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This makes sense. 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.
My T480s had 0 issues with Debian 10. It doesn't have a fingerprint reader which I hear is a main bug a boo with Thinkpads.
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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 run Arch Linux on mine, with the latest kernel, and custom tools (think fan), and some things disabled (fast boot), and it becomes "usable". That's ok for any Laptop that isn't advertised as "Ubuntu certified". But I literally had to uninstall Ubuntu and install Arch to get audio and microphone back to work after the 19.04 update broke it, and some dev mentioning on the bug report that the fix wouldn't land on 20.0…
Also, MS and Apple charge for their software. Linux OS are free. That doesn’t absolve Lenovo from selling “certified” laptops that aren’t compatible though.
I also find that sticking to older enterprise Thinkpads (X, T, W) and staying away from the toys posing as thinkpads tremendously helps avoid headaches with Linux. Shame on Lenovo for mucking the waters and using the name for enterprise and consumer machines.
And older enterprise class thinkpads are dirt cheap on top of being easily fixable and upgradable for peanuts because every IT department is on a 3 years lease cycle.
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Can you tell me the model of the Thinkpad that you are using. I am looking to buy one.
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); f…
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 i…
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".
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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…
I've also got the impression that even just slightly older hardware might be easier to get working than the very latest generation. This may be even more true for distros that don't ship new kernels in a rolling release style. (Fedora continuously updates to new minor/patch versions of the kernel as they're released; I'm not sure what Ubuntu does nowadays but I think they used to only patch the kernel version that wa…
I agree. I wonder what the Windows model is, and is there a way to emulate that in Linux?
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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…
"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." I think I can see Arch showing off a bit of ankle at you. Think of Arch as a bit like Gentoo without the burning lap.
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 i…
My macs have far more problems.
Dont even get me started on my windows machines.
Will you still have to pay the Windows Tax on these products?
Dell offers that option -- "ships with" Ubuntu -- but only for a handful of laptops.