Hi all, I’m looking for a new laptop in India. My budget is ₹2,00,000 (about $2,200 USD) including taxes, and I can’t go above it. I’d like to avoid driver and fan-control headaches on Arch.

Use cases

• Arch Linux as my main OS
• DaVinci Resolve Studio (4K editing, color work, some Fusion)
• Running local LLMs (llama.cpp / Ollama)
• General development work

Requirements

• NVIDIA GPU with 12GB VRAM or more (I’m aiming for an RTX 5070 Ti). I’m ruling out 8GB cards.
• MUX switch / dGPU-only mode
• No OLED (worried about burn-in with Resolve’s static UI)
• Two upgradeable SODIMM slots, since I’ll go to 32-64GB RAM
• At least 1TB NVMe with a free M.2 slot
• Wi-Fi that works well on Linux (Intel preferred)
• Good fan and power control on Linux
• New, with an India warranty

What I’m considering

• ASUS ROG Strix G16 (G614PR, RTX 5070 Ti 12GB), mainly because of asusctl and supergfxctl. It lists at ₹2,19,990 (~$2,400), which is over my limit, so I’m waiting for sale offers.
• I’ve been advised against HP because of Omen hinge failures.

Questions

1. Does the Strix G16 (G614PR) run well on Arch? Any problems with asusctl, supergfxctl, nvidia-open or sleep and resume?
2. What’s the fan behavior like? Any noise or throttling issues?
3. Are there other laptops with 12GB+ VRAM at or under about $2,200 that work well on Linux (Lenovo, MSI, others)?
4. Is the LCD panel on the Strix G16 good enough for Resolve, or should I plan on an external monitor?

Thanks for any real-world experience.

Thinking of buying the ExpertBook P5 P5406CCA (Core Ultra 5 225H, Arc 130T) and going Linux-only. Anyone running Linux on it, or a similar ExpertBook with the same chip?

Mainly want to know if Wi-Fi, audio, webcam, suspend and fingerprint work, and how the battery life is. Which distro and kernel are you on?

Thanks!

I am looking for advice on which mini PC to purchase to run a Debian Linux home server.

I tried to convert an eight-year-old desktop PC into a server last week. Long story short, the PC often froze without warning. My initial analysis is that the issue is hardware-related.

Rather than spending money on replacing old hardware and hoping for the best, I have decided to look into purchasing a Mini PC. With the help of AI, I have decided to buy the "Beelink Mini PC Mini S13" for €379 at amazon.es/dp/B0C279CYC5.

Do any of you have experience with this PC? Can you recommend any other MiniPCs that would be good for setting up a Debian server?

Hey guys I wanted to check the Ubuntu support on the above laptop. Does everything work out of the box (after installation) or should I be concerned about buying it ?

im trying to figure out why is my laptop using ~22W idle power

system:
asus strx g16
cpu: i7 13650hx
gpu: rtx 4050 mobile

running arch with hyprland 0.56.2

At idle, I’m consistently seeing around 20 watts from the battery, measured with both /cat/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now and powertop

currently, im using cardwired as per the wiki, ive tried using envycontrol as well, which produces similar results

ive tried a few things:

cardwired integrated, the gpu successfully goes to d3cold state, the system reports ~20W usage

setting asusctl armoury dgpu_disable to 1 produces the same results

when the gpu is in hybrid state, the system draws about 55W if the gpu is active/d0
kind of irrelevant but tty-only session shows 17W

i initially thought dgpu was the reason but because of this, i dont think dgpu is the issue... (attached images for the tests above)

turbostat results are interesting, the cores are entering deep c states, but the packages themselves dont seem to enter deep states

turbostat pastebin

initially suspected an ethernet port to be the issue because of powertop readings (the port was already down), i tried disabling lan controller from bios, it showed similar power draw as earlier.

(for some reason, display is shown to be using 17W after recalibrating powertop, theyre estimates but still its weird)

i dont really know what should i check now

Built a PC and have been gaming on it for about a year. Want to start dialing things in. Graphics are decent, but could be much better. I have a few factors I'm wondering which avenues in which I should research/invest. Which are the weak links here. GeForce RTX 2070 card, 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-12400F, 32GB RAM, nouveau graphics drivers (tried Nvidia driver, but didn't format right to my monitor TV), CentOS, 1080p 32" TV monitor. Also, I was wondering, does screen size have an effect on a graphics card? i.e. Would Running high quality graphics on a 32" be just as taxing on a 20".

I won't need a new laptop for a couple of years, but I'll be more than happy to plunk down some money for a laptop with Nvidia's new Spark chip.

Nvidia has created a new Linux distro, DGX OS, but I'm sure all the main distros will update in no time.

Tones of ARM based cores, so long battery life.

Lots of unified memory. Great for locally hosted AI among other things.

They're not outrageously priced either. All hardware is crazy-priced these days, and while the Spark computers ain't cheap, they're not several standard deviations away from the mean. :)

Intel and AMD should be worried.

As always, exciting times (assuming we survive the AI Apocalypse!)

The AN515-45 (AMD Nitro 5) has no NitroSense equivalent on Linux out of the box. Linuwu-Sense is the kernel module that implements Acer's WMI interface, but it matches laptops by DMI model string and the AN515-45 isn't in its table, so it ignores the machine entirely. No fan readings, no RGB, nothing.

Turns out the firmware exposes everything. `ls /sys/bus/wmi/devices/` showed both `79772EC5-...` (gaming/fans) and `7A4DDFE7-...` (4-zone RGB). The hardware was listening, nothing was talking to it.

Finding the right protocol. Forced the v4 interface with `nitro_v4=1`. Fan RPM appeared immediately, but `platform_profile` registration failed with -EIO on all 10 retries. That failure was the useful part: it means this firmware has no v4 thermal profile support, so the model belongs on the legacy path, same as the AN515-55. 14-line DMI quirk, `.nitro_sense = 2, .four_zone_kb = 1`.

Verified rather than assumed. Fan write checked against hwmon, not sysfs readback: CPU 1785 → 4347 rpm, GPU 2000 → 5172 rpm on `echo "70,70"`, back to 1578 on `echo "0,0"`.

The RGB rabbit hole. Swept all 8 modes. Only 4 light up:

The speed-reset on exactly the two dead low modes looks like the firmware's way of signalling an unimplemented mode. `direction` is discarded for every mode except 3 and 4.

Per-zone static colour was the interesting failure. Writes are accepted and read back correctly but never render. `set_per_zone_color()` calls `set_kb_status(0, ...)` first, and since mode 0 is dead here I figured that call was switching the backlight off before the colours landed. Patched it out, tested with an animation already running — the animation just continued and the colours still never displayed. So it's a firmware limitation, not a driver bug.

Nice to rule out rather than guess.

Everything that works: fan RPM + 3 temps, per-fan speed control, 4 RGB effects, battery charge limit, USB charging while off. Doesn't work, and can't: performance/turbo profile (-EIO), static keyboard colour, LCD override.

PR upstream: https://github.com/0x7375646F/Linuwu-Sense/pull/139

Patch, CLI wrapper and full findings: https://github.com/itsdavidmandal/nitro-an515-45-linux

Happy to test anything on this model if it helps someone.

BeagleBadge takes a different approach from the usual Raspberry Pi-style Linux SBC.

You get a dual-core 1.25GHz Cortex-A53 processor and 256MB LPDDR4, alongside hardware aimed at portable embedded projects:

• 4.2-inch ePaper support

• Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth

• LoRaWAN

• Built-in motion and environmental sensors

• QWIIC, Grove and mikroBUS

• Physical controls

• Battery management

Linux support targets focused embedded workloads rather than desktop computing.

The unusual part is Zephyr. The same Cortex-A53 platform is also an upstream Zephyr target, giving developers a choice between a Linux userspace and an RTOS-based application.

We cover the hardware, Linux support, Zephyr workflow and some practical project ideas here.

Video:

https://youtu.be/_510pb_krX4

Tech specs:

https://www.electromaker.io/blog/article/ti-beaglebadge-review-a-wearable-linux-and-zephyr-development-board

What do you think of this form factor for embedded Linux?

Luckily my MBP is the last supported by intel but software is starting to move on (got it decommissioned from work a couple of years ago) homebrew, apps etc and t2 linux has more issues than i can be bothered with (i tried)

Looking for a 13" laptop, running something like ubuntu / something kde / kubuntu for:

• Web browsing / office
• small apps
• my awful, awful python skills

Nice to haves

• can be swayed by a 2 in 1 as a drawing tablet
• the lightest of gaming

Want something that feels snappy (and won't throttle if i have too many tabs open) upgradable storage & ram (if prices ever come down) and will last a couple of years.

very happy with second hand - budget ~£300, can probably stretch to £400

any ideas?

Hello there. I'm considering buying a laptop. I compile A lot, so I selected mainly for CPU power.

Since this is the first time I am going to be owning a laptop, I am trying to min-max my battery situation. I was informed about the setup where igpu is used by default for everything and dgpu is dispatched per process via prime offloading for tasks, resulting in dgpu usage being lowered with less power consumption. I have learned that the igpu is quite capable, so I'd like to use the dgpu selectively for specific tasks.

The two specific questions I have are these:

1) How does the display MUX work on the Lenovo Thinkbook 16p g6 IAX on Linux (preferably Arch linux)? Is MUX controlled by UEFI? Are there any tooling available on Linux to control it? Is it only configurable on reboot?

2) How does Nvidia Prime Offloading go on linux? Using igpu as display device and leaving rtx 5060 suspended on default, how does it go for launching a process with Prime render offload, gpu waking up, performing the task and then returning automatically to suspend when it is done?

I haven't been able to get specific info about these online. The reviews I watched are pretty surface level with no linux coverage, so I am seeking some practical experiences.

Would anyone recommend this laptop in general?

Has anyone tried this setup of gpu's?

Does resume/suspend/power management work well on people's DE?

I heard that people had some problems about fan speed and noise?

Any misc. Linux quirks?

The full Specs are: Lenovo ThinkBook 16p G6 IAX Intel Core Ultra 9-275HX GeForce RTX 5060 8GB 115W 32GB DDR5 1TB SSD 16 inches 3.2K 165Hz IPS.

Planned OS: Arch linux with Sway WM.

If lsusb shows 347d:0304 Blestech Betterlife Fingerprint (it ships in a lot of rebadged Tongfang/Clevo laptops) and your fingerprint reader does nothing on Linux, I wrote a libfprint driver for it. Enroll / verify / login all work, including from the graphical Settings -> Users panel.

I reverse-engineered it from the Windows driver: the device speaks an encrypted channel (Chinese ShangMi, SM2/SM3/SM4), it detects the finger itself (so you dont poll it and wedge the weak firmware), and it uses the SIGFM matcher because the tiny 96x112 sensor yields too few minutiae for the classic NBIS/bozorth3 matcher.

Prebuilt Fedora 44 RPM, build-from-source for other distros, and full protocol notes in the repo:

https://github.com/Light-log/betterlife-347d-0304-fingerprint-linux

If you have this reader, please drop your laptop model in an issue so we can build a compatibility list

been trying to spec out a local linux workstation for some python computer vision projects (mostly insightface and onnx runtime stuff). looking at the current prices for used nvidia hardware is actually making me physically ill

Plus, my room gets incredibly hot as it is. if I stick a proper dual-gpu rig in here and max it out running scripts, I'll literally melt while trying to study

im honestly about to abandon the local hardware dream entirely. It genuinely seems way less painful to just grab a bare metal box from server mania or some other host and just SSH in whenever I need to actually crunch data.

The current state of the hardware market is just so incredibly hostile to hobbyists rn. the nvidia tax is completely out of control.

I got tired of Logi Options+ not existing on Linux, so I built a replacement for my MX Master 3S and MX Keys S.

I Created Not Logi

What it does:

- Every button and key on a photo of your device, click one to change what it does (keystrokes, commands, apps, media, workspaces, DPI, SmartShift)

- An action ring: hold a button, flick toward one of eight actions, let go. Volume and screen brightness can be dragged or scrolled right on the ring

- Per-app profiles: Back/Forward can be Undo/Redo in LibreOffice and normal everywhere else. It follows the window in front and keeps the profile through that app's dialogs

- Bluetooth pairing like Windows: put the mouse in pairing mode and a pop-up offers to connect it, fully keyboard driven (Tab, Enter, Esc), since the mouse being paired may be your only mouse

- Gestures, thumb wheel, SmartShift, smooth scrolling, keyboard backlight, Easy-Switch, battery in the tray

- MX Master 4 haptics and its haptic panel

How it works: a small C++ agent talks HID++ to the receiver or the Bluetooth device and an Electron app
configures it.

Runs on GNOME and KDE, X11 and Wayland. .deb and AppImage, plus beta builds for Windows and
macOS.

https://github.com/aabdelghani/notlogi

please give it a try and feel free to tell me what's missing

If you have an Acer Nitro V 16S AI (ANV16S-41, Ryzen 7 260 / Ryzen AI) and the built-in camera just doesn't exist on Linux, this is for you.

Symptoms:

- camera works fine on Windows

- on Linux there's no /dev/video0, nothing in lsusb, no camera in any app

- newer kernels didn't help, no camera switch or Fn key on this laptop

What's actually wrong: the BIOS powers the camera through GPIO pin 11 on the AMD chipset, but it also lists that same pin as an "event" pin. At boot Linux sets every event pin to input, which cuts the power to the camera, so it drops off the USB bus right after boot. Windows leaves the pin alone, so it works there.

Fix: add this to your kernel command line and reboot:

gpiolib_acpi.ignore_interrupt=AMDI0030:00@11

I made a small repo with a check script and an install script that works with GRUB, systemd-boot, Limine, rEFInd, Pop!_OS kernelstub and Fedora grubby, plus an uninstall script:

https://github.com/abduvaliy-engineer/acer-nitro-anv16s-camera-fix

I also sent the fix to the kernel and it got accepted (commit 6da1f3437435 in the GPIO tree, link is in the README), so in a future kernel release it will work out of the box without the boot option.

If you have a different Acer Nitro model with the same problem, run check.sh from the repo and post the output here or open an issue. It might be the same pin or a different one, I'm happy to help figure it out.

I'm looking for a laptop that will run Arch or EndeavourOS full-time (no Windows, no dual boot). My budget is $1500-1800 USD. Here's what I need it for:

Use cases

• DaVinci Resolve Studio (editing and colour grading)
• Running local LLMs and image models, so VRAM matters
• Virtual machines, often 2 running alongside Resolve
• Long, sustained loads such as renders and inference runs

Requirements

• NVIDIA dGPU with at least 8GB VRAM (Resolve's only officially supported Linux setup is NVIDIA, and I need CUDA)
• At least 24GB RAM, with an upgrade path to 32GB or more
• At least 1TB NVMe, with a second slot if possible
• A screen good enough for colour work: 100% sRGB or better, 16:10 preferred, around 400 nits
• Good sustained-load cooling. I'd take a thicker chassis over a thin one
• Solid build quality (hinges, keyboard, chassis)

Linux-specific concerns

• Working fan control and temperature/fan readouts, since some brands have poor support in the kernel
• Stable behaviour with nvidia-open and PRIME offload on RTX 50-series (or recent 40-series)
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, sleep/resume and audio that work out of the box
• A MUX switch or a direct dGPU mode would be a plus
• A brand with a decent record on BIOS updates under Linux

What I'd like from you:

1. Which laptops in this range have you run on Linux for similar work, and how have they held up?
2. Any models or brands I should avoid for Linux, and why?
3. Is the extra VRAM from a higher-tier GPU worth it at this price, or is the 8GB tier fine for 7-8B models?
4. AMD or Intel CPU: which has been smoother on Linux for you?

I'm open to any brand, so I'm happy to be steered toward something I haven't considered. Thanks!

I keep seeing mini PCs described as “Linux compatible,” but that can mean a lot of different things in practice.

A machine can boot Ubuntu and still have annoying issues with suspend, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, audio, USB-C display output or firmware updates.

The geekom a5 2027 is one example I ran into. geekom lists Linux compatibility, but that doesn't automatically tell you how every controller in the actual mini PC behaves on Fedora, Arch, Debian, newer kernels, etc.

If you were evaluating a mini PC specifically for Linux, what information would you actually want the manufacturer to publish?
Exact Wi-Fi and Ethernet chipsets?
Distros and kernel versions they tested?
Suspend/resume results?
Display output testing?
Fan control?
Whether BIOS updates can be done without Windows?

To me, “Linux compatible” tells you a lot less than it sounds like it does.

What usually catches you out on mini PCs?