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Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

ernestas.me

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Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#431

Post by 411111111111111 »

vially wrote: post #347
neither_color wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you can use two 4k monitors at the same time -which is impossible with the M1 MacBook Pro I have two 4K monitors hooked up to a 14" macbook pro currently. I believe it's the air that only connects to one external display.

According to the official documentation [1], the 13" M1 MacBook Pro also has this limitation: > If you're using a Mac with the M1 chip: > > On iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air, and 13-inch MacBook Pro, you can connect one external display using either of the Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports. [1] - https://support.apple.com/en-afri/HT202351

To be fair, several of my work laptops had a similar sentence in their user handbook, but two monitors were possible if you connected the wires before booting the laptop.

Really strange limitation, as it never scaled with bandwidth - so 4k 90+Hz was doable, but 2x 1080p60hz wasn't.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#432

Post by gabereiser »

jason0597 wrote: post #392
gabereiser wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All plastic laptop bodies have a metal frame which tells you how much they have faith in their body construction.

By that logic, civil engineers show how little faith they have in their buildings by having a reinforced concrete support and glass/steel frames around them

Not the buildings, they have little faith in the structural strength of poured concrete which is why they use rebar. It increases the strength to tolerable levels so they can build what they want to build. So yeah. Civil engineers know the properties of the materials they work with. So should hardware engineers. I'm aware they all have metal frames. I'm also aware that some aluminum laptops incorporate the frame into the lattice structure the motherboard sits on. I like when engineers find ways of using the materials to their strengths (aluminum laptop) vs having to strengthen (plastic) or support (carbon fiber).

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#433

Post by [deleted] »

TAKEMYMONEY wrote: post #384
sudosysgen wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, honestly, a good aluminium frame is preferable to carbon for 90% of people. The small tradeoff in weight and vibration/stiffness characteristics is really not worth the loss in structural integrity, money, and peace of mind.

Modern carbon frames are designed with structural integrity in mind, the frame-building process allows more fine-tuning than aluminum. Aluminum's best quality is it's value, you can wreck one and buy another and still have spent less than a low-grade CF frame.

[deleted]

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#434

Post by steelframe »

Steltek wrote: post #390
faeriechangling wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make a distinction between "Plastic" and "Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer with a magnesium roll cage" that this laptop uses. We don't think an aluminium bike is better than a carbon fibre bike, so why is an aluminium laptop better than a carbon fibre laptop? I mean aluminium has some nice advantages like heat dissipation but CFRP allows for much lighter laptops. If anything I prefer CRFP because of the weight advan…

Re: bikes, I've found most CF frames lack fender/rack mounts. If you want utility (commuting, shopping, travel), aluminum is going to win out. For example, I can't think of a single CF cargo bike.

My username may give this away, but after tens of thousands of miles ridden on a variety of frames, I've settled on chromoly steel as the most versatile material. In fact I just picked up another steel frame bike this past weekend with a rack for panniers and a fork that can fit gravel tires.

Regardless I find it very strange to compare a laptop with a bicycle. You would pick the materials when constructing either one for very different reasons.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#435

Post by Ourgon »

yencabulator wrote: post #338
lloeki wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> become e-trash in a couple of years, while these "plastic" laptops can last a decade before being discarded as junk. My experiences different, I'd still be rocking a 2014 MBP had it not suffered massive liquid damage. All Macs and MacBooks I or relatives have crossed or are going to cross the decade threshold with aplomb.

> a 2014 MBP Great example. macOS Monterey minimum requirements: "MacBook Pro: Early 2015 and newer" So Apple forces that device to be e-trash, regardless of your desires.

While I agree to most of the glued/soldered/planned obsolescence criticisms related to applethings I do feel the need to point out those "obsolete" macthings tend to run Linux just fine. I should know, writing this on a 'late 2009 27" iMac' which I got for free due to its video card being broken (which it is no longer, 8 minutes in the oven at 195°C is all it takes) running Debian. While it is also possible to get more recent versions of macOS to run on these things this is not nearly as easy nor useful as running Linux which just supports the hardware without any qualms. Apple does not want you to use older hardware so they don't build macOS for machines which are perfectly capable of running it. Installing unsupported versions is made possible by monkey-patching the release in a rather hit-and-miss fashion, often leaving parts of the hardware (bluetooth, sound, wifi) without or with sub-standard support. All this while Linux runs flawlessly on the same hardware.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#436

Post by cfallin »

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, ...)…

You're not alone -- I recently had a heck of a time trying to get a T14s AMD 2nd gen to work well in Linux (mostly same CPU/chipset/hardware as your X13).

I never got wakeup from S3 suspend to work, it just froze; wakeup from S0ix actually worked ok for a while with a recent kernel (5.16 iirc), with a random kernel commandline addition (iommu=pt) to avoid a random 14-second pause on lid open (always exactly 14 seconds!). But wireless was still flaky on wakeup.

I played a bunch with powertop and different settings to try to get reasonable efficiency. Tried getting hardware video decode to work with YouTube/Firefox (vdpau / va-api); it sort of did, except when it crashed.

Then one day a week into the adventure, it just stopped waking up from suspend, after I-don't-know-what changed. Needed a hardware reset each time I opened the lid. I returned the laptop and bought an M1 Air instead; I love my Thinkpads and open systems but I also love good engineering.

System integration / QA / getting quality polished firmware is an underappreciated art it seems!

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#437

Post by Avamander »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #420
Avamander wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem fairly usable already. I'd say it's going to be viable as a primary workstation sooner than later, but things like polished GPU drivers will take more time. There are other ARM machines as well, that run Linux more easily, but those aren't as high-performance yet.

I don't think something is usable without GPU acceleration.

Some acceleration for sure is necessary, though things like video acceleration (that belong in the set "polished GPU drivers") are quite secondary. Linux is a good example of that, accelerated video decode is still quite rare and finicky.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#438

Post by Avamander »

capableweb wrote: post #240
Avamander wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the machine runs at 100% resource usage, does the underside of the body no longer get so hot you can't have it in your lap? Nope, never. That's not to say that if you run a Wii emulator for hours it doesn't get very warm, it's simply not intolerably hot. That's without fans. I'd expect a fan-equipped model to at most remain warm.

> That's not to say that if you run a Wii emulator for hours it doesn't get very warm, it's simply not intolerably hot I've never run any emulators, I'm guessing they are about as resource-hungry as compiling things? Since laptops usually compile much slower than desktop computers, lots of time is spent compiling something when I use my laptops. > it's simply not intolerably hot I guess everyone's tolerance is differ…

> I'm guessing they are about as resource-hungry as compiling things?

Pretty much, plus the GPU is in use.

> Would you be able to have the laptop in your lap with just a thin garment between the laptop and your skin?

Yes, that's what I originally meant as well. I'd prefer an actively cooled machine in such cases, obviously, but yes.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#439

Post by Avamander »

smoldesu wrote: post #413
pram wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The focus on node size conveniently elides that this is a comparison between a 14 core CPU and an 8 core CPU.

How is that relevant, though? Even the M1 Max gets smoked by an i5 in single-core performance, and stands neck-and-neck in multicore. In a "fair" fight, Intel still takes the performance crown home. Density is relevant because the only argument I hear from M1 pundits is about performance-per-watt, which is only achieved through monopolizing the 5nm supply chain. When Intel is standing neck-and-neck on power draw with…

A fair fight in this case, laptops, is one that takes dissipated heat and cooling into account.

Intel might beat the previous generation of their competitors, but at what cost, absolutely impractical in reality. Scorchingly hot or noisy as hell, with poor battery life.

It's not magic and Intel is losing in a lot of aspects.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#440

Post by scrlk »

Melatonic wrote: post #403
scrlk wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: "proper" ThinkPads - Lenovo has made a mess of the model line up and I don't think it's easy for the non-ThinkPad aficionado figure it out (e.g. T series being the entry point in to the classic magnesium alloy roll cage).

Yea this is true I still love the old style keyboards - have they ever made a modern one with it? Last one (which I own and use still) that I know of is the T420

There was a one off 25th anniversary model (T25), which was a T470 with a T420 keyboard.

If you bought a T470 + T25 parts, you could FrankenPad it: https://www.xyte.ch/mods/t25-frankenpad/

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