[ale] Good Linux Laptop from Lenovo?

[DJ-Pfulio]

On 12/6/20 10:54 PM, Steve Litt via Ale wrote:
> Excellent idea, but the problem with modern "legacy free" laptops is,
> by the time you buy a USB DVD drive, and a USB ether net, and if you
> use a USB mouse because trackpads mess up your typing, pretty soon
> you're all out of USB slots, unless you also carry a USB hub. After
> awhile it's a Rube Goldberg Machine.

They sell USB3-hub+GigE devices.  I've owned 2. 1 USB3 port used, 3 added + GigE.
But as Linux people we have to get lucky that the chips inside are supported. OTOH, I've been lucky twice for $22 devices ... but it is still another device to be carried. Amazon search "usb 3 ethernet hub" for these. My laptop uses a device with AX88179 GigE NIC. ASIX Elec. Corp. iperf3 says over 920 Mbps.

Saw a few USBc "hub" devices a few days ago for $19. They provide power, video, multiple usb ports of different plug types/speeds, ethernet, and plug in on the side of a laptop. "Vanmass 7-in-1 USB Hub w/ 87W PD, USB C, HDMI 2.0, Dual USB A 3.0, SD Card Slot" is one, but there are lots of these things. Note the missing ethernet, so have a list when shopping.

Another option is a tiny travel wifi router.  I've done that as well with one about half the size of a raspberry pi running dd-wrt. That works best if you have wifi-only extra devices like some video streaming sticks so you setup 1 wired connection, but have all your other devices connect to your router (with a little firewall).  

In the end, I stopped using wifi, stopped bringing other devices that needed connections, got a long HDMI cable and plug that into hotel TVs from the laptop doing playback for video entertainment.

As for booting thumb drives - they almost all "just work" but sometimes there are some devices that don't.  Once you know those, removing them from your rotation.  99% of the time I use 'dd' to shove an ISO onto a flash drive, but I suppose what magical dance is needed could be related to how the distro is packaged.  My normal distros are Ubuntu-based and they use a hybrid Mac/uefi/legacy partition format in their distros so they boot from anything (almost).  OTOH, it means that if you want to change the ISO contents, it is a little harder.

A few years ago, I picked up a Core i5 Asus used laptop on eBay for 40% ($305) off the new price.  It was cheaper than my last Chromebook (Toshiba), double the RAM, and over 2x higher passmark rating. I used to carry Thinkpads halfway across the planet for work. Never again. 

The new Core i3 desktop CPUs are faster than Core i5 from 2 yrs ago and really cheap ($100-ish). In 2-3 yrs, we're going to have a bunch of off-lease laptops that are FAST.