I own an 4K X1-extreme, which is basically the P1 without the Quadro card and Xeon/ECC option.
I run Ubuntu 19.04 on it and have so many problems.
- Grub has ridiculous performance issues on 4K screens, it renders at less than 1 fps, making it a real pain to do anything in it.
- You can't update the bios through Linux, the update tool is windows only.
- The Lenovo TB3 dock never works properly.
- The dual GPU situation (Intel + nVidia) requires all sorts of hacks to make it somewhat workable.
- The power usage is an abomination under Linux as it can't properly scale the nVidia GPU.
- Working with the TPM under Linux feels hacky, but maybe that's mostly due to my lack of experience and the lack of documentation.
OK, so all these problems are all due to my specific situation (running dual boot, and an external 4K display through the TB3 dock), but I really, really hope they start fixing these issues if they are going to officially support Ubuntu.
One plus though: due to the high power consumption under Linux, the coil whine is a lot less notable...
Most of these pain points go away if you purchase the iGPU only version. I own a Thinkpad T470 and Ubuntu works like a charm.
The only issue I still have is that the Gnome interface (Ubuntu 17.04+) does not support factorial scaling, meaning that I am stuck between 100% (which is way to small on a 14 inch screen) and 200% (which is way too big).
Ubuntu 16.10 still supports factorial scaling though, which means I am stuck with it until a better version comes along.
Factorial scaling means being able to set the entire desktop scale to 120%, 140% and so on.
It is important to me because most of the work I do in my PC is text based (coding and research), so being able to scale text and ui elements 'globally' is critical for good visibility.
The word "factorial" makes no sense here. Maybe "fractional"?
Besides, what is the fucking point of "scaling" at the display level? Isn't it exactly equivalent to setting the font size in points using your physical resolution?
No, it's not like setting font size. Actual fractional scaling as done by macOS and Wayland compositors is rendering at 2x and downscaling.
e.g. 1.5 scale on a 3840x2160 display means you have 2560x1440 logical pixels (3840x(1/1.5) = 2560), applications render for 5120x2880 (2560x2=5120) and get downscaled for 3840x2160.
Yeah, I just realized it's called fractional scaling too, my bad.
It is still important though, because on 14inch desktops the Ubuntu interface looks way too small on 100% scale and way too big on 200%. At the end of the day you can think of fractional scaling as giving yourself more screen real-estate while at the same time keeping everything in a readable state.
Most programs aren't coded to have all of their elements scale properly. You have icons, buttons, pictures, etc that may be bit mapped images, then you have other elements that are vector mapped. So if you just change the font size, you can read the text, but it may be in a text box that is too small (so it overflows).
So the best thing you can do, other than re-write all the applications that have been around for the last 30 years or more, is to make the app think it is writing to a display with a specific resolution. Then scale that up to whatever resolution your screen actually is. Then, any element that is bit mapped in the app may not look very crisp, but things like fonts or any element drawn by a UI library can be drawn at the screen's native resolution (because those libraries have been updated to know about the "fake" vs "real" resolution).
This is very similar to when you hit "ctrl +" in a modern web browser. If the web app says "place this element 25 pixels to the right", those are logical pixels and has little to do with actual screen pixels anymore.
Can confirm that the T470 has been rock solid under Linux (I got one from work; running Slackware 14.2 with a -current kernel). Even OpenBSD ran reasonably well (had to switch off it because my work required me to use things like Google Hangouts that required Linux, but I might switch back pretty soon and try using an X-forwarded Linux VM).
I would've been much happier with the intel only version, the nvidia card is not worth it at all but at the time they didn't have 32gb of memory. Now the latest does, but too late.
I own an t490, also with ubuntu 19.04+gnome + dual boot.
I consider my problems are more basic than yours, and more hardware related.
- Under linux, the power management is VERY bad. I'm honestly starteled how it can be so bad. I loose 10-13% overnight while in 'deep sleep', compared to only 3% with 7.5 yo MBA. I get 5-6.5 hours of battery life. Less than the 2011 MBA. With windows it it much better - almost on par with my MBA.
- Trackpad has a big deadzone on the left+right + bad palm recognition.
- The display is very slow. More so on windows than on linux for some reason.
- Installing software is way too difficult compared to how it should be. Some software you install from the store, some from the command line, some offer AppImage. Sometimes the store has old versions that no longer works, things are not available for ubuntu 18.04/19.04, or you have to manually created a link such that the software is available in the desktop launcher.
I hope Apple finally fixes the Keyboard+durability issues with their next MBP iteration. Personally, I came to think that the 500$ Apple tax is worth it compared to all the (software) convenience + (hardware) quality that they offer.
> I hope Apple finally fixes the Keyboard+durability issues with their next MBP iteration. Personally, I came to think that the 500$ Apple tax is worth it compared to all the (software) convenience + (hardware) quality that they offer.
I agree, I bought the X1-e as the replacement of my rMBP because I just couldn't live with the keyboard and the touchbar of the new MBP. But the experience of the X1 didn't live up to it's expectations, mostly on the software side.
Don't get met wrong though, the X1 is a great piece of hardware. The keyboard is awesome and I really like upgradability.
But the experience on Windows (or Linux for that matter) is just not so good. A macbook is just more polished, and that is coming from someone who generally doesn't like Apple products.
In the end, this is a work laptop for me, and I just want stuff to work. And for that, the $500 Apple tax is worth it.
> You can't update the bios through Linux, the update tool is windows only.
I run Fedora on a T480s and BIOS updates come automatically through the software update channel (in fact, the frequency of BIOS updates is a little annoying).
UEFI makes bios flashing easier & with fwupd (thanks RedHat / Richard Hughes!) it “just works” for those manufacturers that do the work to integrate with the fwupd infrastructure.
> You can't update the bios through Linux, the update tool is windows only.
They offer ISO-images for these updates too. You can also create a USB-bootable version from these using the geteltorito tool (which is available via apt).
> Why are you using GRUB to dual-boot at all? Your machine has UEFI for that.
As far as I know, dual booting through UEFI requires me frantically hitting the F12 button during powerup to get into the boot menu. And then it won't remember your last chosen OS, so stuff like windows updates (requiring multiple reboots) become really annoying.
But I'll look into this, maybe I can just ditch grub all together, that would be great! My last linux/grub experience was on non-UEFI machines so I was just so used to installing grub that it didn't cross my mind that I might not need it.
I dual boot Windows and Fedora on a laptop with a NVIDIA dGPU and an Intel iGPU, don't use the NVIDIA one in Linux but when I boot to Windows I can game.
As far as I know, Ubuntu has even better NVIDIA support than Fedora so you should be good
You may need to install proprietary drivers though
Also I get really, really good battery life in Linux, I think it's accomplished with sudo powertop --auto or similar
I'm stoked about the upcoming AMD-based T series, which hopefully resolves the thermal throttling in the A series and has more ports and battery options than the E series. This would eliminate most of your issues since AMD GPU drivers are first class citizens on Linux.
All of your problems will magically disappear if you don't buy laptops with nvidia gpus. People really ought to do some basic basic research before dropping a couple of grand on hardware.
Can you undock while it is booting up, powering down or during a 2 hour windows update, that you did not plan on before clicking shut down? Does it BSOD the next time windows boot up ?
Yay, more options for not paying Microsoft taxes anymore. Microsoft's policy is that the vendor must have a policy on refunding licenses, but whenever I ask for a refund with a new laptop, the procedure is forwarding me to five different people because nobody knows and the last one goes "are you kidding me" and "no". The policy could be "go away", but not having a policy is the only thing that's not allowed. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft doesn't really mind and keeps shipping OSes to vendors that don't follow their license agreement.
Running Ubuntu 16.04 on a Zenbook UX360 with a 4K screen and frankly its working much better than expected. The 4K display is automatically scaled, all the brightness and function buttons work, no issues with display drivers, wifi, bluetooth, suspend and it pretty surprising to see this kind of experience out of the box. And its really fast and smooth. Even battery life is good if not excellent, around 8 hours on windows and 7 on Ubuntu for browsing, youtube, some spreadsheets and terminal.
For those of us who have tried to get Linux working on laptops 5-10 years ago this is quite a jump so clearly people have been working on this in the background to get to this state. Was using WSL earlier but after Ubuntu worked so well may as well use it. Of course for those who use Windows only apps WSL remains a good option.
Also have an Matebook 13 and tried Ubuntu after this experience on the Zenbook and there too it worked out of the box on a hi-res screen with dual graphics but you need to use either the prime drivers to use both, or use bbswitch to put off the Nvidia card for the best battery life. So it seems for recent laptops Linux works pretty well out of the box.
China has used its own FreeBSD (kylin) and then ubuntu-based (neokylin) since 2001. Nearly half of all laptops are sold with it. Likewise, North Korea has Red Star since 2008 which is mandatory or risk forced labor.
While kylin isn't too far off from a traditional distro, officers will force you to install rootkits on both desktop/laptops and phones (JingWang). If you're caught later with it missing you will most likely disappear.
Red Star is horrifically oppressive and monitors everything you do. The GPL is of course ignored and very few changes are ever released. Trying to circumvent the restrictions causes the OS to self destruct. The few applications you can use watermark every file you create.
Long story short them creating linux-based distros is just an easy way for them to exert total control. It does nothing positive for the Linux or BSD ecosystem.
>If you're caught later with it missing you will most likely disappear.
That could well be true in North Korea, but Chinese really isn’t like that. They have a very active tech industry so installing and experimenting with Linux distros and such that might not have monitoring software is fine. As long as you don’t do something openly suspect, like post something considered anti government, they just leave people alone.
I have relatives in China who have desktops and laptops and never come across Kylin. As far as I know it’s mainly used by the military and government departments.
That comment refers to JingWang not the OS. If you were an individual forced to install it you are added to a registry. If you live in a particular city, it is mandatory. If you are part of a particular minority, it is mandatory. Refusing to install it or prove its installation if your national identity is in the registry is a crime and you wil be arrested.
Beijing is not Kashgar. Many Chinese will experience relative freedom and others live in city-sized prisons.
This article and thread is about pre-installed Linux on some recently announced laptops. Could you please stop trying to politicize everything in every possible way?
Much as I also grow tired of the constant shoehorning of China into every single conversation here, in this instance Lenovo is a Chinese company so it's at least somewhat relevant.
It is my impression that despite initiatives like Kylin and Deepin, most of China is still on Windows. Am I wrong?
They adopting Linux would mean their hardware would work with it and developers targeting the Chinese market would have to make their programs work on Linux. That's all I'm hoping for.
I was pretty sure you're correct, but I double checked just to be sure [0].
I've read an article about the rampancy of piracy in China and Microsoft earning next-to-nothing. Last I remember is they're just leaving them alone, while trying to develop a new way to profit off of them.
WinXP is pretty much is a "national OS" by default.
Loaded to the top with antiviruses and other crapware to keep it running.
Why XP? Too much hardware comes with XP only drivers. Too much important stuff like tax/bank software was written decades ago for XP, and never ported to never OSes because developers moved on years ago.
It has always amazed me that North Korea is able to create an OS like Red Star. I assume it takes a lot of knowledge and skill to stitch together such an OS, with fairly "unique" spying features not really seen in other distros.
Considering the limited access to the internet and not being able to ask StackOverflow users, how can they even manage building such a complex piece of software?
Why wouldn't NK be able to make a Linux distro? Some distros are managed by only a few people. NK has 25 million people.
Also, they don't restrict information for everyone. Kim Jong Un went to school in Switzerland... They know about the outside world. Just not the plebs.
Why would they restrict internet access for those that do the coding? And why wouldn't they allow them on forums/IRC? They would just be heavily monitored, at least that's my guess.
Yes, but even though I myself have created my own Linux distro, I would absolutely not be able to do that with restricted internet access, without access to the guide-books, and without the help of IRC. I suspect this would be the case for most of my developer friends as well.
The distros are not being created by independent developers and then the state uses the distros, the distros are being made by the very state itself. The same organisation that will lift internet access and guide books and send their staff overseas to get training.
That's not true. A single person can do it at world scale provided they are not trying to do something overly esoteric (though you can actually get pretty far with a Gentoo base). There are even plenty of from-scratch distros that started as a one-man show. Take the recent Void Linux for instance.
The government still uses a majority mix of Windows and some OSX for the upper classes. For anyone else it's very much mandatory, and you need to be on a national registry just to legally own a computer, which is also how they ensure you update.
It seems that Lenovo has been certifying their model for Ubuntu (probably for enterprise customers) for a quite a long time. There are a bit less models recently, but a few already have an Ubuntu 18.04 certification:
I can confirm that "everything works" is true for at least my T460. For Ubuntu 18.04 you even get BIOS updates via software updates. Battery life is also very good. With Ubuntu now again on Gnome I cannot complain. Under Ubuntu 16.04 I had occasionally problems where I needed to restart the network manager to see new wifi networks (wifi itself was always stable!), but this minor thing is also no issue anymore.
Recently my CPU broke down and I was "lucky" to try out the on-site warranty to replace my mainboard, which was not perfect (took a few days compared to the advertised "next business day"), but better compared to sending your stuff somewhere or searching your repair shop.
Also note that I do not use any nvidia graphics or 3d games. Just have not tried it and I know this could be a weak point. Videos etc work flawlessly though.
It is also no "free hardware" (bios etc). For an alternative in that regard I recommend to have a look into the nice Librem line from Purism: https://puri.sm/products/
>Lenovo has been certifying their model for Ubuntu (probably for enterprise customers) for a quite a long time
That certification racket between lenovo, canonical and redhat is not worth the paper it's printed on. It has no bearing on anything. Some firms/governments like such papers. That's about it.
I didn't find confirmation but I assume being certified with 14.04 and 16.04 means they're still certified with 18.04. Assuming that's the case they've certified pretty much their whole range.
Yes, if you manage to buy the exact same hardware. Unfortunately with laptops, the hardware configs change at best every year, and at worst every quarter, for a single model family. And often you don't know the exact model before buying it from a reseller.
Your second link is about someone who flashed their own copy of Windows 3.1 into the boot ROM of their own ThinkPad X200. Lenovo didn't put Windows 3.1 there, that user did.
Your first link is about Lenovo's IdeaPad line. IdeaPad and ThinkPad could well be thought of as products from two different companies.
Lenovo was already making laptops when they bought the ThinkPad line from IBM. Their own laptops evolved into the consumer oriented IdeaPad line, while ThinkPad remained the business oriented line.
They're both part of Lenovo, but are largely separate teams with different business goals and philosophies.
In particular, ThinkPads were never infested with any of the stuff you're talking about.
Here is the original notice from Lenovo about this. No ThinkPads are listed:
It's reasonably clear that this separation exists by looking at the hardware build quality too. The general consumer range of Lenovo laptops is absolute garbage.
The biggest problem comes from people recommending Lenovo laptops, without stressing specifically that it's ThinkPads that are being recommended, and not any Lenovo laptop generally.
If you've used either range of laptop extensively, it's very obvious that they're built to very different specs, with very different goals. There doesn't appear to be much (if any) cross team work going on there.
I was wondering what "crapware in BIOS" is, it turns out to be software in the UEFI/BIOS system that installs software in your Windows install. I doubt I'll be affected as a Linux user. And it's a little short sighted to go "they did something wrong in 2015 on Windows, let's just exclude one of the vendors shipping Linux because there are so many others already".
This is great news, last year I was looking at Lenovo laptops but went for Dell because they offered Linux and I wanted to vote with my wallet. And it seems to have helped!
Besides being proprietary, the whole dual-GPU switching setup is generally more troublesome than a single-GPU design. Even on macOS you can feel a subtle delta in glitchiness between Intel-only and mixed-GPU machines.
Plus Nvidia drivers are the least likely to support Wayland in the near future.
My main issue with Lenovo's mobile workstations (and why I've yet to buy one) is that they all use Nvidia for their secondary GPUs. Meanwhile, Dell's Precision line offers the option of AMD GPUs (e.g. my Precision 7510, which I got specifically because it shipped with a FirePro card).
That said, I've been pretty happy with my T470 at work (running Slackware), so an integrated-GPU-only ThinkPad that ships with Ubuntu sounds interesting (or even an Nvidia-GPU ThinkPad if they've managed to make Intel/Nvidia hybrid setups less painful). I'd probably be willing to pick up one of the all-AMD ThinkPads (I've got my eye on the T495, E595, and X395; all of them seem to have the same CPU and integrated GPU offerings, though the E595 offers way more RAM so that gives it a bit of an advantage); none of those offer preinstalled Ubuntu, though.
I'm running 18.04.2 on a Thinkpad L460 (32gb RAM, SSD). It's an older laptop. I always get nervous to upgrade because it seems everything works with the L460. Wifi, Dock, wired etc, trackpad, etc. It has mad me return to Linus for day-to-day work again. I don't want to loose this feeling.
Interesting, and a sigh that the area of the Windows tax may be ending.
Windows is now an ad delivery platform. That probably sounded like a great plan to MS management, but consumer Windows is now on its way to shovelware status. Microsoft will end up paying hardware makers to include it.
If it will work flawlessly with
- external dual monitor setup (one/both 4k) via docking station
- battery usage
- fix the throttling and power management issues
it will be great, otherwise it will be the same miserable experience out of the box that you're getting now.
(I own X1 Extreme 2018, like it, but stick to windows).
Thinkpad A486 on Debian 10 here. Both ethernet chip and WiFi chip requires firmware so install is not straight forward. Wireless driver is marked as alpha and it shows ... weekly hard freeze on the menu. A shame as it could be a great laptop.
The article does not seem to be true. I want to buy one right now, but the only OS that are offered for each P model are different versions of windows.
Just to nitpick, the whole sentence is "Applicable models can be configured with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and will be available this month." The first part of the sentence is written in the present tense and it is not true. The second part, it may be true or not, we'll see...
Does anyone know if any of these models (or any high-end Thinkpad) has a taller than 16x9 screen? Without that this news is only of precursory value to me.
Is windows tax really that bad? I mean I can get an OEM license for 12 dollars most of the time because of promotions.
So if I as a consumer pay 12 dollars for an OEM version, I would expect Lenovo to pay much less.
Also my first observation is that these laptops are far too big and powerful for my work with Linux.
I work full time in Linux but I focus more on weight and form factor than CPU and GPU because all my work is done in terminals.
The X280 or X1 are perfect for me. No dedicated GPU means slim form factor, light weight, and everything I need for my type of work in Gnome and Terminal.
Besides the windows tax aspect there is also the aspect of a vendor taking a bit of responsibility around what the user experience (hardware support etc) is like when running linux on their hardware. Offering an option for shipping with linux seems to serve as a catalyst for that.
I'd be a little surprised if that actually happens. Most likely they're shipping Linux for webdevs and people who want to avoid the Windows tax, neither of which they'll care much about supporting.
Personally I have no desire to buy a license which is being shoved down my throat against my will. It's a matter of principle, not of the sum involved.
From what I've seen that effort seems to be going into proprietary platforms like Stadia. There no guarantee that will trickle down to the open source community.
I can't speak for Stadia but Steam have been shipping open source projects like Proton and pushing Vulkan. If anything, Stadia will increase pressure on Steam to keep improving desktop Linux compatibility.
Valve has contributed a tremendous amount of open source work in order make Linux an even remotely viable gaming platform. I'm actually pretty impressed at how well they've done.
I run Ubuntu 19.04 on it and have so many problems.
- Grub has ridiculous performance issues on 4K screens, it renders at less than 1 fps, making it a real pain to do anything in it.
- You can't update the bios through Linux, the update tool is windows only.
- The Lenovo TB3 dock never works properly.
- The dual GPU situation (Intel + nVidia) requires all sorts of hacks to make it somewhat workable.
- The power usage is an abomination under Linux as it can't properly scale the nVidia GPU.
- Working with the TPM under Linux feels hacky, but maybe that's mostly due to my lack of experience and the lack of documentation.
OK, so all these problems are all due to my specific situation (running dual boot, and an external 4K display through the TB3 dock), but I really, really hope they start fixing these issues if they are going to officially support Ubuntu.
One plus though: due to the high power consumption under Linux, the coil whine is a lot less notable...