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Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

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Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#201

Post by halotrope »

hef19898 wrote: post #196
halotrope wrote: post #110

Generally great machines for Linux. Just a PSA from a X1E gen2 owner: Do NOT get the NVidia GPU, do NOT get the fastest CPU and most importantly: do NOT opt for the 4k screen. With 1080p and Intel GPU it is a good, even great laptop with ok battery life (if you can look over the touchpad). Wonderful keyboard, good Linux support (even fingerprint reader works). But just as with the last Intel macbook, the GPU, 10th ge…

If have one those, without the 4k screen. No complaints so far, even GPU heavy games like the early versions of Battletech worked fine, battery life under gaming conditions is somewhere between 2 and 4 hours. Non-gaming around 4 to 6 hours. With the Intel GPU deactivated, getting external screens working while the machine was in hybrid mode was too much of a pain. After all I wanted it for the nVidia GPU. Ubuntu is w…

Yes, I suspect it should be fine with dGPU and 1080p screen. I think in addition to the greater power draw, the compute needed to drive the 4k is just greater. In fairness I keep the dGPU active all the time as the Intel GPU produces significant UI lag under Linux at least.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#202

Post by BeefWellington »

LeonM wrote: post #193

Based on all the comments on HN about how great Thinkpads are supposed to be with Linux, I bought an X1-Extreme some time ago. From my experience, Linux support for Lenovo devices is terrible. ACPI, power management, and UEFI are consistently causing problems. Grub has an issue with the 4K display, causing it to render at about 1 FPS. The dual-GPU (Intel and nVidia) situation is unworkable under Linux. Suspend on lid…

Have you used it without the dock? Because my experience with daily driving Linux at work for 10+ years with Thinkpads has been the complete opposite, with the exception of NVidia's driver garbage (which is just a problem with NVidia generally).

My current work system is a P53 that has an Nvidia GPU though and it's been working very very well for me through updates and the like via dkms.

The only other problem on that list I've encountered was within the first month or so after buying my T14s suspend support was a problem.

A bad dock can introduce a lot of problems.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#203

Post by hs86 »

kettleballroll wrote: post #163
intsunny wrote: post #97

I've been holding off on purchasing a new Lenovo laptop. Shortly Lenovo will start shipping latops with the new generation AMD Ryzen mobile chips that have RDNA 2 GPUs. [0][1] This is a real game changer. The amount of power and open source VULKAN friendliness is going to be incredible. I look forward to being able to do container work, and emulate Gamecube games all on a single Linux machine. [0] https://www.aroged.…

Fwiw, i have a Thinkpad x395 with AMD Apu. It's mostly nice, but there are GPU driver issues that have been unsolved for almost 3 years now with that generation of ThinkPads (0). Let's hope such issues are sorted out for newer models (0) https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1870971

With such issues, don't expect Ubuntu to fix it while staying at the same kernel version. Instead, either try their HWE-stacks or upgrade to the intermediate non-LTS releases.

Fedora, for example, will always use the latest upstream kernel while keeping the rest of the packages reasonably stable. Usually, this plays nicer with new hardware.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#204

Post by augusto-moura »

LeonM wrote: post #193

Based on all the comments on HN about how great Thinkpads are supposed to be with Linux, I bought an X1-Extreme some time ago. From my experience, Linux support for Lenovo devices is terrible. ACPI, power management, and UEFI are consistently causing problems. Grub has an issue with the 4K display, causing it to render at about 1 FPS. The dual-GPU (Intel and nVidia) situation is unworkable under Linux. Suspend on lid…

I think most of the praise on Thinkpads comes from older versions, from IBM and the first Lenovos. I have an X220, and even though it's quite outdated hardware for today's world, it is still a very capable machine.

The most recent laptops are very good, but their support of linux is lacking compared with the older ones. As a rule of thumb, I try to find the model page in arch wiki before any purchase, it should list most of the common problems and how to fix them (if they are fixable at all, your X1-Extreme page for example[1]).

[1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X1_Extreme

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#205

Post by BeefWellington »

tazjin wrote: post #159
intsunny wrote: post #97

I've been holding off on purchasing a new Lenovo laptop. Shortly Lenovo will start shipping latops with the new generation AMD Ryzen mobile chips that have RDNA 2 GPUs. [0][1] This is a real game changer. The amount of power and open source VULKAN friendliness is going to be incredible. I look forward to being able to do container work, and emulate Gamecube games all on a single Linux machine. [0] https://www.aroged.…

I have an AMD Thinkpad (X13 AMD 2nd gen) and it's one of the most frustrating devices I've had in years. Linux support is superficially fine, but in continuous use lots of tiny, annoying incompatibilities (and sometimes pretty significant impairments) show up. There's a set of known hardware issues (e.g. unable to resume from suspend, USB ports stop working until hardware reset is performed through the pinhole, ...)…

Anecdotally, I'm running a T14 as my personal system and I've never encountered any of these issues, so I suspect some of this is model-dependent.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#206

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

LeonM wrote: post #193

Based on all the comments on HN about how great Thinkpads are supposed to be with Linux, I bought an X1-Extreme some time ago. From my experience, Linux support for Lenovo devices is terrible. ACPI, power management, and UEFI are consistently causing problems. Grub has an issue with the 4K display, causing it to render at about 1 FPS. The dual-GPU (Intel and nVidia) situation is unworkable under Linux. Suspend on lid…

I’ll second you on the grub stuff, and the nvidia stuff.

I wish I could switch to an intel gpu. I’ve considered buying a thunderbolt dock just so I can not use nvidia when at home.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#207

Post by BeefWellington »

hs86 wrote: post #203
kettleballroll wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, i have a Thinkpad x395 with AMD Apu. It's mostly nice, but there are GPU driver issues that have been unsolved for almost 3 years now with that generation of ThinkPads (0). Let's hope such issues are sorted out for newer models (0) https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1870971

With such issues, don't expect Ubuntu to fix it while staying at the same kernel version. Instead, either try their HWE-stacks or upgrade to the intermediate non-LTS releases. Fedora, for example, will always use the latest upstream kernel while keeping the rest of the packages reasonably stable. Usually, this plays nicer with new hardware.

Yeah Fedora is my go-to for anything business related because of this. In my experience it's the best mix of platform stability while still getting the good stuff that gets added to the kernel on a regular basis.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#208

Post by stuff4ben »

tim-- wrote: post #49

I recently acquired a ThinkBook 16p Gen 2, and while a different machine entirely to the ThinkPad, I must say that this is an _absolute beast_ of a machine. It's a total joy to use. It's the most fun I have had using a laptop since my first MacBook. Moving from the MBP to the ThinkBook has made me realize how... boring MacBooks are - not saying that's a bad thing. MacBooks do 'just work'. But the ThinkBook? The machi…

Not surprised your ThinkBook is beating the M1 MacBook since you crippled the Mac with 8GB of RAM.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#209

Post by hef19898 »

LeonM wrote: post #193

Based on all the comments on HN about how great Thinkpads are supposed to be with Linux, I bought an X1-Extreme some time ago. From my experience, Linux support for Lenovo devices is terrible. ACPI, power management, and UEFI are consistently causing problems. Grub has an issue with the 4K display, causing it to render at about 1 FPS. The dual-GPU (Intel and nVidia) situation is unworkable under Linux. Suspend on lid…

I cannot confirm any of this, and I am a complete noob regarding Linux. I don't have a 4k screen, and the Intel GPU is deactivated since day one anyway, so I can't say anything about using both GPUs in parallel. Sleep and power saving works just fine, firmware updates work without interference from my side. I use Nvidia proprietary drivers. Thunderbolt and external screens work without trouble. And battery life is good, maybe a little worse then under Windows, but that rather feels like minutes and not hours. Max I get out is just a little over 4 hours of Civ VI. Leaving it in sleep depletes the battery in the course of 3 days, more or less.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#210

Post by LeonM »

BeefWellington wrote: post #202
LeonM wrote: post #193

Based on all the comments on HN about how great Thinkpads are supposed to be with Linux, I bought an X1-Extreme some time ago. From my experience, Linux support for Lenovo devices is terrible. ACPI, power management, and UEFI are consistently causing problems. Grub has an issue with the 4K display, causing it to render at about 1 FPS. The dual-GPU (Intel and nVidia) situation is unworkable under Linux. Suspend on lid…

Have you used it without the dock? Because my experience with daily driving Linux at work for 10+ years with Thinkpads has been the complete opposite, with the exception of NVidia's driver garbage (which is just a problem with NVidia generally). My current work system is a P53 that has an Nvidia GPU though and it's been working very very well for me through updates and the like via dkms. The only other problem on tha…

> A bad dock can introduce a lot of problems.

That's why I bought the $400 official Lenovo dock.

Unfortunately, I can't do my daily work without the dock. (at least not without having to introduce numerous dongles and USB hubs, which may cause more issues)

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