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Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

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Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#51

Post by sigg3 »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #40
young_unixer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason. God, the laptop market is awful. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-.…

What a shame. I was about to recommend Dell as an alternative, based on GitLab's public documentation that recommends it for GitLab employees and indicates decent linux support. [1] I made the mistake of sticking with Lenovo due to the expectation of good Linux support, and while most stuff works, I can't say I'm particularly impressed. Aside from a loud fan (not sure if that is due to poor Linux support or just a pr…

I've 3 ThinkPads and never really dealt with Lenovo.

The reason why Linux users love ThinkPads is because they're mostly supported OOB by the kernel (not by Lenovo themselves). This wasn't true of most other laptops for quite a few years.

I bought my T61 in 2008, and the ThinkPad recommendation was old then. Things change with time. I believe most laptops these days are rather standardized, so linux support is ubiquitous.

My point being, it's not really Lenovo supporting Linux but the linux kernel drivers that for a number of years supported ThinkPad OOB where all(?) other brands required a lot of fiddling.

(And you probably just need to install thinkfan if you have full speed fans. Check out the ThinkWiki for your models.)

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#52

Post by sam_lowry_ »

aww_dang wrote: post #35
donw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm looking at a Librem. System76 also does laptops, as does Pine.

I'd like to see Pine offer a larger screen and battery.

PineBook is fine the way it is, but the keyboard is abysmal, that's the only thing that made me switch from it as daily driver to my old Frankenpad.

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#53

Post by squarefoot »

young_unixer wrote: post #12
gentleman11 wrote: post #10

Can’t trust them since the multiple spyware incidents. Fool me four times, shame on me Eg, > But it did more than that. It injected a self-signed root HTTPS certificate, which allowed them to hijack any and all encrypted traffic Different incident > This malware was hidden in the laptop's firmware, and abused the anti-theft feature in Windows 8 and 10. Whenever the laptop booted up, the executable would be extracted…

This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason. God, the laptop market is awful. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-.…

According to the project at the Github page, the online check has been superseded by a newer one:

https://badssl.com/dashboard/

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#54

Post by Freak_NL »

liveranga wrote: post #15
young_unixer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason. God, the laptop market is awful. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-.…

I'm happy with my System76 Lemur Pro. It's refreshing to buy a nice laptop from a linux vendor who are maintaing their own (ubuntu based) distro and actually shipping a very polished gnome experience. Edit: Forgot to mention they ship with coreboot too.

After two System76 laptops I have now switched to Dell. System76 is good, but it's just too much of a hassle when buying from the EU; particularly when dealing with hardware defects under warranty. After all those years I had hoped System76 would have partnered up with a representative in the EU internal market, but alas.

Dell is also acting corporately weird by the way. The XPS 13 (9310) is available with Ubuntu 20.04 installed, but it's not possible to pick it in their Dutch online store like you can in the US one. You can buy it in the Netherlands (and presumably all of the EU) by calling them though. The Dutch Dell salesperson did find a way to configure it that way (with a proper 32GB of RAM too), but that took a bit of prompting and they were genuinely baffled that this option existed and that the configuration tool accepted it (they were cooperative; the knowledge just wasn't available).

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#55

Post by jeremiahhs »

gentleman11 wrote: post #10

Can’t trust them since the multiple spyware incidents. Fool me four times, shame on me Eg, > But it did more than that. It injected a self-signed root HTTPS certificate, which allowed them to hijack any and all encrypted traffic Different incident > This malware was hidden in the laptop's firmware, and abused the anti-theft feature in Windows 8 and 10. Whenever the laptop booted up, the executable would be extracted…

Yep. Never ever buy Lenovo. Personally, I buy HP and sometimes Dell. But Lenovo is forever off my buy list.

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#56

Post by arminiusreturns »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #40
young_unixer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason. God, the laptop market is awful. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-.…

What a shame. I was about to recommend Dell as an alternative, based on GitLab's public documentation that recommends it for GitLab employees and indicates decent linux support. [1] I made the mistake of sticking with Lenovo due to the expectation of good Linux support, and while most stuff works, I can't say I'm particularly impressed. Aside from a loud fan (not sure if that is due to poor Linux support or just a pr…

One problem I had with the Dell shipped linux was the abusive EULA/TOS that shipped with it. Just a heads up. I bet Lenovo is doing something similar.

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#57

Post by tome »

scns wrote: post #21
young_unixer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason. God, the laptop market is awful. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-.…

It depends. If you wan't to run linux, then on your location. If you want to run Windows, i can't help you. As others have allready mentioned, take a look at System76 if you reside in the US. Another option would be https://puri.sm/ Slimbook was mentioned, they are in the UK IIRC. If you are somewhere else, https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/ might have something for you.

I have recently become aware of https://laptopwithlinux.com/

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#58

Post by jopsen »

winrid wrote: post #14
young_unixer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason. God, the laptop market is awful. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-.…

I got an X1 Extreme, went to switch the graphics from Hybrid to Discreet in the BIOS to install Linux, and immediately bricked it. It was a bug. No reset can fix it. They have to replace the motherboard. They had it four months before I finally got them to just replace the machine.

Hmm, about two years ago I bought an X1 5 gen, it had horrible Linux support.. as in it just didn't work properly. So I sent it back for refund, that was no problem.

I'll say this: I respect Lenovo customer service.

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#59

Post by squarefoot »

zozbot234 wrote: post #41
aorth wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: how does this firmware spyware affect Linux? If I get a ThinkPad and overwrite the pre-installed OS with my own, would spyware like this be able to do anything on Linux? I guess they could do the same thing, extract some binary from the firmware pre-boot and inject it to /boot to mess with the boot process... but does that give them viable persistence and ability to do stuff in Linux once the OS is b…

The "anti-theft" firmware exploits a Windows misfeature where the BIOS can include stuff that Windows will simply install automatically at boot. So it wouldn't directly affect Linux just yet. But firmware can do other shenanigans that would render any system fundamentally insecure (e.g. via SMM).

This is something that could be addressed by coreboot/libreboot, but it will probably require some time until most recent models are supported.

https://www.coreboot.org/

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#60

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

young_unixer wrote: post #12
gentleman11 wrote: post #10

Can’t trust them since the multiple spyware incidents. Fool me four times, shame on me Eg, > But it did more than that. It injected a self-signed root HTTPS certificate, which allowed them to hijack any and all encrypted traffic Different incident > This malware was hidden in the laptop's firmware, and abused the anti-theft feature in Windows 8 and 10. Whenever the laptop booted up, the executable would be extracted…

This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason. God, the laptop market is awful. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-.…

I've been buying Fujitsu laptop for all of my friends, relatives, and family for the last 10 years, and all the issues I've had is one dead fan and one shitty touchpad. Tough, reliable, no bloatware, "Made in Japan" sticker... why does nobody in the US talk about Fujitsu laptops?!
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