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Comment by s_kilk | Hacker News Reader

damn, If the Carbon has the same trackpad problems then I'll be sorely disappointed. I've been researching potential ultrabooks for a Linux/Windows setup and so far nothing really stands out.

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I've said this before in another thread but I think it bears repeating here: You'll be happy to hear that the X1 Carbon has a new trackpad, which has been described by Notebookreview as "Oh my! Best touchpad surface ... ever!". The gizmodo reviewer: "Using the trackpad, was the first time I've ever done multitouch gestures on Windows and liked it." As both a Linux and Mac user, I'm happy a PC manufacturer finally seems to be getting it right.

Would MacBook Air help you? I'm really happy with how well windows runs and integrates on my MacBook Pro. Might be an option for you as they're nice machines.

Perhaps, but unlikely. From what I gather, Linux doesn't yet play nice on the MBA, which is a shame. If that story changes significantly in the near future I would certainly consider getting one. (My current machine is a white C2D Macbook, triple-booting OSX, Windows and Ubuntu) EDIT: actually, checking the documentation here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookAir4-2 paints a much more rosy picture than I remember, maybe it would be a viable option.

I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 on a MacBook Air [1] right now - much to the consternation of my IT department - and it works mostly-fine. The install was a bit fiddly and installing kernel updates breaks it, but both of those are due to needing to patch the kernel, which apparently is no longer needed for Ubuntu 12.04.

Day to day, the battery life isn't as good as it is in OSX, but other than that, it pretty much just works.

[1] (4,2 I think, but I can't remember how to check.)

Nice, thanks for the input. This has changed the playing field for me quite a bit.

It was kind of a pain to install Ubuntu on a MBA, but I found everything except the trackpad drivers worked pretty well. And this was a year ago -- I'd assume the situation has improved.

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