Linux-friendly laptops

[Doug]

On 07/13/2017 03:34 PM, J. L. wrote:
> On 24.06.2017 17:24, MR ZenWiz wrote:
>> I'm looking at getting (yet anothre) replacement laptop and this time
>> I'd like to buy one that works well with Linux.
>>
>> Current options are:
>>
>> ASUS G751JT (2 of these, possibly 3)
>> Dell M6700 Covet
>>
>> The Dell is slightly more expensive, but I'm leaning toward it because
>> I'm fairly familiar with Dells and they tend to be OS agnostic,
>> durable and reliable.
> Though i don't know the exact Dell-machine You're talking about i can
> only encourage You to go with Dell without the slightest doubt in my mind.
>
> I've been using some 10 Dell-laptops starting in 1999 with a Latitude
> C800 (still running very well 24/7 as a Linux-based firewall after _18_
> years in duty => very nice coming of age!!!); the latest being a
> Latitude D830 and a Precision M4300; admittedly both are already quite
> "old" but both are just doing what they ought to. So why should i
> discard them? And i've got quite a lot of accessories of this
> Latitude-series.
>
> At least my next laptop will most certainly be another Dell ...
>
> Cheers and good luck! :-)
>
This question came up a little while ago on one of the Linux 
threads--don't know which one.
I have three(!) Dell laptops. (Don't ask!) Two of them have Broadcom 
wi-fi cards. I run
PCLinuxOS (pclos) and while there is some driver software, it is a bitch 
to determine what
you need to install, and download some of it from Broadcom, and get 
everything working,
altho it can (could) be done. I believe that Broadcom has been bought 
out or taken over
recently, and I have no idea whether the necessary software is still 
available. That being
said, one of the Dells did NOT have Broadcom hardware, and worked 
easily. One of the
Dells WITH Broadcom hardware was installed with MINT 17 LTS, and it 
worked right out of
the box without installing anything! Since MINT is an offspring of 
Ubuntu, you could be lucky.
Someone with explicit experience should reply to this note.

--doug