Howdy linux fans

I am shopping for a new Linux laptop. I'm currently running LinuxMint on a 7 year old Sony viao laptop. Runs fine, but the HW is reaching the end of it's useful life. This laptop won't be traveling much (only around my house).

Most of the consumer grade laptops I've found only come with Windows 7/8. I'd rather not have to pay for an OS I'm not going to use but it's not a dealbreaker if I do. Dell has a few laptops that come with Ubuntu, but they aren't very appealing (and they're expensive).

So I'm looking for a laptop that has most of the following (budget ~$1000):

3rd or 4th Gen i5 or i7 processor
At least 4GB DDR3 RAM (linux typically requires less than Windows/Mac)
High resolution screen (i.e. 1920x1080 or better)
13-15 in screen
SSD drive (at least 128GB)
I'd prefer discrete video, but like to avoid nvidia (b/c they don't place nice with Linux, yet)

Open to suggestions, thanks for your time.

The cost of a Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 8/8.1 Core license is less than the added cost of getting a small-production Linux machine, in general.

Plus, with Windows 7 you can always reuse the key to run a VM or on another machine (with the key embedded in ROM on most Windows 8 systems, it's less clear how practical that is to transfer.)

Pushing your budget, but I bet you'll like this one:
https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/galu1

I have no idea how easy those are to open, so you may want to look into that before deciding whether to get it with SSD preinstalled vs. upgrading after purchase. Their prices on SSD upgrades are relatively good.

I'd avoid dual-core i7s, they're not worth it. If you need quad-core, you have to have an i7.

Second, do you need a full-speed processor, or (on the i5s) is an ultrabook-class processor OK?

Fair enough.

IME, it depends on what you do with it, and which desktop you run. Running KDE day to day for work, I find it uses about the same as a decent install of Windows, and am more comfortable with 8gb for a general-but-heavy use.

(Software development on my work desktop uses a lot more, of course.)

Should be doable at FHD; "or better" is unlikely without pushing your budget.

How thin/light?
14" FHD is pretty unusual -- it's actually more common at both 13" and 15"

Should be pretty routine these days, although except for in very thin/light models it's pretty easy to swap a HDD for an SSD.

Also, if you mainly care about speed and not portability/being drop safe, you can with many models buy it with the cheap HDD and just add an mSATA card to have both.

Why do you want discrete video?

BTW Nvidia with the open-source (Nouveau) drivers plays nicer with Linux than ATI does these days, and that's not all that well... and if you want switchable graphics, both are problematic but I've had pretty good luck with Bumblebee (a Linux implementation of Optimus.)

Meanwhile, the Intel graphic drivers for Linux are well-supported and nearly bulletproof, and on the new ones, quite fast.

If you care about graphics performance, drop the 3rd-gen processors and just look at 4th-generation/Haswell -- the HD5200 ("Iris Pro") models are not really common, but they will outperform the Nvidia or ATI discrete graphics in most 3rd-generation models, including some lower-end gaming and workstation models. The HD4600 models will perform at least as well as lower-end business graphics from ATI or Nvidia in the 3rd-generation systems (e.g. a Geforce 630M or NVS 5200M)

If you really need performance beyond that, you're going to have trouble finding something reasonably light in your price range, and be looking at a relatively beefy GPU. The Lenovo Ideapad Y510p is heavy, but otherwise may be what you're looking for: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops...-series/y510p/ (It IS an Nvidia-based system, though.)

For a lighter machine at a higher price point (although I'd rather have the Galago, and the Iris Pro at the same cost), look at the Lenovo Thinkpad T440p.

If you want something lighter, and don't need the discrete graphics, consider the Dell Latitude E7440 (aka "Latitude 14 7000 Series Ultrabook". It's at the high end of your price range, but if you wait for one of the regular 25% off coupons for the Dell Outlet (via http://twitter.com/delloutlet ) and don't mind refurb, you can get one under $1000, and they're a very light machine with a reasonable amount of power. (I can't figure out how to order a new one with the 1920x1080 FHD screen via the public web site, so if you wanted to buy new you'll have to deal with phone sales.)

Yep, I'd recommend looking for Windows 7/8 laptops that have a good track record with Linux. It's cheaper, plus you get a Windows licence you can use to install Windows as a VM. I'd love it if the corporate Dell From Hell was running Ubuntu (with Gnome, not that Unity crap) with Windows in a VM. Unfortunately, it must be the other way round.

Thanks for all your input. I've never heard of System 76, but I like their features and pricing. There designs aren't that "sexy" but I'm more into function over form. I'll check them out.

Good point on the graphics card. Maybe integrated is the way to go now (I haven't bought a computer in years).

I guess I should have been more specific about how I plan to use. I'll use this box for: 50% web surfing, 30% python/php development, 10% video editing/viewing, 10% other. I run the Debian Edition (all my dev servers are debian also) of Mint with the MATE desktop.

For purely Linux use, IMO it was getting to be a no-brainer even on the Ivy Bridge (3rd generation) chips.

My work desktop came with a low-end business graphics card (Nvidia K600); I took it out and gave it back to the IT guys in favor of the motherboard video.

My laptop has Optimus; I need to build in enough Nvidia support to turn the chip off, and then I run just on Intel. I'd have to have a more complicated setup if I ever plugged the laptop into an external monitor some configurations of the external video ports require both video chips to be active, which is supported very poorly on Linux.

Depending on how big the python/php projects are and how much video editing you do, one of the better ultrabook-class i5 processors may be fine for your use.

For video viewing, Intel support on Linux is much better than either ATI or Nvidia.

For video editing, there's not much Linux support for GPU-accelerated encoding, and in my experience the quality at low bitrates of either NVidia's CUDA encoder or Intel's Quick Sync encoder are terrible to begin with. x264 is the gold standard AVC codec on Linux (whether you use Handbrake, FFMpeg, or something else as the front end, it's almost certainly actually using x264), and it really, really likes more cores. I don't know if you do enough of it to not just be patient with 2, but that's the one thing you mention that might make buying up to a quad core worth it.

I'd personally want 8gb for that kind of use; Firefox and Chrome can each balloon up to about a gig of working space.

Being a masochist, I run Gentoo on my work desktop, my home desktop, home server, and the dual-boot partition on my laptop. The VPS I rent runs CentOS 6 with no gui.