Can you recommend a good subnotebook/ultrabook for Trisquel 6
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Hi,
I would like to purchase a subnotebook/ultrabook for my wife and I would like to install Trisquel 6 on it.
Could you recommend any model (except the very expensive ones) which would be 100% of hardware compatible with Trisquel?
Most of what my wife will be doing is typing medical notes, so a decent keyboard is also important.
Thanks for any pointers!
Cheers,
Farik
The Royal Penguin is great (I have one), though not particularly small for a subnotebook (13.38" x 9.75" x 0.84", according to my measurements). Unfortunately, you missed it; Think Penguin[0] doesn't sell this model anymore (at least not normally; I think that they have been known to sell unlisted items specially to people who asked). I assume they are probably going to start selling a new subnotebook/"ultrabook" model at some point; the question is when (maybe Chris, Think Penguin's CEO, can answer that; he's a user of this forum).
Think Penguin is in general the best place to get new hardware; the store makes a point of only selling hardware that works well with free software, and if you go there via "libre.thinkpenguin.com" (as opposed to just "thinkpenguin.com"), 25% of the profits get donated to Trisquel.
Think Penguin is awesome, and they are offering the Emperor model: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/emperor-penguin-gnu-linux-notebook but its 600 bucks for a basic model. I wish I had the money, and I am sure that you get your money's worth with these. I wonder if they have returned or refurbished models... Do you know?
Thanks,
Farik
If you're looking for something cheap, that's hard. Guaranteed freedom has a cost. :) The best you can do if you need something cheaper than what Think Penguin offers is to either test or search for on h-node[0] cheap laptops you find somewhere else (e.g. an electronics store). The common problems are:
- Lack of 3-D acceleration. To avoid this, get something with an Intel CPU; Intel integrated graphics have officially supported free drivers and firmware.
- Lack of wireless. This one is really hard to avoid, but your best bet is a wireless card from Atheros, and I think you also want to avoid the WiFi/Bluetooth combos. Alternatively, if you can't find a laptop with a working wireless card, you can get a USB adapter from Think Penguin.
Also note that some of them use some weird thing that prevents using certain Fn keys, like enabling and disabling the touchpad, from working without some sort of proprietary software that runs on Windows (I've experienced this with a couple of Toshiba laptops), so check for that.
Asus X201E works entirely with free software, you only have to remove the EFI partition with an Ubuntu liveusb first than installing Trisquel.
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