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by aborsy 1290 days ago
What is currently the best lightweight Linux laptop on market? I hear mixed reviews on System76 construction quality.

I run Ubuntu or Fedora on my laptops and desktops.

I was looking into MacBook Air, for battery life, weight and keyboard, but don’t want this MacOS black box.

How is Linux on a MacBook Air?
5 comments
NateEag 1290 days ago
The Framework isn't bad.

I've had a few freezes on my recently-purchased 12th gen running NixOS, but I've juste applied the documented workarounds for the issue and am waiting to see if those resolve it.

Other than that, it's been a surprisingly solid experience. Sleep on lid close, wake on open, Bluetooth just recognized my ear buds, fingerprint scanner just worked after I enabled it... not a bad setup.

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bakoo 1290 days ago
> How is Linux on a MacBook Air?

In my experience, older (pre-T2 and Apple silicon) models are relatively easy to get working.

I'm currently running Linux Mint 21 on an Air 2017 that was excruciatingly slow when running mac OS, and it got a lot snappier on linux. The drive is still slow, and I'd love to replace it, but the adapter that supposedly lets you connect an M2 NVMe to that silly we're-so-so-special-and-you-can't-have-an-M2 port didn't work with the spare drive I had on hand.

Oh, and due to restrictive licensing (on Apple or Broadcom's part) the wifi drivers and webcam firmware can't be included in the Mint installation media, so I had to bluetooth tether my mac to my phone to download and install the correct wifi drivers, and also had to download and install the webcam firmware manually.

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ArcMex 1290 days ago
Regarding Apple Silicon, last I checked Asahi Linux had made some significant strides but with drivers YMMV. Might be worth looking into if you’re serious about running Linux on Apple Silicon. As for Intel, I’m not too sure. About as mature as it’s been for a while now, I reckon.
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hawk_ 1290 days ago
LG Gram series has a few light ones, have been using linux mint xfce4 on one for daily dev.
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ghaff 1290 days ago
The Lenovos tend to be pretty good for Fedora. (They're the standard systems that Red Hat gives associates for Linux.) Dell XPS 13 seem like nice systems as well and can ship with Ubuntu.
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