be fine. Shipping and import duties were a killer, however.
Lenovo always has great linux compatibility. Particularly their Thinkpad range.
Highly recommend sticking with Intel chipsets and Intel wifi cards. I've had nothing but trouble in the past with current gen Ryzen or Realtek wifi. Recommend getting an older model if you're an AMD fan.
any laptop will work as long as you have the driver support.
you can check at https://linux-hardware.org/
mostly wifi drivers etc is the culprit, as you are already looking for running linux, I assume you can complie a driver or load a firmware in worst case.
I had the same question earlier this year. Went with a Lenovo Thinkpad P53 as I found an official-looking document on how to install drivers for Debian.
Works well so far. Even the fingerprint scanner works.
https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/lenovo_thinkp…
Obvious answer is System76 (POP OS vendors), Slimbook or Tuxedo who all make preinstalled Linux laptops.