> AMD Strix Halo chips

Do you happen to know any laptop that has a) equivalent screen quality (retina resolution), b) keyboard, c) trackpad but with full Linux support where all hardware pheripherals just work?

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STKFLT 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The ThinkPad X1 series usually have great linux support and you can option them with 2.8k@120Hz OLED panels, which at 14" lands between the Air and the 14" Pro in terms of PPI. I have a couple generations old X1 Yoga and all of the hardware worked out of the box with Manjaro and Debian, including the touchscreen and active stylus.

People usually buy them for the keyboards and trackpoint, but imo the touchpad is still pretty solid. It is a bit small on account of the trackpoint buttons taking up vertical real estate but its pretty responsive and multi-touch gestures work perfectly in my experience. I believe newer ones have larger trackpads than mine, though still not as large as a similarly sized mac.

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mikepurvis an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I have a Gen 12 X1 and I'm very happy with it; huge step up over my previous Dell XPS, and all the hardware works great on the latest kernel.

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two_handfuls 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Reminder that Thinkpad's makers, Lenovo, has shipped a laptop preloaded with the Superfish malware (https://easytechsolver.com/what-is-the-lenovo-controversy/)

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TheAmazingRace 11 hours ago | parent [-]

This is true. However, Superfish hasn’t been relevant in years and Lenovo walked back on including such malware going forward as far as I can tell.

And furthermore, Superfish didn’t affect ThinkPads. Only lower end Lenovo models.

	▲	darkwater 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And surely didn't affect Linux installed on it, which is the topic of the thread.

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green7ea 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The HP zbook g1a ultra is as close as you can get with Strix Halo. There are two screen options and the OLED one is high resolution. It's Ubuntu certified as well and can run LLMs nicely. The keyboard, trackpad, etc are all to notch. It's somewhere in between a mac pro and max.

I have one and love it but it's not close to my wife's mac on battery life.

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jim180 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I've yet to understand the point of OLED, if it sits at 400nits. All Apple's devices from iPhone to Studio Display are brighter, some of them are much much brighter even with OLED :/

	▲	rxyz 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Contrast and pixel response time. OLED PC monitors still look amazing even with low all-screen brightness.

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scrlk 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

HP ZBook Ultra G1a? It has Strix Halo, 14" 2880x1800 (242 ppi) 120 Hz VRR OLED, and Ubuntu 24.04 options.

Can't speak for the keyboard, but HP ZBooks/EliteBooks tend to be decent.

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nullpoint420 11 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm typing this post on the 395+ 128gb RAM model. IMO, the keyboard is better than the one in the newest Macbook Pro. Just enough travel, and quiet enough so I don't disturb co-workers when I type.

I use it for development running Fedora Workstation. My job involves spinning up lots of containers and K8S KIND clusters.

I often reach for it instead of my 14" M4 Macbook. However, I will choose the Macbook Pro when I know I'll be away from a charger for a while. The HP, as great as it is, still has bad battery life.

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nullpoint420 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The only downside is that the webcam _does not work_ unless you use Ubuntu 20.04 w/ the OEM kernel package.

The ISP driver which will enable the camera to work is in the process of being up-streamed, though. I believe they're targeting early 2025 for mainline Linux support.

	▲	ayewo 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> early 2025 Is that a typo? There’s barely 4 months left in 2025.

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WesolyKubeczek 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Do you feel a difference between Strix Halo and other x86 machines you could lay your hands on to date? I want one, but with an M2 Max macbook pro and Zen2 desktop it feels very hard to justify.

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diffeomorphism 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> retina resolution

That just means 3024x1964. With other laptops you can either go up a step to 4k or down to OLED 2880xsomething.

	▲	swiftcoder an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Unfortunately it also means a software stack that can properly scale everything for such a display. Windows and Linux both have... issues around UI scaling that make this kind of a pain.

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Demiurge 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Razer Blade is my windows laptop. The hardware is great, MacBook nice, but it needs the chip efficiency.

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dismalaf 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Well, the highest resolution MacBook has less than 4K resolution and there's plenty of 4K laptops out there...

Most "business" centric laptops work great with Linux, as long as you use a well supported distro (Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, openSuse). YMMV if you use other distros...

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simonask 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I think it’s debatable whether full 4K makes any sense on a 14” or 15” screen.

	▲	dismalaf 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Regardless, the parent asked and it's a thing...

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mistercheph 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Your best option is framework IMO.

The 2.8k panels are overall inferior to Apple's across a number of metrics, but they have a higher pixel density than the Air 13, (and has the S-tier aspect ratio of 3:2).

The FW13 keyboard is objectively pretty decent but not perfect, and is much much better than any keyboard Apple has made in the last decade, could be personal preference but apple has been making some pretty bad keyboards for a while now.

Trackpad on FW13 is OK, no one even comes close to Apple, but it's pretty decent, nothing upsetting if you're comparing it to any non-apple trackpads.

Framework has excellent linux suppport, all hardware bells and whistles generally work out of the box on every Linux distro, but Fedora, Ubuntu, and Bazzite are officially supported by Framework they QA against all three and work with maintainers to resolve issues and you can be totally confident that everything will just work. (At least work as well as it would on Windows!)

The other two downsides relative to a macbook are build quality and support. Although the FW13 is pretty solid in practice, I have dropped mine dozens of times and throw it in my bag and treat it overall rough and it has take on some dings and scratches but everything still works. But the frame is not very rigid, it flexes in lots of places, and it just does not feel as nice and solid as a macbook. And support can be hit-or-miss, like with any small manufacturer.

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runjake 12 hours ago | parent [-]

I think you’re talking about Apple’s butterfly keyboards which were only around for 3-4 years of the last decade you’re talking about. Apple’s keyboards have been great for 5+ years now.

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asimovDev 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Agreed. Only issue is that they wear down really fast. Your fingers sand them down at a mindblowing pace, and soon enough all of them are smooth, with most used keys having shiny blemishes on them

	▲	swiftcoder an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		... do you moisturise your hands? Because "sandpaper" shouldn't describe your fingertips
	▲	m-s-y 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		you’re smoothing your fingers wrong
	▲	the_other 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I assumed that was grease.