I have a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga that claims to be certified by both Lenovo and Canonical for Ubuntu.
Finger print sensor doesn't work, the fans are super loud all the time, audio doesn't work (requires a newer Linux kernel than the one shipped in the latest Ubuntu), EFI problems, sleep, hibernate, fast-boot, restore from hibernate problems, battery life on Linux is horrible...
So at least the certification for Ubuntu is completely worthless. Reading the first comments in the Ubuntu forums from a year ago and the evolution of the Arch Wiki for my laptop, I have a hard time believing that somebody actually tested it before releasing the laptop. At best, somebody looked at the spec sheet and said "we have supported similar hardware before, this is good to go".
1 year later, the laptop is almost in a barely usable state. Canonical broke Audio support (soundcard not detected anymore) with 19.04 and did not fixed it before 20.04, essentially telling users to wait till the next Ubuntu release due to in 6 months. The only officially supported version is a 4 year old custom 16.04 that I never got the chance of trying, but this should tell you a lot about "long term" support of Canonical and Lenovo for these machines.
The only ones that should be getting any praise are the dozens of volunteers that have been screwed by both Lenovo and Canonical into buying one of these and have made their work and support time available to others for free.
If you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague. They have absolutely zero quality assurance for Linux.
> If you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague. They have absolutely zero quality assurance for Linux.
I had the exact opposite experience.
Perhaps it's a Unbuntu thing, hard to know, I use Fedora, or perhaps it's the Yoga...
In 2004 I got a T42, installed Fedora on it, it just worked.
In 2013 I got a T440p, installed Fedora, just worked. That Laptop is still in use, btw.
This year I got a X1 Extreme Gen2 (stupid name), installed the Fedora KDE spin, just works.
Sleep, etc, works, battery is life is really, the graphics card (internal and dedicated with the Nvidia drivers) work, etc, etc. So I am truly surprised by your experience.
I did a lot of research before, and these are the best Linux laptops that I could find (besides the "open" laptops like System76, etc).
The again, I am an engineer, so perhaps what I do in terms of setup comes easy to me without me noticing the complexity.
For new hardware Ubuntu isn't exactly the distribution I would recommend. You may have a better chance trying a distro like Fedora or Arch. Speaking from my personal experience I have a X1 Yoga 1st gen and installed then updated Fedora from 29 to 31 it's a pretty much hassle-free process (apart from the fingerprint, which never worked in the first place and I don't use it anyway), I postpone the update from 31 to 32 mainly because I have some serious work ongoing, but I'm sure it will be smooth.
You already shared you thought about "certifications", but I think the fact that Lenovo is starting Fedora Laptops[0] is telling in this regard.
>>If you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague. They have absolutely zero quality assurance for Linux.
Isn't this a bit too harsh on them? We've had good experiences on T and L series.
I am using L470 with fedora 27 for the last 2 years and I have not had any issues so far. I have gone till 78 days without a shutdown. It's been more stable than windows on suspend to ram cycles.
I did have issues with fonts out of the box but fixing was easy. One of the advantages of using Linux is it forces you to fix the broken parts and personally it has been a very rewarding experience.
I have an older X1 yoga. I haven't tried to make the fingerprint sensor work, but the rest works quite well. Especially after I updated the firmware with fwupd.
It's not my first Thinkpad running Linux, and the prior two ran quite well.
I have a new X1 Carbon 7th gen, and it was definitely a lot of work to get it set up. But after tinkering and some kernel updates (Fedora >> Ubuntu for new hardware) I couldn't be happier. Incredible performance, all day battery life, etc. I have a friend who got their finger print sensor working but I never bothered to try.
I also have had great experience with fwup. I've gotten tons of bios, firmware, microcode etc updates from Lenovo and they all apply seamlessly.
I think Linux support of new hardware is always going to be shaky unless we can get vendors to care and support it themselves. Otherwise, we have to wait and let the open source devs make drivers after the hardware is released.
Generally, certification is useless except for "compliance" and "get support for something".
If you are running a supported combination of hardware and software, the hardware vendor can't officially close your case just because "you are running unsupported software and we are sure your OpenBSD damaged your mouse" or similar BS. However, as long as there is a hardware problem you are able to clearly identify, support is usually not a problem even with non-certified software with most (but not all) vendors. Problems that might be either hardware or software are always a problem, because you are almost always dealing with 2 vendors blaming each other. The certification leads to a slightly lower overhead for convincing the support to take the case and a slightly higher number of solved cases. But nothing dramatic. And also take care that the supported software is usually a specially adapted version of something, e.g. the exact installation of Windows your laptop came with. If you reinstall your companies default Windows image you are out of luck. If you upgrade to another service pack or major version, you are out of luck.
Also "certfied" is necessary for stuff like "our processes for adding numbers are certified ISO12345 and demand supported hard- and software". There is no real benefit besides complying with some obscure checklist some useless PHB came up with. But in some industries, you cannot do business without that, no matter how pointless, expensive, unsafe, insecure or counterproductive it might be.
In sum "certified" means "the bureaucracy won't be able to complain", not "it works".
I don't think an anecdotal experience with the Yoga line is compatible with the claim that "if you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague."
I've had great experiences with my Thinkpads (t410s and t530) running Linux. Granted, I was just running Ubuntu, but I never had an issue. I will note that I disabled the fingerprint sensor, camera, and microphone at the BIOS level so didn't have experience dealing with those drivers. I expect most others will have a fine experience with the non-touchscreen Thinkpads, and probably some of the newer models as well.
I’m curious which one you have as I’ve been a happy yoga user for many years(2 different models) and never has any issue with quality or Linux support.
I am a long time Linux user so that may be the difference. The fact that you prefer Ubuntu is probably a bit telling about you experience and skill level with Linux on the desktop.
I've had a couple of X1s and T series throughout the years, and ran Ubuntu and Arch wonderfully. Save for the fingerprint sensor (where I think the issue is not drivers but rather that fingerprints don't have enough entropy for a keyring), they actually ran way better than my current Windows X1 which BSODs every 3 days.
I think the yoga subbrand is a lower end model, so maybe they're sloppier there?
Perhaps the Yoga isn't as popular as other Lenovo models for running Linux. Still, the situation you describe sounds bad.
I bought a Linux laptop from System76 almost to years ago, and it have been a painless experience. They even manage CUDA updates fairly much hassle free. Anyway, I was tired of 25 years of futzing around with configuring Linux, so I decided on an easier path.
After IBM acquired Red Hat I was once asked what I am hoping to come out of this acquisition.
My answer was that for me personally the hope was to have more Linux ready machines and laptops available in the end consumer market (i.e. non server, non cloud market). Although the Thinkpads are long not anymore IBM products, somehow I was still hoping for the closer connection between hardware and OS know how in the form of the IBM-Red Hat relationship would trickle through.
Seeing Red Hat next to Ubuntu as supported Linux OS makes me think that Red Hat made actually some contributions to making this announcement possible.
It's great to see that it's not just one model but all models in all configurations will be supported. This is great news to businesses who need computers only as a gateway to cloud apps. Why would you pay windows licenses (particularly professional), if you can get a decent OS that can be managed better by IT for free? This is will weigh in particularly with cheap machines that are used by office workers in the throughout of the service economy.
Edit: maybe this will be the start of the height of the current trend to push all applications into the cloud, which is the SUN workstation 2.0 model. I wonder if the cyclical nature of this trend makes a comeback in the form of bringing cloud compute back to edge devices in 10 years. I would wonder what could drive such a comeback for the average Joe?
> Although the Thinkpads are long not anymore IBM products, somehow I was still hoping for the closer connection between hardware and OS know how in the form of the IBM-Red Hat relationship would trickle through.
Red Hat isn't missing any "know how". They, like any other developer, are missing publicly available data sheets to make everything work out of the box. There's nothing IBM can do to change that since they no longer manufacture PCs.
I must point out that this does NOT cover ThinkPad T and X series. From the press release:
> Our entire portfolio of ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series workstations will now be certified via both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu LTS – a long-term, enterprise-stability variant of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution.
The press release also said "Lenovo is moving to certify the full workstation portfolio for top Linux distributions from Ubuntu® and Red Hat® – every model, every configuration." so I guess the question is: Are only ThinkPad P series laptops considered workstations OR is the plan to bring it to other ThinkPads as well in the long run?
Yes, but note that the P1 workstations are pretty much the same as the X1 Extreme series (but with Nvidia's Quadro "workstation" GPUs rather than Nvidia's "customer" GPUs.)
The amount of fine tuning I had to do for my X1 7th generation with Ubuntu 19.10 was almost unbearable. Sound still is not working properly, the internal mic is still not working at all.
I would really like to have this conversation with the wider community as to what Lenovo and Debian can do to work better together.
As an important example - the X1 Carbon 7 (which is a popular machine) still doesn't work well with any version of Debian (including experimental or testing) as the audio is broken. Debian users have to jump through a few hoops to get it to work. I've let the maintainer know a number of times what is involved to fix that but it's obviously not a priority (as a heads up - Debian on most Lenovo 2020 platforms is going to suck because of this too). I'm not meaning to point fingers - but just explain why it feels as if Debian and the latest hardware is an awkward fit.
When looking at Linux support I start with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service [1]. If the model I’m looking at isn’t supported then it’s off my list. You’ll notice that not all Thinkpads are supported [2].
The E, L and Yoga series are not supported but the T, P and X series are.
Some Thinkpads that are not supported provide bootable isos that you can use to update your bios. It is my understanding that it also updates the firmware (but it doesn't explicitly say).
ThinkPads, at least the mainstream models, certainly have always worked very well with Linux thanks to the great ThinkPad community who is really passionate about this. I've picked up a cheaper Ryzen E495 in retail a couple months ago because I needed a new notebook asap, and it works flawlessly with Ubuntu 19/20. Better first-party support (like Dell has had for many years now) had been promised for quite a while, so lets see if Lenovo keeps delivering; I'm all for having options. But tbh the Dell I had was hands down a better notebook experience (incomparably better display and trackpad, subjectively better keyboard even though keyboards are considered one of the strong points of ThinkPads). To match a Dell XPS, you have to go for a really premium Carbon X1 which is quite a bit more expensive. Downside with my Dell XPS was that the battery seems to have been broken OOTB and never lived up to Dell's projections, then began to swell so had to be replaced out of warranty.
Really happy to see that Lenovo is improving Linux support.
I picked up my first ThinkPad, an X1 Carbon with a i7-10710U and touchscreen, on sale last year and installed Manjaro Linux (with a vanilla Gnome DE). It's not a perfect hardware/software integration - the fingerprint reader doesn't work and neither does the onboard mic with the 5.4 kernel - but otherwise this is one of the best laptops I've ever used.
I don't think of it as a workstation. It's a portable premium keyboard with a decent screen attached. It's been great for light web dev and long form typing on the ~go~ couch. It barely weighs anything in my bag. Battery life on Linux is comparable to what I was getting on Windows, which is ~8 hours for light use.
Speaking of batteries, I had some issues with my battery not being recognized recently (it started by randomly reporting 0% charge before the machine started refusing to charge it altogether). The Lenovo support experience was surprisingly fast. I dropped off the machine at FedEx on a Tuesday morning and it was back in my hands by that Friday afternoon.
If you're thinking about going down the same path, my advice is that the Arch wiki is your friend.
By chance, I interacted with one of their devs through the Debian community, and came away very positively surprised. They really seem committed to this.
From a quick pass I don't see any mention about the docking stations. I would rather have them start working on the docking station capabilities. Right now my dock doesn't understand how to provide display port capabilities to linux. It is a very expensive USB-hub at this moment when I boot linux.
I had this same issue - if it's the same thing, it turned out that there are firmware issues and that the up-to-date firmware was only available for Windows (this may have changed, it was ~3-4 months ago). Lenovo's officially putting their updates on LVFS, but in practice it seems neglected. I spent a day or two stubbornly trying to extract the updates from the Windows binaries, eventually resorted to booting into Windows and updating firwmares on both laptop and dock that way. No issues since.
If it still doesn't work you can fall back on displaylink drivers in a pinch.
I was currently shopping around for a new Laptop, and I really like the T series ones. Unfortunately, it seems they suffer from the throttling issue, which can be mitigated by a fix from the community [1]. I think Lenovo also released a fix for some models. All in all, it's a bit hard to know which models are impacted or not, and I don't want to end up buying one and having to resort to these kind of fixes to have it working correctly.
[1]: https://github.com/erpalma/throttled
This is great news. Honestly I've never had a problem with Ubuntu on machines that are just a 1-year or older. There are so many i7 laptops in the secondary market that work perfectly.
If they don't sell the actual laptops with all features working on a vanilla debian install, this amounts to nothing.
Besides, most linux-related announcements by Lenovo are false. They have announced several times in the last years, with much fanfare, that they were going to sell laptops with linux pre-installed. This has not been the case.
Infuriating as hell that we are forced to pay for something that not only we don't wish to use or support, but it also inflates the Windows sales figures and percieved install base vs Linux installed base. Grr.
My 7yo T440p is still working very well and my son is using that one now.
The brand new X1E Gen2 works flawlessly on Linux.
Granted, I'm using Fedora, not Ubuntu.
Fedora tends to be bleeding edge, even for the X1E Gen2 all I had to do is install Fedora from the LiveCD (I'm using the KDE spin) and it just works. (this laptop still came with Windows only, so I deleted that and install Fedora)
I find the Ubuntu hardware certification a bit dubious specifically since they list all the hardware details. See, eg. https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201906-27127 (copied from another thread, as a reference)
Now, as a consumer, I don't have access to that level of details while trying to buy a laptop!
So, the certification both makes you believe your laptop will be compatible but then when it isn't they can come back and claim your specific controller or bluetooth card is not in the list.
This is, of course, the manufacturer's fault since they use the same product name for a large variety of component bags. In a way Dell XPS Linux Edition is good since it tells you upfront there's no tricks.
That being said, this news is encouraging but I want to know when can I buy laptops from this lot of certified devices?
I would love first class hardware for Linux, specifically Ubuntu. This may just be a feeling, but too often do I feel like there is additional configuration that has to occur to get Ubuntu working on a repurposed laptop. There also seems to be a trade off of battery life — the same hardware platform lasts 4-6 hours running Ubuntu and 10-12 running windows. I know I can further configure the OS to get similar performance but therein lies the desire.
I get a great consumer experience when I purchase a MacBook or (some) windows laptops and I don’t have to worry about that configuration step.
It’s about time Ubuntu and other Linux distos are able to offer that same “ready to use” experience that I’m describing.
P.S. That said, it is worth pointing out that executing that configuration step is highly educational and, sometimes, pretty fun.
I think what's cool is that there now at least 3 different supported ways to run Linux on laptops today:
1. Directly run your traditional Linux distro (i.e. on these Lenovos, System76 laptops, etc).
2. Run WSL using Windows on a Windows laptop.
3. Run Crostini Linux VM on a Chromebook.
In the past, the Linux laptop options were largely limited to those who wanted to install it unsupported on devices (remember the campaigns to get refunds for the default Windows installations on laptops?).
And sure, the above listed supported commercial solutions don't embody the hacker ethos of the old Linux-on-laptop communities, but they do represent the growth of Linux as a broadly usable software development environment.
[+] [-] fluffything|5 years ago|reply
Finger print sensor doesn't work, the fans are super loud all the time, audio doesn't work (requires a newer Linux kernel than the one shipped in the latest Ubuntu), EFI problems, sleep, hibernate, fast-boot, restore from hibernate problems, battery life on Linux is horrible...
So at least the certification for Ubuntu is completely worthless. Reading the first comments in the Ubuntu forums from a year ago and the evolution of the Arch Wiki for my laptop, I have a hard time believing that somebody actually tested it before releasing the laptop. At best, somebody looked at the spec sheet and said "we have supported similar hardware before, this is good to go".
1 year later, the laptop is almost in a barely usable state. Canonical broke Audio support (soundcard not detected anymore) with 19.04 and did not fixed it before 20.04, essentially telling users to wait till the next Ubuntu release due to in 6 months. The only officially supported version is a 4 year old custom 16.04 that I never got the chance of trying, but this should tell you a lot about "long term" support of Canonical and Lenovo for these machines.
The only ones that should be getting any praise are the dozens of volunteers that have been screwed by both Lenovo and Canonical into buying one of these and have made their work and support time available to others for free.
If you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague. They have absolutely zero quality assurance for Linux.
EDIT: link to certification: https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201906-27127
what a worthless bag of bytes.
[+] [-] linuxhansl|5 years ago|reply
I had the exact opposite experience. Perhaps it's a Unbuntu thing, hard to know, I use Fedora, or perhaps it's the Yoga...
In 2004 I got a T42, installed Fedora on it, it just worked.
In 2013 I got a T440p, installed Fedora, just worked. That Laptop is still in use, btw.
This year I got a X1 Extreme Gen2 (stupid name), installed the Fedora KDE spin, just works.
Sleep, etc, works, battery is life is really, the graphics card (internal and dedicated with the Nvidia drivers) work, etc, etc. So I am truly surprised by your experience.
I did a lot of research before, and these are the best Linux laptops that I could find (besides the "open" laptops like System76, etc).
The again, I am an engineer, so perhaps what I do in terms of setup comes easy to me without me noticing the complexity.
[+] [-] RMPR|5 years ago|reply
0: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2020/05/08/lenov...
[+] [-] arkj|5 years ago|reply
Isn't this a bit too harsh on them? We've had good experiences on T and L series.
I am using L470 with fedora 27 for the last 2 years and I have not had any issues so far. I have gone till 78 days without a shutdown. It's been more stable than windows on suspend to ram cycles.
I did have issues with fonts out of the box but fixing was easy. One of the advantages of using Linux is it forces you to fix the broken parts and personally it has been a very rewarding experience.
[+] [-] lallysingh|5 years ago|reply
It's not my first Thinkpad running Linux, and the prior two ran quite well.
[+] [-] dahfizz|5 years ago|reply
I also have had great experience with fwup. I've gotten tons of bios, firmware, microcode etc updates from Lenovo and they all apply seamlessly.
I think Linux support of new hardware is always going to be shaky unless we can get vendors to care and support it themselves. Otherwise, we have to wait and let the open source devs make drivers after the hardware is released.
[+] [-] corty|5 years ago|reply
If you are running a supported combination of hardware and software, the hardware vendor can't officially close your case just because "you are running unsupported software and we are sure your OpenBSD damaged your mouse" or similar BS. However, as long as there is a hardware problem you are able to clearly identify, support is usually not a problem even with non-certified software with most (but not all) vendors. Problems that might be either hardware or software are always a problem, because you are almost always dealing with 2 vendors blaming each other. The certification leads to a slightly lower overhead for convincing the support to take the case and a slightly higher number of solved cases. But nothing dramatic. And also take care that the supported software is usually a specially adapted version of something, e.g. the exact installation of Windows your laptop came with. If you reinstall your companies default Windows image you are out of luck. If you upgrade to another service pack or major version, you are out of luck.
Also "certfied" is necessary for stuff like "our processes for adding numbers are certified ISO12345 and demand supported hard- and software". There is no real benefit besides complying with some obscure checklist some useless PHB came up with. But in some industries, you cannot do business without that, no matter how pointless, expensive, unsafe, insecure or counterproductive it might be.
In sum "certified" means "the bureaucracy won't be able to complain", not "it works".
[+] [-] uoaei|5 years ago|reply
I've had great experiences with my Thinkpads (t410s and t530) running Linux. Granted, I was just running Ubuntu, but I never had an issue. I will note that I disabled the fingerprint sensor, camera, and microphone at the BIOS level so didn't have experience dealing with those drivers. I expect most others will have a fine experience with the non-touchscreen Thinkpads, and probably some of the newer models as well.
[+] [-] momokoko|5 years ago|reply
I am a long time Linux user so that may be the difference. The fact that you prefer Ubuntu is probably a bit telling about you experience and skill level with Linux on the desktop.
[+] [-] fovc|5 years ago|reply
I think the yoga subbrand is a lower end model, so maybe they're sloppier there?
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|5 years ago|reply
I bought a Linux laptop from System76 almost to years ago, and it have been a painless experience. They even manage CUDA updates fairly much hassle free. Anyway, I was tired of 25 years of futzing around with configuring Linux, so I decided on an easier path.
[+] [-] FunnyLookinHat|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevewodil|5 years ago|reply
Are you using that kernel version? If not, use Ukuu or some other method and install it
[+] [-] waheoo|5 years ago|reply
My macs have far more problems.
Dont even get me started on my windows machines.
[+] [-] m463|5 years ago|reply
People may have forgotten on the windows side they added software to the bios that would install itself even on a clean windows install
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Lenovo_Service_Engine
hmm, "Customer Feedback Program" or "Lenovo Accelerator" look similar.
[+] [-] nabla9|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisgoodlife|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prennert|5 years ago|reply
My answer was that for me personally the hope was to have more Linux ready machines and laptops available in the end consumer market (i.e. non server, non cloud market). Although the Thinkpads are long not anymore IBM products, somehow I was still hoping for the closer connection between hardware and OS know how in the form of the IBM-Red Hat relationship would trickle through.
Seeing Red Hat next to Ubuntu as supported Linux OS makes me think that Red Hat made actually some contributions to making this announcement possible.
It's great to see that it's not just one model but all models in all configurations will be supported. This is great news to businesses who need computers only as a gateway to cloud apps. Why would you pay windows licenses (particularly professional), if you can get a decent OS that can be managed better by IT for free? This is will weigh in particularly with cheap machines that are used by office workers in the throughout of the service economy.
Edit: maybe this will be the start of the height of the current trend to push all applications into the cloud, which is the SUN workstation 2.0 model. I wonder if the cyclical nature of this trend makes a comeback in the form of bringing cloud compute back to edge devices in 10 years. I would wonder what could drive such a comeback for the average Joe?
[+] [-] als0|5 years ago|reply
Red Hat isn't missing any "know how". They, like any other developer, are missing publicly available data sheets to make everything work out of the box. There's nothing IBM can do to change that since they no longer manufacture PCs.
[+] [-] amachefe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway-9320|5 years ago|reply
> Our entire portfolio of ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series workstations will now be certified via both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu LTS – a long-term, enterprise-stability variant of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution.
[+] [-] xkr47|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoachimSchipper|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chinathrow|5 years ago|reply
The amount of fine tuning I had to do for my X1 7th generation with Ubuntu 19.10 was almost unbearable. Sound still is not working properly, the internal mic is still not working at all.
[+] [-] mkesper|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nominated1|5 years ago|reply
The E, L and Yoga series are not supported but the T, P and X series are.
[1] https://fwupd.org/
[2] https://fwupd.org/lvfs/search?&value=thinkpad
[+] [-] _-david-_|5 years ago|reply
Here is an E model that has a bootable iso: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netb...
[+] [-] tannhaeuser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foo2020|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anogrebattle|5 years ago|reply
I picked up my first ThinkPad, an X1 Carbon with a i7-10710U and touchscreen, on sale last year and installed Manjaro Linux (with a vanilla Gnome DE). It's not a perfect hardware/software integration - the fingerprint reader doesn't work and neither does the onboard mic with the 5.4 kernel - but otherwise this is one of the best laptops I've ever used.
I don't think of it as a workstation. It's a portable premium keyboard with a decent screen attached. It's been great for light web dev and long form typing on the ~go~ couch. It barely weighs anything in my bag. Battery life on Linux is comparable to what I was getting on Windows, which is ~8 hours for light use.
Speaking of batteries, I had some issues with my battery not being recognized recently (it started by randomly reporting 0% charge before the machine started refusing to charge it altogether). The Lenovo support experience was surprisingly fast. I dropped off the machine at FedEx on a Tuesday morning and it was back in my hands by that Friday afternoon.
If you're thinking about going down the same path, my advice is that the Arch wiki is your friend.
[+] [-] dempseye|5 years ago|reply
Will you have to choose between decent battery life and the ability to use an external monitor?
I bought an X1 Extreme and even with Pop!_OS it is incredibly annoying.
[+] [-] ckastner|5 years ago|reply
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd031426
By chance, I interacted with one of their devs through the Debian community, and came away very positively surprised. They really seem committed to this.
[+] [-] exceptione|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Legogris|5 years ago|reply
If it still doesn't work you can fall back on displaylink drivers in a pinch.
[+] [-] donedealomg|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ledvd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simplecto|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxwellito|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enriquto|5 years ago|reply
Besides, most linux-related announcements by Lenovo are false. They have announced several times in the last years, with much fanfare, that they were going to sell laptops with linux pre-installed. This has not been the case.
[+] [-] Jonnax|5 years ago|reply
Everything works perfectly.
I'd argue that thinkpads aren't stylish, but they're bricks that work well.
[+] [-] nodefourtytwo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linker3000|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dghf|5 years ago|reply
And Lenovo's online specs and manuals are excellent.
[+] [-] PaulAJ|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mr_custard|5 years ago|reply
Infuriating as hell that we are forced to pay for something that not only we don't wish to use or support, but it also inflates the Windows sales figures and percieved install base vs Linux installed base. Grr.
[+] [-] blaser-waffle|5 years ago|reply
Dell offers that option -- "ships with" Ubuntu -- but only for a handful of laptops.
[+] [-] linuxhansl|5 years ago|reply
I had Lenovo's with Linux for the past 20 years.
My 7yo T440p is still working very well and my son is using that one now.
The brand new X1E Gen2 works flawlessly on Linux.
Granted, I'm using Fedora, not Ubuntu. Fedora tends to be bleeding edge, even for the X1E Gen2 all I had to do is install Fedora from the LiveCD (I'm using the KDE spin) and it just works. (this laptop still came with Windows only, so I deleted that and install Fedora)
[+] [-] fierarul|5 years ago|reply
Now, as a consumer, I don't have access to that level of details while trying to buy a laptop!
So, the certification both makes you believe your laptop will be compatible but then when it isn't they can come back and claim your specific controller or bluetooth card is not in the list.
This is, of course, the manufacturer's fault since they use the same product name for a large variety of component bags. In a way Dell XPS Linux Edition is good since it tells you upfront there's no tricks.
That being said, this news is encouraging but I want to know when can I buy laptops from this lot of certified devices?
[+] [-] sovietmudkipz|5 years ago|reply
I get a great consumer experience when I purchase a MacBook or (some) windows laptops and I don’t have to worry about that configuration step.
It’s about time Ubuntu and other Linux distos are able to offer that same “ready to use” experience that I’m describing.
P.S. That said, it is worth pointing out that executing that configuration step is highly educational and, sometimes, pretty fun.
[+] [-] danans|5 years ago|reply
1. Directly run your traditional Linux distro (i.e. on these Lenovos, System76 laptops, etc).
2. Run WSL using Windows on a Windows laptop.
3. Run Crostini Linux VM on a Chromebook.
In the past, the Linux laptop options were largely limited to those who wanted to install it unsupported on devices (remember the campaigns to get refunds for the default Windows installations on laptops?).
And sure, the above listed supported commercial solutions don't embody the hacker ethos of the old Linux-on-laptop communities, but they do represent the growth of Linux as a broadly usable software development environment.