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.
T14
Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
121–130 of 205 posts
Re: Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
#122If 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.
Re: Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
#123I 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 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 wi…
I've had mixed experiences in this regard.
Thinkpads from the T and X series (don't know about Yoga, P or L) are really great, usually work out of the box and if there is broken hardware you are visited tomorrow by a nice guy from IBM (yes, really!) who fixes things without complaining about the weird OS you are running (of course you should be able to test that the new component works somehow).
Non-Thinkpad laptops from Lenovo are worse at running with Linux and the hardware support seems to be far worse, send it in, wait a few weeks, no solution.
Note that other vendors are very similar: there is a big difference between the "for professional business use" and "for home use" lines, in prices as well as support for software and support if broken.
Re: Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 have a Lenovo Yoga 720-13ikb. Firmware updates are distributed as Windows Executables only. It's the first time that I have heard of fwup. Will fwup help me to install Firmware (Bios/UEFI) Updates? It's the only reason I have not yet wiped Windows. All hardware worked except the fingerprint reader I do not care for anyway.
You should be able to extract the BIOS update .fd file with InnoExtract [1] or InnoUnp [2], and then use the BIOS vendor's flashing tools, which are usually available for a number of other platforms, including Linux.
If this laptop has Insyde BIOS, the relevant utility is called "H2OFFT-L" (Insyde H2O Firmware Flash Tool - Linux). In the worst case, you might have to run a tool from DOS.
Re: Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 think the idea of $random_component_vendor maintaining an up-to-date Linux driver themselves may be unrealistic I agree. I wonder what the Windows model is, and is there a way to emulate that in Linux?
The windows model is that you get a binary-only driver that works with the current (certified for that component, etc) version of windows. You maybe get one or two updates over the next half a year. Then nothing.
If there is a bug, exploit, whatever, good luck. If there is a newer version of the component with a minor difference (e.g. different range of serial numbers, different device id, etc) usually the newer driver won't work, so no bugfixes for you. However, you can keep on upgrading your windows version, at least within the same Service Pack and major version, sometimes longer, because the age-old driver will continue to work.
The way to emulate it would be "have a binary compatibility layer for kernel modules". However, this gets you old, broken, weird and incompatible drivers that just happen to run with the new version if you are lucky. Also, because every vendor will reinvent the wheel while doing the minimum amount possible, drivers will be less capable, come with weird special tools, crapware and a generally bad compatibility to devices from other vendors.
Believe me, the grass isn't greener on the other side, just different.
Re: Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the certification it states testing was done on kernel version 5.0.0-1015-oem-osp1. Are you using that kernel version? If not, use Ukuu or some other method and install it
To be fair, if hardware really only worked with a specific version of the Linux kernel, that wouldn't exactly scream quality either. You'd be stuck without being able to update for security or for any new hardware support. As a troubleshooting step, trying with the specific kernel version that was used for the certification might of course work.
I agree, I moreso meant if they are on kernel 4.x or possibly an earlier version of 5.x then that could be why it's not working well
Re: Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
#127I 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 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 wi…
No, it's not too harsh.
I have a T440s, bought with the wrong (rtl8192ee) wifi chipset, and their support has been practically nonexistent.
If you're a big company, you can test the hardware before letting all your employees adopt it (and I know that my colleagues are quite happy with their X1 Carbon), but if you're a consumer and you find out that the hardware doesn't have (good/reliable) Linux drivers, you need to be prepared to return it... or to find a replacement FRU yourself (good luck with that!)
Re: Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the certification it states testing was done on kernel version 5.0.0-1015-oem-osp1. Are you using that kernel version? If not, use Ukuu or some other method and install it
To be fair, if hardware really only worked with a specific version of the Linux kernel, that wouldn't exactly scream quality either. You'd be stuck without being able to update for security or for any new hardware support. As a troubleshooting step, trying with the specific kernel version that was used for the certification might of course work.
It seems super weird that "certification" means "works to our spec with $distros at the time of release" instead of "we have an arrangement with $company that will ensure that $distro will always be fully supported."
Re: Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
#129Post 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... :
I would really like to have this conversation with the wider community as to what Lenovo and Debian can do to work better together.
Re: Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
#130I 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…
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.