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...

Yeah I know to avoid optimus,
the ASUS Strix doesn't have it, but G-sync instead.
Thanks!

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...

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

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...

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

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.

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. :-)

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 ?

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.

I have a Tuxedo Laptop with a GTX970, works great. The preinstalled Linux comes with most of the nice gaming stuff already configured.

Optimus isn't that bad with a small app that allows quickly switching and logging out. See: https://github.com/andrebrait/prime-indicator

In the past I also used Bumblebee wich allows you to add a command to your individual steam games and thus do sort off dynamic switching. But it isn't completely bug-free and doesn't work with Vulkan. Not having to log out is nice though.

Never had any serious overheating problems with it, but of course battery performance in general is a bit worse under Linux.

I agree though that HDMI support is a bit spotty. Usually it helps booting the machine with the external screen or projector already plugged in. Plugging it in while the system is already running works but at times behaves oddly.

Quoting: JuliusI have a Tuxedo Laptop with a GTX970, works great. The preinstalled Linux comes with most of the nice gaming stuff already configured.

Optimus isn't that bad with a small app that allows quickly switching and logging out. See: https://github.com/andrebrait/prime-indicator

In the past I also used Bumblebee wich allows you to add a command to your individual steam games and thus do sort off dynamic switching. But it isn't completely bug-free and doesn't work with Vulkan. Not having to log out is nice though.

Never had any serious overheating problems with it, but of course battery performance in general is a bit worse under Linux.

I agree though that HDMI support is a bit spotty. Usually it helps booting the machine with the external screen or projector already plugged in. Plugging it in while the system is already running works but at times behaves oddly.

I guess it's my hardware that has very uncompatible optimus setup, but for the most part I don't think optimus is neccessary, everyone should be better of for linux in terms of battery life and less overheating with only using 1 gpu.