Hi everyone,
I’m planning to buy a new laptop and I would like to know if openSUSE would installand work fine with its hardware.
The machine I’m referring to is an Asus X571 series, specifically this one https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B082WXNFG9/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H&psc=1
Is there someone who uses a laptop from this series with openSUSE that can share his experience?
I don’t have that specific model, but based on my experience with similar ASUS models the following points are worth checking.
If you plan on using SecureBoot, the Phoenix EFI firmware used by some Asus models prevents the use of standard, double-signed kernels. There is a workaround, but that involves considerable hassle especially if you plan on using Tumbleweed with its frequent kernel updates. Speaking of security, the fingerprint sensor (if any) is not likely to work.
The Nvidia card GTX 1650, Turing architecture, NV167 (TU117) codenames is only basically supported by the default install out of the box (please see https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/ ) so if you buy this for gaming or any serious work you need to install the Nvidia proprietary drivers and suse-prime, which are available for Tumbleweed but may have occasional hiccups or troubles when a new kernel is installed. Be sure to keep an older working kernel as a backup.
Some of the ROG laptops have special tuning of the graphics system and are likely to give additional headaches, but your choice seems from a safer series in this respect.
The “Optane” memory is not going to work in its intended way, although it may be available as additional storage.
From the basic description that laptop doesn’t seem to have a subwoofer, but if one is fitted it won’t work out of the box, but additional tweaking might be available.
Maybe users with a notebook from the same series can give additional hints.