Irwin: See my responses in-line. On Tue, 2016-11-22 at 15:53 -0500, Irwin Barrer via talk wrote:
Dear Talk List Members
I am brand new to Linux, open source, etc. I am a user, not a developer.
Glad you are giving Linux a try. It is an excellent OS and platform for computing.
I am interested in buying a laptop and installing Ubuntu on it—I like the idea of a free alternative to Windows or MacOS, and price is a big factor.
I do not know what your price range is, but I assume it is less that $949 (US) since that is the cost of the Dell XPS 13. want to throw out a couple of decent options: * System76 Lemur ($699 w/ Ubuntu Installed) - https://system76.com/lap tops/lemur * Shop the Lenovo Outlet - http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/laptops/ #facet-1=1,2&facet-3=14,19 The Lenovo T540/440 and 550/450 units are known to be Linux friendly. You would have to search to see how Linux friendly the 560/460 range is.
A while back I saw some relatively inexpensive laptops on Dell with Ubuntu preinstalled. Unfortunately these are no longer available and only a high-end developer system is available with Ubuntu preinstalled.
Dell also has a good document on installing Ubuntu: http://www.dell.com/ support/article/us/en/19/SLN151664/en
So I have started looking into laptops with Chrome OS (Chromebooks) and installing Ubuntu. I’ve done some research, but still uncertain. Intel processors seem to be a must and 4GB RAM—which is the most I can find on a Chromebook.
I would personally trend away from the Chromebooks due to their having a much smaller hard drive. With research you can likely find out if the sub $400 laptops made by Dell still work well with Ubuntu or not. Charles