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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

#131

Post by faeriechangling »

luke2m wrote: post #128
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 why you always install your own OS on a new computer.

They used rootkits

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#132

Post by mkopec »

raffraffraff wrote: post #118
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the way Intel designed their reference motherboard?

No idea. All I know it's that the HDMI is hardwired to the NVIDIA on these Lenovo laptops. I don't think it has to be this way. Surely that Intel integrated graphics chip is capable of driving an external HDMI? Perhaps what they should have don't was make the hardware of the port switchable. Even a physical switch would have done.

It's so that you can drive more monitors than a single GPU supports. For example, my T430 with discrete graphics could drive 4 monitors simultaneously while the iGPU model was limited to 2 (3 unofficially).

It became so annoying at one point that I just replaced the motherboard with the iGPU version. Apparently now nvidia optimus support on Linux is improving somewhat, but having had to deal with this and other issues for years, I'm probably never getting an nvidia GPU again unless I absolutely have to.

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#134

Post by mrtweetyhack »

Stratoscope wrote: post #106
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…

That makeuseof article from six years ago has little or no relevance to any new ThinkPad you might buy today. Lenovo's consumer and business divisions are best thought of as nearly separate companies within one conglomerate. Lenovo (formerly Legend) sold laptops and desktops for years before they acquired IBM's personal computer business. But they didn't just buy the ThinkPad name, the people came along with it. The…

You're also glad to have your privacy invaded

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#135

Post by Tempest1981 »

9mmjournal wrote: post #111
tdsamardzhiev wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?!

I went to Fujitsu.com and found their laptops, but no way of buying directly. I googled fujitsu + store, buy, laptops; all returned results for european sellers and refurbished laptops from 10 years ago. They have a list of resellers, but all they carry are scanners and printers. They don't make it easy. I went to Dell.com and the first thing I see is a giant banner that wants to sell me a laptop. When I click on Pro…

Seems to be "out of stock" at all sellers. Found just 1 seller in Italy: https://www.ebay.com/itm/124852437225?

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#136

Post by maximum_stress »

Freak_NL wrote: post #54
liveranga wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

>Dell is also acting corporately weird by the way.

My employer offers a modest Dell discount via an Employee Purchase Program. (EPP). You can order the 9310 with 16 or 32 gigs of memory through the EPP with Windows, but if want one with 32 gigs of memory and Linux, you have to engage their small business group and ask for a quote. Exact same machine in every way, just more memory. As I understand the memory is now soldered on the 9310 it's worth paying up front to get maximum, but I've read the storage is still upgradeable.

So Dell still thinks only businesses use 32GB of memory with Linux and for that matter Linux developers only want 13" screens. Both assumptions are (IMHO) obviously false, but there's that corporate weirdness for you.

If anyone from Dell is reading this please expand your Linux offerings to your larger laptops, preferably ones with bigger batteries and discrete GPU options. Not every developer on the planet wants an Intel-based macbook air clone, particularly when a) Iris XE GPUs benchmark slower than the current M1 GPU (which is about to get refreshed), and b) the i7-11{6,8}5G7 CPUs support 64 GB of memory. Stop crippling laptop features to fluff up your battery life numbers.

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#137

Post by croutonwagon »

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.

Interesting. I nearly got an X1E, but really didnt want a 15" model.

I actually got a Razer blade stealth instead. Despite the massive complaints about batteries (and im still in the window of it not affecting me) I have been happy. It works fine with linux, and has all the graphics chips i could want. I can switch to windows to quickly play some kerbal and back to linux for daily work.

That said i did have to go with a new-ish version of Ubuntu and a couple of the other distros I was using on my x200s (including Elementary OS) just flat didnt work.

But i assume thats more the 11th gen intel and drivers, especially Iris more than anything.

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#138

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #88
tdsamardzhiev wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?!

> why does nobody in the US talk about Fujitsu laptops?! Probably little to no corporate availability? My past jobs have had Dell or Thinkpads as an option, none has ever had Fujitsu. But now I am interested in it as a personal laptop. What would be the Fujitsu equivalent of a Thinkpad Carbon X1 or a Dell XPS 13?

Guess Fujitsu Lifebook U9311 would be an alternative? Haven't bought any of these yet though, so I can't share personal impressions.

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#139

Post by winrid »

zozbot234 wrote: post #25
winrid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. See, you should have picked the "Discrete" option instead. Happens to the best of us! (Apparently there is a workaround where you can remove the hard disk from the machine to make it easier to enter BIOS, then trigger the "Reset to factory defaults" and "Save and exit" opt…

Hahaha. What a typo.

I didn't know about the workaround. The repair facility didn't either, evidently.

It wouldn't even show anything on the screen, or light up the keyboard caps lock etc...

Re: Lenovo Selling Linux Laptops Directly in the US

#140

Post by winrid »

pletnes wrote: post #69
dataflow wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there no way to reset the BIOS in a semi-dead mode? I seem to recall some Lenovo laptops had a mechanism where you detached both battery and AC, and then pressed the power button for like 20+ seconds or something like that, and it would reset some settings. Did you try anything like that?

Others have a «router-like» reset button which you shove a paperclip into. I’ve seen it on at least one X1 yoga.

Neither of these would work. Even Lenovo said you have to replace the board (probably just a chip on the board but they replace the whole thing).
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