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Linux gaming laptop recomendations
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nattydread Mar 22, 2017
I'm looking into buying a gaming laptop, minimum NVIDIA 1060 graphics card.

Anyone recommend one?

The ASUS Strix 17.3" GL702VM
stands out, does anyone run linux on one?

I used to rate ASUS as being fairly linux friendly but the last ASUS laptop I encountered wasn't so much.

P.S I'm in the UK before you recommend the US linux stores!
MaCroX95 Mar 22, 2017
Just make sure that it isn't the optimus laptop with both IntelHD and Nvidia because we keep having trouble, hdmi sound problems and overheating with such laptops...
nattydread Mar 22, 2017
Yeah I know to avoid optimus,
the ASUS Strix doesn't have it, but G-sync instead.
Thanks!
nattydread Mar 24, 2017
Well I bit the bullet and bought it.
Installation of linux mint 18.1 was pretty straightforward apart from a bug in the installer. At first I tried to do it connected to the internet and it failed to write grub2 to the efi partition. But when I tried again disconnected it worked! Yay!

Nice machine! Everything seems to be working so far...
GloriousEggroll Mar 25, 2017
good to hear you found one that worked, i was going to suggest checking out some of the newer dells. for laptops they've been pumping out some nice ones lately.

Last year I grabbed Dell's Inspiron 15 7559, it works great, actually I love the thing to death, currently running Arch on it, everything was compatible out of the box. I use latest nvidia proprietary drivers, no bumblebee, nvidia driver passes through to modesetting using prime and an xrandr script launched by lightdm.

Specs: gtx 960m, i7 6700hq, 8gb ddr3l (i upgraded this to 16), 1tb sshd, m.2 slot (i put a 256gb m.2 drive in here, no nvme support though). audio/mic combo single jack, 3x usb 3.0, ethernet, wifi, hdmi out, sd card reader, built in mic and cam, really nice IPS panel screen. fantastic touchpad that isnt overly sensitive, really nice full size keyboard also. screen is also upgradeable to 4k UHD

It's a bit older compared to brand new systems out now, but it's a rock solid laptop, runs linux natively with no issues, and the build quality is great. Dell really surprised me, as I'm normally not a fan. It was one of the best gaming laptops I could find that didn't have "gaudy gaming laptop design" - ie weird angled edges, super thick, and glowy shit everywhere. its very clean looking. If anyone is looking for a linux laptop later and not concerned with the newest of the new, I'd say get this one on sale:

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-i7559-2512BLK-Generation-GeForce/dp/B015PYZ0J6
nattydread Mar 25, 2017
Dell are pretty good for linux in general and I like their newer machines.
I have a dell high spec workstation at work with 24 cores! (running CentOS)

My only complaint about the new asus is the wifi. It seems pretty flakey (intel 7265 chip), but it seems to be router dependent. At home it is pretty stable, maybe drops connection once or twice in an evening. at work it can't hold a stable connection for more than a a few seconds.

The GTX 1060 is one powerful graphics chip. So glad the laptop cards are nearly as good as the desktop ones now.
Haven't had a chance to try a demanding game yet though...
_J_30000 Jul 6, 2017
Any further views ? I am looking for something with a 15ish" screen and am wondering why people are so optimus sceptical ?

what is with the overheating on those machines ?

any recommendations for a machine
MaCroX95 Jul 6, 2017
Quoting: JAny further views ? I am looking for something with a 15ish" screen and am wondering why people are so optimus sceptical ?

what is with the overheating on those machines ?

any recommendations for a machine

We're optimus sceptical because we own optimus device and it turns out that it is a complete garbage on linux thx to Nvidia and archaic XORG... the thing is that you can either have intel card or Nvidia card active, if you switch the active card you need to log out and relog into xserver to switch the GPU you'd like to use. Also I've seen some odd behavior that my laptop would overheat eventhough I was using only Intel GPU and when I checked actually both GPUs were active and were heating and draining my laptop's battery... I also never got my HDMI audio to work for some weird reason... it's just that optimus isn't properly and officially supported on linux and you will always have issues with it.
Avehicle7887 Jul 6, 2017
Quoting: MaCroX95
Quoting: JAny further views ? I am looking for something with a 15ish" screen and am wondering why people are so optimus sceptical ?

what is with the overheating on those machines ?

any recommendations for a machine

We're optimus sceptical because we own optimus device and it turns out that it is a complete garbage on linux thx to Nvidia and archaic XORG... the thing is that you can either have intel card or Nvidia card active, if you switch the active card you need to log out and relog into xserver to switch the GPU you'd like to use. Also I've seen some odd behavior that my laptop would overheat eventhough I was using only Intel GPU and when I checked actually both GPUs were active and were heating and draining my laptop's battery... I also never got my HDMI audio to work for some weird reason... it's just that optimus isn't properly and officially supported on linux and you will always have issues with it.

I'm in the same boat as J and was looking a bit into this. Apparently you can't disable the Intel GPU completely and force the laptop to use the Nvidia card only, simply because the Intel GPU is also used as a bridge (passthrough) between your laptop display and the Nvidia GPU.

As for your HDMI audio problem though, have you checked your Hardware and Output Sources? My monitor has built in speakers and the only way I can use them is by manually switching the output source from the 'Onboard Audio' to 'HDMI'.

Thanks for the info regarding Optimus. :-)
_J_30000 Jul 8, 2017
yeah bit surprised by the negative reaction to optimus as I used to have a laptop with gtx765m about 4 years ago and that was not a massive problem... at least from memory....

so any direct recommendations ?
MaCroX95 Jul 8, 2017
Quoting: Avehicle7887
Quoting: MaCroX95
Quoting: JAny further views ? I am looking for something with a 15ish" screen and am wondering why people are so optimus sceptical ?

what is with the overheating on those machines ?

any recommendations for a machine

We're optimus sceptical because we own optimus device and it turns out that it is a complete garbage on linux thx to Nvidia and archaic XORG... the thing is that you can either have intel card or Nvidia card active, if you switch the active card you need to log out and relog into xserver to switch the GPU you'd like to use. Also I've seen some odd behavior that my laptop would overheat eventhough I was using only Intel GPU and when I checked actually both GPUs were active and were heating and draining my laptop's battery... I also never got my HDMI audio to work for some weird reason... it's just that optimus isn't properly and officially supported on linux and you will always have issues with it.

I'm in the same boat as J and was looking a bit into this. Apparently you can't disable the Intel GPU completely and force the laptop to use the Nvidia card only, simply because the Intel GPU is also used as a bridge (passthrough) between your laptop display and the Nvidia GPU.

As for your HDMI audio problem though, have you checked your Hardware and Output Sources? My monitor has built in speakers and the only way I can use them is by manually switching the output source from the 'Onboard Audio' to 'HDMI'.

Thanks for the info regarding Optimus. :-)

I've literally tried every possible solution that was out there and never managed to get HDMI sound working anyhow (on linux), there isn't even the source for HDMI sound existing. And yeah, if using Nvidia, it's impossible to completely turn of Intel GPU so laptop overheats very much (way more than in WIndows)... Luckily these days I only use this laptop for work because I have PC for gaming, but a few years ago when I switched to Linux and tried to game on this laptop it was really a hell.

Quoting: Jyeah bit surprised by the negative reaction to optimus as I used to have a laptop with gtx765m about 4 years ago and that was not a massive problem... at least from memory....

so any direct recommendations ?

My recommendation would be: Either buy a laptop that comes preinstalled and manufacturer supports linux OR if you know what you're doing check online on forums and similar about the compatibility of the gaming laptop with Linux-based OSs. Trust me it's the worst thing to throw the money and find out that you're forced to use Windows for the full experience so you can't do too much research :) If you need a gaming laptop take the one from which the motherboard doesn't even support optimus so Intel's HD gpu that comes with processor will not even be able to turn on and not make overheating and other problems. There are a lot of cool gaming laptops and workstations that shouldn't have any problem with linux, just avoid the optimus technology and check if all the hardware is tested on linux and if it performs well for others.
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