Where to Get Pre-installed or Barebones Notebook Computers for Linux

Notice: As of April 2011 ERA Computers & Consulting now carries a line of laptops that can be customized and ordered pre-installed with Linux, FreeDOS and FreeBSD. Laptops with bare drives are available as well. See this press release: Linux, FreeBSD and FreeDOS Laptops from ERACC

I was recently involved in a conversation on the IRC network chat.freenode.net in the #ubuntu channel about notebook computers for Linux. The young lady that was seeking the information is a college student who wants to get a notebook computer to run Linux. However, she did not know where to find a notebook computer for running Linux and asked for recommendations. She received some suggestions from others but I directed her to Dell's open-source n Series laptops page. Dell offers these notebooks with bare hard drives and ship them with FreeDOS (likely to satisfy the letter of their contract with Microsoft that probably says, and I paraphrase, "Thou shalt not ship thine personal computers without an operating system"). As of the time of this article it appears that Dell does not offer notebooks with Linux installed (corrections welcome, please use the comments).

Edit Thu May 15 21:57:27 UTC 2008: I received a private correction about Dell and pre-installed Linux. See this Dell PCs Featuring Ubuntu page. Oddly enough, now that I see the page I recall seeing it before.

After my involvement in this IRC chat I wondered if there were any companies that sell "white book" or "barebones" notebook computers to end-users. I also wondered if any of these companies offer configuration of the notebooks. Finally I wondered if they offered Linux preloaded. All this wondering led me to do some web searching for well known barebones laptop brands, mainly ASUS and MSI. I found two companies that seem to get the latest models from ASUS and MSI, RK Computers and AVADirect, Inc. I contacted both by phone and asked for a person I could e-mail that could answer some questions about their barebones notebooks and Linux. I was given that information and sent a set of questions to both contacts.

Here are the questions and the answers (RK Computers responded first and is listed first here, this is not an endorsement. AVADirect, Inc.'s contact said he had to send the questions off for review before he could respond. I presume he has to clear it with some internal legal department. After no response for three days I had to go ahead with this article and put in public information anyone could find from AVADirect, Inc.'s web site. While this is a disappointment to me it is not a reflection on AVADirect, Inc.'s responses to actual customers. They appear to get good reviews at resellerratings.com.):

• What is your company name and sales contact information?
  • RK Computers, 866-760-4998, 845-942-8568, sales@rkcomputer.net, support@rkcomputer.net
  • (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact. See their Contact page.

• What brand(s) of barebones notebook computers does your company carry?
  • (RK Computers) ASUS, MSI, Sager-Clevo
  • (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact. Check their Notebooks pages.

• Can these notebook computers be purchased from your company unconfigured (no CPU, etc.)?
  • (RK Computers) Yes, they can be purchased as just the "barebone" or any combination of components up to a completely configured model. By default complete or partial systems are assembled & tested. If the customer does not wish the notebook assembled they should put "ship as parts" in the order notes.
  • (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact. It does appear that they do offer the notebooks unconfigured, however one should Contact them to be sure.

• Does your company provide configuration of the barebones notebooks?
  • (RK Computers) Yes, all models can be configured online with many of the most popular components available. Orders/configuration can also be done by phone, if there is a request for a component(s) not listed we can get just about any compatible component the customer desires.
  • (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact. It does appear that they do offer the notebooks pre-configured, however one should Contact them to be sure.

• Does configuration cost extra? If yes, what is the average cost?
  • (RK Computers) No, all notebooks are assembled and tested prior to shipment at no extra cost. All notebooks purchased with a cpu installed are bios updated prior to shipment. Barebone models or models purchased without a cpu may require a bios update. All driver and bios links are available on our site (URL).
  • (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact. I could not determine this information with a search of their web pages. Contact them to find out.

• Can a configured barebones notebook be purchased from your company without an operating system installed?
  • (RK Computers) Yes, all our barebone and partially configured models are available without an O/S.
  • (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact. It does appear that they do offer the notebooks sans operating system, however one should Contact them to be sure.

• Does your company offer any barebones notebook models with distributions of Linux preloaded? If yes, how long has Linux been offered and which Linux distributions?
  • (RK Computers) Currently no, we do not offer linux pre-installed.
  • (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact. It does appear that they do offer some notebooks with Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise and Ubuntu pre-installed, however one should Contact them to be sure and to find out which notebook models have this offer.

• Do you recommend any specific barebones notebook models for use with Linux? If yes, please provide at least one example (more would be better).
  • (RK Computers) These models have been purchased by our customers and successfully installed different distro's of linux: MS-1221, MS-1222, MS-1634, MS-1719(a), MS-1719(b), MS-171A, S96Sp(a), S96Sp(b)
  • (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact.

• Do you have any end-user success stories with your notebook models running Linux? If yes, please share one or point to a URL where this is documented.
  • (RK Computers) We have spoken with customers, and received emails in the past but no url I can point to.
  • (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact.

Additional information supplied outside of the questions asked:

• (RK Computers) We also have a section "notebook photos" which helps when ordering online as most manufacturer's photos do not show all angles and high resolution photos.
• (AVADirect, Inc.) No response within three days of contact. However, looking at their configuration menus it appears they offer custom paint jobs for notebook computers purchased from them. Contact them to find out about this option.

Granted there are more questions I could ask. I simply wanted a short list that I could post here to get people started when looking for a Linux capable notebook personal computer. If one is currently in the market for a notebook computer to run Linux then any of the companies mentioned in this article will be able to supply one's notebook needs. Contact these companies for any information not covered here.

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