[Nottingham] Looking for a new Linux laptop

[Duncan]

On 23/05/16 15:06, Martin via Nottingham wrote:
> On 23/05/16 13:42, Graham Dicker via Nottingham wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> I just had a look online at some cheap laptops at Currys. There are several at 
>> about £150 but would I be able to install OpenSuSE on them? I don't know how 
>> easy it would be to persuade the UEFI to install and boot Linux . Does anyone 
>> know about the sorts of issues I might run into please? I am a long-time Linux 
>> user on a desk machine but I never tried putting it on a laptop before.
> 
> Strangely enough, I too am looking for a new laptop but something that
> is 'lightweight' to replace my antique 1st generation Acer Aspire
> netbook due to near dead batteries that are too expensive to replace...
> 
> 
> As for UEFI:
> 
> That needs a check for whatever model you are looking at that (a) you
> can get into the UEFI and (b) that you can disable the (Microsoft
> specific) 'Secure-boot'.
> 
> 
> Which comes to my question for the list for my netbook replacement:
> 
> What is the present game for subverting a 'Google(ed) Chrome-book' to
> full Linux freedom?
> 

I have Debian running on this Dell that came UEFI enabled.
I had to be careful to have the correct partition layout
(sda1 = /boot , sda2 = /boot/efi , sda3+ = the rest) but didn't have
too many problems (that I remember, it was two years ago).

There were some quirks about with the BIOS UEFI settings which I cannot quite
remember but nothing a bit of guess work and a few reboots didn't resolve.
Hopefully documentation has improved a little since I did it.

To be on the safe side I experimented by installing from one USB stick
onto another USB stick (Debian at least allows you to do this) without
touching the laptop storage and then booting from the second USB stick.
As well as checking UEFI, which I hadn't dealt with before, it
also gave me a chance to make sure Linux supported all of the hardware
(like wireless) before I wiped Windows from it.


Have fun,
Duncan