Best laptops for NixOS

I am running it on

  1. ASUS Zenbook 14 (2018 model)
  2. HP Envy 13 (2019 model)
  3. Thinkpad T470p (with Nvidia GPU)

And everything worked out pretty nicely.

Be sure to get a hard drive that’s big enough. My machine (3 year old Dell Inspiron, works beautifully) hit the memory ceiling yesterday. Collecting garbage freed 30 GB, and deleting some other stuff freed another 10 GB, but still that’s a little tighter than I’d’ like.

I’m on a low budget and got myself a Sony Vaio vgn-aw41zf (Intel CoreDuo, 4 GB RAM, KDE) from Ebay. Works like a charm. Only tweak: Swapped HDD for SSD.

I never tried to hibernate.

This beast got a BluRay player built in and if I want to play a commercial video I have to dualboot into WINX.

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I should have mentioned – the machine that ran out of memory has 226 GB on the main partition.

Currently Thinkpad P53 :+1:

Formerly Dell XPS15 but too many hardware problems (swollen battery, screen failure …)

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I like my System76 Darter Pro 6. Had to package some kernel drivers, but luckily others had carved a path.

Only downside is you’re locked to whatever kernel is currently supported by PopOS! (5.7.6 works as of this writing)

Config here: System76 Flakes - #4 by mwilsoncoding

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Thanks! I might give this a try when I switch to NixOS 20.09. It seems Nouveau also might support this mode of operation so I’ll try that as well.

Im using HP ProBook 450 G5 since 2018. Currently on 20.03. The only problem I have is that bluetooth is unstable after hibernation. Otherwise all good, I’m using: camera, microphone, headphones, sleep, hibernation, wifi, bluetooth, camera, multiple ssd’s, external monitors using hdmi, usbc, vga, backlight, network printing. Not sure about HW graphics accelleration, I’ve never tested that. I’ve run NixOS on previous version of HP probook with success as well.

the hp laptop config: GitHub - ktor/nixos: NixOS notebook config used for programming and office work

Pretty much any ThinkPad would work well. I run it on a T440 (not recommended) and a T495 (recommended).

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Lenovo recently released T14 AMD and T14s AMD, which is probably what I’d buy given the performance/price difference with Intel. Linux support is reportedly great as long as you use the newer kernel.

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I’ve installed GPU drivers for X as described on NixOS manual, Nvidia - NixOS Wiki. Whoever wrote the manual, thank you! It’s working and is much faster then before:) However I had a problem with redshift package. Had to turn it off because some of the windows were flickering.

enable nvidia gpu, turn off redshit: caused some windows to flicker w… · ktor/nixos@d677331 · GitHub

Have you figured out the cause? In my case, sound stopped working on day 1 of the X1C7 somewhere during the upgrades. Reboot doesn’t have any effect. I see the device in alsamixer, etc. - but no playback.

EDIT: This resolved on its own after nixos update.

Are you willing/able to bisect to find the commit that breaks your sound support?

Hi

New here and getting into Nix, first as a test on a iMac and works nicely for now.
I am interested to buy a 2in1 to use Nix (or Arch, like I am quite used too).

When Nix supports 2in1 I go for that.

But on the Nix hardware page there aren’t 2in1’s?
Do you think that all functions (touch included) will work on a Dell 2in1 13" or a HP Envy 2in1 13"?

Kind regards
Bart

I know that the touch screen works on Dell XPS, so would be surprised if it didn’t on the Dell 2in1. Not sure about the other hardware specs, so don’t take my word for it :man_shrugging:

Thanks.
And what do you think about the switch to tablet mode from desktop mode?
Could that work and if not what’s the different between Nix and Arch in that regard?
No Nix users with 2in1’s here, maybe I have to start a new topic.

I just wanna chime in with my experience. Running it on a T480 without the nvidia gpu. My configuration & specs are here. It’s a fairly basic configuration, I don’t need anything fancy really. Running 21.05, works pretty well so far. Haven’t ran into any problems.

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I am using a surface book 2. It’s not the most reasonable choice by any measure, but it’s what I had and the linux support is pretty good these days. Basically everything but the cameras works.

But I wouldn’t recommend it on anybody. It’s just too expensive for what it offers.

It’s just really telling for how good the nixos hardware support is.

I’ve recently been using a Surface Pro 6. Only thing that is problematic is the camera, but that’s true for all the distro’s at this point. (See the linux-surface effort)

I’ve also used a few Dell XPS 15 that worked wonderfully.

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I have both a Lenovo T14 and an X1. Both work perfectly. The T14 was much easier to configure right. My understanding is that there are two laptop manufacturers that support Linux well: Lenovo (great hardware, poor website) and Dell (cheaper hardware). I also tried Macs over the years and I can confidently say you’ll waste too much time trying to make unfree drivers work. Not worth the effort.