
Linux support on Lenovo personal systems - ashitlerferad
https://www.lenovo.com/linux
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haunter
I live in Hungary, EU and most of the retail stores sells laptops with
FreeDOS. Or you can choose that you want FeeDOS or Windows. But most people
goes with FreeDOS obviously as you pay less and you get Windows on your "own
way"

Why FreeDOS tho? Good question I never thought about it but I also never seen
Linux on retail store laptops

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joecot
Because FreeDOS is the easiest and lightest OS to put on, since it doesn't
even have a graphical interface. It sounds like they literally put the most
basic OS possible on so they can sell it and claim to Microsoft the person
won't turn around and pirate Windows immediately.

If they actually wanted them to use an OS that's not Windows, they'd
preinstall Linux on it. But that's not the point.

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dorfsmay
No. This link is about which distros and versions of Linux were tested on
these models.

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feluso
I'm a little confused by the link, seems more like it is "they support linux"
than "I can buy one with linux preinstalled"

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dorfsmay
The advantage of computers that you can buy without a pre-installed OS or with
a free OS (freedos! Linus, etc...), is that you don't pay the Windows tax.

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teh_klev
I don't think that's the point the parent poster was making.

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ecmascript
I don't get it, when I try to configure a laptop I cannot select linux. Also,
it's a lot of older versions?

I have installed Ubuntu on my Thinkpad t460 and it worked great out of the
box.

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ivl
This page has existed for quite a long time, actually. I feel like I had used
it more than two years ago for a quick reference on which distro had the
highest chance of just working without much effort on my part.

I don't think there's anything here that suggests Lenovo is now shipping with
Linux installed.

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revicon
Is there any benefit to ordering a thinkpad pre-installed with Linux vs re-
imaging it myself after purchasing (besides cost)? I’d have a few one-off
cases where it’d be nice to boot into a windows environment but would
otherwise love a dedicated Linux laptop. I’m wondering if there is any special
configurations that Lenovo adds to their Linux installs that I would be
missing if I just reimaged a windows one.

~~~
kdmccormick
I can see a benefit in companies that provide their employees with laptops. If
a subset of their employees want to run Linux, I can imagine that they'd be
more willing to provide them with a ThinkPad with Linux pre-installed than
allow employees to re-image the company laptop.

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Nullabillity
Presumably any company that cares about this would have standard corporate
images that they apply anyway?

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ginko
Will those also come preinstalled with Lenovo "productivity apps"?

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number-sequence
and spyware, don’t forget the spyware.

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isodude
We talked about reporting bugs to Lenovo just last week but didn't since it
was running Ubuntu. This is a welcomed change!

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bitlax
What benefit am I getting here over doing a fresh install?

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ToddBonzalez
Buying a ThinkPad with an Ubuntu preload will probably save you 100 bucks (or
whatever a Windows license costs these days)?

That's how it works with Dell anyway.

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bitlax
I thought Windows was generally free for OEM buys, but I haven't looked in a
while.

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ddalex
Windows Home, but not Pro. You get a bare-minimum media consumption platform
with Win Home, no dev.

~~~
bitlax
Ok, that makes sense.

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monnad
You should also add Suse Linux as lenovo laptops now come with pre installed
RH, Ubuntu and Suse Linux.

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m23khan
after using linux (even those with GUIs) for over 13 years, I would personally
still buy laptop with windows installed as primary OS.

The ease of day-to-day apps such as Microsoft Office, especially Word and
Excel is unparalleled. If you are into DB and work in place that has MS SQL,
MS SQL combined with SQL Studio is a very powerful feature. IDE selection is
somewhat better because you have more options available -- things like Visual
Studio (even for non Microsoft programming languages) are available.

If you go down Linux route and you need GUI, a portion of your time would be
consumed by hunting for and finding analyzing options available for you on
Linux -- for GUI stuff, Windows seem to be default.

In my opinion, if I am buying a non-Apple laptop, unless Microsoft rolls out a
Linux distro with emphasis on GUI and which they will support and develop, I
won't bother with Linux as my default OS on my machine.

~~~
cies
As a Linux on the desktop user for 15+ years (who has had some OSX boxes for
some time and also has to run Windows from time to time), here's what I love
about running Linux as my daily desktop driver:

* all software I need can be installed with some CLI commands

* similar to the server envs I tend to

* no hassle with anti-virus/malware/trojans/etc (I merely install clam-av for some compliance thingy, that's all)

* basic tools are top quality (I hate the default terminal apps on both OSX and windows)

* I can use decade old scripts to do all kinds of helpful tasks for me (backups, music mgmt, etc.)

* no need to look for some pirated software because I created some file with some software that I now do not have the license for at hand

* I know really well how to fix problems and that knowledge stays relevant (the OS is not moving stuff around all the time)

* Less resource hungry (apart from the browser)

There are some things I'm not too happy with as well:

* Having to read reviews before I can buy some hardware

* Touchpad not as good as Apple's

* Not sure if some USB-C docking station actually will work for me (no review from Linux users found at this point)

* The Hi-PDI screen story is far from perfect (yet slowly progressing)

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Kipters
Here at my job we have some devs using Linux (mostly Ubuntu 18.04) on recent
Dell XPS 15 (Kaby Lake and up) with Dell's Thunderbolt 3 docks

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cies
Cheers. I'm looking for info on a USB-C dock with a Thinkpad T480.

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Kipters
Turns out some are using plain USB-C dongles to connect to external monitors
and USB-A peripherals

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cies
that while also being able to charge the machine through usb-c, that's what
i'm looking for :)

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Kipters
I think they are using the barrel jack to charge it - get back here in 24
hours and I'll have an answer to whether it works :)

~~~
cies
my machine, a Lenovo T420, does not even have another option for charging than
usb-c...

