Buying a Linux laptop that will last

I’ve run Linux at home since 1993. Over those 32 years, I’ve watched Linux mature as an operating system. Linux has always had expansive support for all kinds of hardware, including niche hardware like QIC tape drive systems that ran from a floppy drive controller (aka “ftape”), although in the very early days of Linux you had to be careful about certain other hardware such as video cards, sound and music cards, and network interfaces. For example, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, I wrote several online guides about how to get Linux working on all kinds of laptops, including ThinkPad, Acer, and Dell. Most of the time, these didn’t have any issues with Linux, although a few systems required a workaround for a specific hardware configuration.

These days, however, I find things should “just work” out of the box. And if you’re running a desktop or laptop system from a “named” vendor, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about hardware support.

New laptops are going up in price in 2026. If you’re in the market for a Linux laptop that will last, I have a few recommendations for you to get the most value for your money.

Get as much memory as you can

Over time, memory ends up being more of a performance bottleneck than CPU. CPUs continue to get faster over time, but the CPU is waiting on you most of the time; if you’re an average user, a faster CPU doesn’t really mean faster performance.

Instead, too little memory will limit you as the machine gets older. Purchase as much memory as you can afford when you configure your Linux laptop or desktop machine, even if it seems like a lot to buy in 2026. It won’t seem like quite so much memory in 2030 or 2035.

Go for the SSD upgrade

Hard disks (sometimes called “spinning disks” because they involve storage platters that spin while a physical “head” reads or writes data) are the least expensive option, but they are also quite slow. Upgrading to a solid state drive (SSD) will give you much better performance.

It really is like night and day. For example, when I bought my last laptop in 2012, I ordered it with a 128 GB solid state drive. Boot times felt almost instantaneous; I could login less than a minute after turning it on. When that system finally died in 2025, I replaced it with a spare 2020 laptop that had a spinning hard disk. While the 2020 laptop has a faster CPU and more memory, it takes minutes to get a login prompt after booting it. That’s the difference between solid state drives and hard drives.

Intel video and networking

While I haven’t had any hardware compatibility issues in recent years, I still prefer to “play it safe” and configure my laptop or desktop system with Intel video and networking. NVIDIA is a great video card for high performance graphics such as gaming, and these days you should expect good Linux compatibility. But I was “burned” early on with NVIDIA video card incompatibilities, and the proprietary drivers, so I still avoid buying NVIDIA video cards on my systems. When I buy new laptops or desktops for Linux, I look for Intel video. Buying systems with Intel video usually guarantees an Intel network card; I’ve never had problems with Intel wireless cards or wired cards.

I’m not much of a “desktop” gamer, anyway. I used to play a lot of “PC” games in the 1990s when I dual-booted Linux and Windows. That is, until 1998 when I decided not to bother upgrading to Windows98. By then, I only booted to Windows for games; a PlayStation was less expensive and guaranteed to “just work” with all PlayStation games. I still follow that model: I play games on my PS5 from the comfort of my couch and big-screen TV, and do all of my work on my Linux system.

Some of these are really best practices that I’ve adopted over the years to avoid any hardware issues at the time; other recommendations should help you to get the most out of a laptop. My last laptop ran for 13 years before it finally died of a hardware failure; maybe your next Linux laptop will last just as long.