
Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux - tpush
https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-brings-linux-certification-to-thinkpad-and-thinkstation-workstation-portfolio-easing-deployment-for-developers-data-scientists/
======
fluffything
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.

EDIT: link to certification:
[https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201906-27127](https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201906-27127)

what a worthless bag of bytes.

~~~
linuxhansl
> 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.

~~~
yolomcsuperswag
"X1 Extreme Gen2 (...) just works"

Literally? I can't even beat the installer because of the GPU. (Vanilla
Fedora)

~~~
linuxhansl
Huh?

I really did not do anything special (after it was installed I installed the
NVidia drivers from RPMFusion, but that was after the base install was done).

Perhaps you need to enable hybrid graphics in the BIOS.

~~~
yolomcsuperswag
I've tried both with and without :/ Oh, well.

------
prennert
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?

~~~
als0
> 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.

------
throwaway-9320
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.

~~~
xkr47
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?

~~~
miahi
Yes, the P series are considered mobile workstations[1].

T series = business X series = ultraportable

[1] [https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/c/LAPTOPS#view-
all](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/c/LAPTOPS#view-all)

------
mkesper
Post of linux technical lead at Lenovo for the PC team at the Debian mailing
list: [https://lists.debian.org/debian-
project/2020/06/msg00004.htm...](https://lists.debian.org/debian-
project/2020/06/msg00004.html) :

    
    
        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.

------
nominated1
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.

[1] [https://fwupd.org/](https://fwupd.org/)

[2]
[https://fwupd.org/lvfs/search?&value=thinkpad](https://fwupd.org/lvfs/search?&value=thinkpad)

~~~
_-david-_
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).

Here is an E model that has a bootable iso:
[https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-
netb...](https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-
netbooks/thinkpad-edge-
laptops/thinkpad-e480-type-20kn-20kq/downloads/ds501843)

~~~
nominated1
Yes, many vendors for many models do the same. Even if they don’t you could
install it via Windows.

“Support” is more than just the ability to install an update. It’s to do with
whether an issue affecting Linux is being addressed. In the case of the E and
L series Thinkpads there are many shared components with the T series so your
chances are much better.

~~~
type0
> Even if they don’t you could install it via Windows.

Some enterprise PCs only have Windows, DOS and RHEL, SUSE options. There's no
reason to use Windows when you can update BIOS and firmware via CentOS Live
image with RHEL binaries.

------
tannhaeuser
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.

~~~
foo2020
Can you tell me the model of the Thinkpad that you are using. I am looking to
buy one.

~~~
tannhaeuser
Thinkpad E495 with Ryzen/Vega 3500. Not sure it's still available because it
should've been superseeded by the newer Ryzen/Vega 4000 chipset by now? Be
sure to put in a 2nd memory stick to not slow it down (see the review on
notebookcheck why), and also to have at least 16GB RAM.

Edit: I picked mine because it was on stock for take-away (there isn't usually
a choice of "pro" notebooks with matte screens in retail); for the same kind
of money, you could get better value I think; I had hoped for a little more
performance for sure (but it's still a solid workhorse)

------
anogrebattle
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.

------
dempseye
Is Nvidia Optimus going to work or will it still require a dirty hack?

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.

~~~
paines
Dirty hack, like bumblebee? Well since driver 440.44 this kind of thing is
incooperated into the nvidia driver itself. You can use it on demand. It idles
at around 1w and is used for some physics and other decoding capabilities if i
recall correctly. If you want to run a game or an app using nvidia you prepend
it with an environment variable, otherwise intel gfx is used. It's not dirty,
and works quite well imho... To make it more convenient:there are even
extensions for gnome to say use nvidia with this and that app... Sure, to have
the nvidia card kick in triggered by the OS somehow when really needed would
be the non-plus ultra, but come on, this is science fiction :D

~~~
nnq
> to have the nvidia card kick in triggered by the OS somehow when really
> needed would be the non-plus ultra, but come on, this is science fiction

Can't smth simple & obvious like the macbook pro GPUs work fine, eg. _Intel
graphics for everything when on battery, dedicated graphics for everything
when the power cable is plugged in?_

This covers like, everyones uses cases, right?! I mean, you almost never plug
into an external monitor without having the power cable plugged in to... and
who tf _games_ on battery?

~~~
rsynnott
If only that were what the MBPs actually did. The real rule is, dGPU when
plugged in, iGPU when on battery, _unless of course Chrome feels like forcing
the GPU on for no good reason, which it will do multiple times per day_ (any
app _can_ do this, but in my experience it's mostly only Chrome, and sometimes
electron nonsense, that does).

~~~
cinquemb
Any where I can read on forcing to use the iGPU on MBPs when plugged in at
compile time to be used for the runtime of an application? I figure there are
some speed ups/power savings i can get when running an emulator when i'm not
too concerned about fps (and way more concerned about lag between from usb
input).

[edit] nvm, I can use this:
[https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus](https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus)

------
ckastner
This is good news, but Lenovo should be lauded even for their current Linux
support, which already extends to a great deal of their systems, see [1].

[https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd031426](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
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.

~~~
Legogris
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.

~~~
exceptione
Updating the firmware changed nothing. On the product page I don't see linux
compatibility even mentioned.

~~~
Legogris
That's unfortunate. FWIW I'm using both an old-style dock (ye olde bottom
connector) and the Thunderbolt 3 Dock with a T470s and a T480s with Arch and
NixOS. Displayport and HDMI both working fine after first doing the latest
updates using fwupd and then running additional updates for
laptop/controller/dock from Windows (first step probably redundant).

If it's the Thunderbolt 3 Dock, it can be worth checking that you're using the
right ports/cables (not all USB-C ports are Thunderbolt ports) and that
there's sufficient power (there are different power adapter alternatives and
the 135W brick that shipped with my dock wasn't enough by itself so still need
a separate charging cable for the laptop).

------
ledvd
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](https://github.com/erpalma/throttled)

------
simplecto
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.

~~~
danielscrubs
Graphics drivers and WiFi drivers never worked without significant pampering
for me in Ubuntu, and I've been using Linux for 15 years. Just last week I
updated my working Nvidia drivers for my RTX 2070 card via Ubuntus GUI and lo
and behold after restart the screen is just black. It's at a point where I
just want it to get a working system and never update it, security and
performance be damned.

I know how to fix it because this has happened with pretty much all graphic
cards I've had, I'll have to go into and mess with the grub config, make it
run in safe mode, restart, try another grub config, restart, find out it
doesn't work, run safe mode and reinstall the old drivers, cross my finger and
wonder where my Saturday went.

Gentoo was the most reliant by a long shot (maybe for the simple reason it
always asked if it should replace my config), but that is a time sink in whole
other league.

Have heard good things about Fedora lately, but I dread throwing away the
Debian knowledge I amassed.

~~~
vetinari
> Graphics drivers and WiFi drivers never worked without significant pampering

> my RTX 2070

I still do not understand, why you folks with Nvidia hardware expect it to
work out of the box in Linux, when there have been two decades of experience
that Nvidia doesn't care about that and won't allow anyone to do anything with
that.

So no, your RTX won't work as nice OOTB as Intel and AMD GPUs do. It will
continue to be the case while you continue to give them money for them
ignoring you.

~~~
fungi
Unfortunately AMD doesn't really compete in the machine learning space.
Hopefully one day ROCm will offer a viable alternative but until then we are
pretty much captive.

~~~
vetinari
If you really need nvidia so badly, put that GPU into headless machine, where
you don't need any UI.

Otherwise, you will be frustrated on desktop and it still won't work out of
the box.

~~~
Havoc
>put that GPU into headless machine

Possibly one of the saddest solutions ever proposed. Besides then one can’t
game on it

~~~
vetinari
The original argument was the need for CUDA. It works headless, no sadness
about that.

What is sad, is to reward Nvidia with your money despite being full aware,
that they don't want you to have a nice Linux experience as the other vendors
do.

 _Muh games fps_ is just a nail in the coffin.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Nvidia do care about Linux. Almost all of their cloud/AI sales run Linux. So
CUDA normally works, but the graphics drivers themselves are crap.

If I were to specify a system most likely to "just work" with Nvidia, I'd
probably go for whatever version of CentOS FB, Google and Amazon use
internally.

~~~
vetinari
As you wrote, they might care about their cloud and AI sales, but for linux
desktop and OOTB experience? If they do, they hide it very well.

------
maxwellito
Fantastic news! I hope a lot of other manufacturers will follow!

------
enriquto
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.

------
Jonnax
Got a ThinkPad T450 in my cupboard running Ubuntu as a home server.

Everything works perfectly.

I'd argue that thinkpads aren't stylish, but they're bricks that work well.

~~~
bluedino
Are you using the touchpad, wifi, fingerprint scanner, bluetooth, graphics in
your cupboard?

~~~
Jonnax
Lol, you don't need to be so combative.

It used to be my daily driver laptop.

And yes.

The touchpad, wifi, bluetooth and the GPU (intel) works perfectly.

And the laptop doesn't have fingerprint sensor.

------
PaulAJ
Will you still have to pay the Windows Tax on these products?

~~~
mr_custard
Came here to ask the same thing.

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.

------
linuxhansl
Super big fan.

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
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](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?

------
sovietmudkipz
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.

------
danans
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.

------
sp0ck
Oh boy. I want to see fingerprint readers support. Without working fingerprint
reader calling a product supported is a joke and selective support. And what
about windows hello IR cameras ? Currently it's still a mess.

~~~
viraptor
The annoying thing there is that even with hardware support, login managers or
pam specifically still don't get the idea of "you can use either the password
or the fingerprint now". You get a choice of their using empty password then
the finger, or exhausting fingerprint attempts before using password. Neither
is great. I'm not even sure that's possible to solve with the way pam works.

------
luord
"What’s more, Lenovo will also upstream device drivers directly to the Linux
kernel, to help maintain stability and compatibility throughout the life of
the workstation."

Particularly liked this bit.

------
mlang23
I have a ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen7. In general, I have never been happier with
the performance and haptics of a laptop. However, I haven't managed to get the
fingerprint sensor to work, which is mostly because the relevant driver hasn't
been merged into fprint. I was actually suprised when I discovered fprintd
doesn't work on the X1. From the reputation ThinkPads have amonst Linuxers, I
was sort of naively assuming it wouldn't be an issue.

~~~
RMPR
And that's why I always check the ArchWiki before buying a computer

------
bArray
I had a small laugh when I saw that guy in the example image doing the most
minimal of work on what is otherwise quite a capable machine [1]. But still,
it's cool to see Linux being taken more seriously by vendors.

[1] [https://news.lenovo.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/06/ThinkPad-...](https://news.lenovo.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/06/ThinkPad-P53_Ubuntu-1024x745.jpg)

~~~
HeadlessChild
Running Ubuntu 16.10 it looks like (which was released almost 4 years ago).

~~~
bArray
Hah! I missed that!

------
husam212
> Now, I’m excited to share Lenovo is moving to certify the full workstation
> portfolio for top Linux distributions from Ubuntu® and Red Hat® – every
> model, every configuration.

> Our entire portfolio of ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series workstations will
> now be certified via both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu LTS

Are they certifying all models or just ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series?

~~~
detaro
ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series is what Lenovo calls "workstations", so
probably just those.

------
tomxor
It's really good to see official support for Linux broadening.

Whether you love or hate Lenovo products/service etc (they are far from
perfect) this decision will spur on competition and provide more choice and
better support for all in the future.

------
pyrophane
My experience running Fedora Linux on a Thinkpad P1 Gen 2:

It's mostly very good!

\- I'm running Fedora 32 and using Gnome. I love it. Gnome continues to
improve a lot with each release, and overall the operating system feels very
stable. I can't think of the last time I saw any error.

\- This machine doesn't have great battery life regardless of what OS you are
running, but after properly configuring the GPU, battery life on linux is on
par with Windows if not a bit better. I've also undervolted the cpu, which is
easy to do and provides even better batter life.

\- I was able to install all the software I needed using a combination of the
Fedora rpm repositories, rpmfusion, and flathub. I actually have come to
prefer flatpaks over other installation methods for software like bitwarden,
spotify, riot, slack, etc. I don't notice the same performance issues I have
seen with snaps on Ubuntu. I install Steam from rpmfusion, and am surprised at
how nice the linux gaming experience is these days.

There are a few things that are less than stellar, though.

\- It takes a little work to get decent battery life because of the nvidia
gpu, and the setup isn't perfect. External displays must be run of the
discrete gpu, so you can't get them to work if you are just running off the
integrated intel chip, which provides the best battery life. In fact, external
displays don't work when using "prime offloading" either. You need to set the
nvidia gpu as the primary gpu to get external displays to work. What this all
adds up to is that I need to change a config value and log out/back in
depending on whether I am plugged in to an external display or not. I have a
script that does this so it isn't that bad.

Interestingly, with the latest kernel release the nouveau driver is working
for my nvidia card and, at least according to powertop, is able to dynamically
switch from power-saving to primary mode when an external display is
connected. I am also hopeful nvidia will resolve this in the next release.

\- Docker is still a pain to set up on 32. There's no docker-ce repo, but you
can install from the Fedora 31 repos, and to get it to work some system and
firewall configuration is required. This is all pretty well documented in a
github issue now, but it took a lot of troubleshooting at first.

That's my experience, and it has improved a lot since the machine first came
out and I was running Fedora 30. There were initially several serious firmware
bugs which took a long time to get resolved, and the OS/driver support was not
nearly as good as it is now. Overall, I would recommend this combo if you need
a powerful machine.

~~~
RMPR
>This machine doesn't have great battery life regardless of what OS you are
running, but after properly configuring the GPU, battery life on linux is on
par with Windows if not a bit better. I've also undervolted the cpu, which is
easy to do and provides even better batter life.

You can gain a couple of minutes using a WM instead of a full fledged DE

>Docker is still a pain to set up on 32. There's no docker-ce repo, but you
can install from the Fedora 31 repos, and to get it to work some system and
firewall configuration is required. This is all pretty well documented in a
github issue now, but it took a lot of troubleshooting at first.

My solution to this was to use podman[0] instead.

0: [https://podman.io/whatis.html](https://podman.io/whatis.html)

~~~
pyrophane
I'd love to use podman but have some use cases it doesn't yet support

~~~
RMPR
Apart from podman-compose, any other issue?

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wilsonfiifi
What’s dual (or multiple) monitor Support like with Linux these days? Thinking
of getting the dell xps developer edition because it seems to be the one that
offers the best compatibility but I would personally prefer a Lenovo.

~~~
Joeri
Multiple monitors are not a problem, but mixed DPI is. It supposedly works
fine in wayland, but I tried and failed to switch over to wayland. In X apps
always appear the wrong size on one display or the other.

~~~
wilsonfiifi
Oh boy! Well I'll just stay in the expensive "Mac-land"...

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mkj
This only says they'll certify ThinkPad P series, which are mobile
workstations not the more comfortable laptop ranges. Reading the title you'd
think it might be workstations, and all ThinkPads.

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mxuribe
This is wonderful, and welcomed news! The more that lenovo continues their
sincere support of linux - and linux distros - the more likely i will be to
purchase more and more of their hardware.

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dzonga
now the OS's need to improve. thinkpad's have had stellar support for linux.
own a t490 and have run several distros from manjaro, redhat etc now on ubuntu
20.04. the distros need to work on hdpi support, consolidate desktop
environments. kde is nice for some things n gnome is too. like for me on kde,
the brightness setting was wonky. gnome no support for media controls. then
finally linux can takover. I don't know the story about wayland - but it seems
most apps don't support it

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leommoore
Delighted to see Lenovo get behind Linux. I have been a fan of the Dell XPS 13
for the last few years and certainly next time we are upgrading I will have a
good look at the Lenovo range.

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panpanna
Didn't Ubuntu/redhat certify some thinkpads in the past?

~~~
dathinab
Yes a view thinkpads here and there had been somewhat verified. Through I
don't remember if it was fully certified. Like I think the fingerprint reader
was always excluded from certification.

~~~
viraptor
Does anyone know what's up with the fingerprint readers? They always seem to
need reverse engineering. And once some model is well established, they
suddenly switch to a new one...

It's happened so many times it just can't be accidental. There are no secrets
in the glorified grayscale scanner - why are the drivers never opensourced?

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rb808
Is there a good site to different list models and rate compatibility? The
anecdote about fans being super loud are scary. Not just Lenovo if possible

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tsp
Great news! I hope more laptop models will follow.

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manishsharan
Quick aside : I have been a buyer of their T 4xx series-- from 440 to 480. I
am curious as to what will come after T495.

~~~
354896547981565
T14

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tobltobs
Instead of this marketing theater, they could help to improve battery life
under Linux which still sucks.

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LaSombra
I'm very happy that now we have a choice between Ubuntu and something else.

