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The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

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Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#71

Post by tracker1 »

justinclift wrote: post #39

The 14-inch MacBook Pro pricing quoted in the article seems wrong. Looking at the US Apple Store right now, it has the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro (10-core) cpu + 32GB ram and 1TB storage as US$2599, rather an US$3099. Seems outright cheaper than the Thinkpad x13s.

Yeah, after I kitted things out with full upgrades, the macbook does seem to be the better option, especially if you like macos. The rosetta 2 support and docker have come a long way and most of what I use at least now has aarch64 support.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#72

Post by jklinger410 »

nine_k wrote: post #58
jklinger410 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine the battery life could be better under Linux based on my experience with Windows 11 on my own laptop God, I have experienced the exact opposite with Linux on laptops. Battery management is so bad I am considering moving to a Macbook.

What does your `top` say? What does your browser's performance tool (e.g. `about:performance`) say? I went from a constantly-overheated Linux laptop to a completely calm Linux laptop, on the same hardware, distro, and DE. Checking for unnecessary processes that eat CPU, spurious ACPI events, overly-heavyweight browser tabs goes a long way. Making sure the browser uses hardware support to play YouTube is another heavy…

So the Mac has battery saving built in to the OS. You are doing a lot of reverse engineering to achieve something other software/hardware does automatically.

And to be specific, I suffer from bad hardware/software communication. On a linux laptop, no less (System76, which I would never recommend). Linux S3 sleep is not hardware sleep, I lose a lot of battery there. WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity either has to be battery draining or have poor performance.

The battery my laptop has itself is also too small, and could only get moderately good life if it had an optimized OS anyway. Again, a Linux-first laptop.

I am sure if I switched to a Lenovo with a big battery that I would be better off than I am now, so I'm also complaining a bit about my hardware. But the problem is still there.

With Apple M2 paired with an OS designed for it, with high end batteries and screens, I don't see any pairing of (laptop) hardware and software competing, on a fundamental level. Every other system is second class.

Edit: ACPI events is the key word here, and it is not worth anyone's time to wade through that garbage to get sane laptop performance. The ACPI stuff isn't even designed for end users to alter, and it is hacked together due to all the hardware variations out there. It is simply doing the best job it can, on average.

There's kind of an implicit lie when people say linux works on laptops at all. It works on MOST laptop configurations in MOST functions. But it BARELY works in others. You find this once you dig sufficiently deep enough.

I keep my laptop plugged in. It's pathetic.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#73

Post by tracker1 »

soulbadguy wrote: post #54

"high-end" arm windows machines never made much sense to me. It seems that the main appeal is longer battery life, but looking at the recent CPU from AMD, and the rumors of the next CPU from intel.It's seem clear to me that x86 is making more progress in reducing power consumption than arm is making in performance. And i wouldn't be surprise that in a couple of year we get very efficient x86 cpu's from both AMD and i…

AMD is getting here, certainly... the latest 7430HS mini PCs still use 6-8W at idle though, which is quite a bit more than ARM still. I've been using an m1 air as a personall laptop and when traveling rarely even think about having to plug it in... for my limited use with the screen around 60% brightness, I can use it all day and then some. Mostly text/email or remote editing (wireguard, ssh, vs code).

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#74

Post by freedomben »

jklinger410 wrote: post #48
nirui wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same where wondering if it performs the same/better under Linux. I imagine the battery life could be better under Linux based on my experience with Windows 11 on my own laptop, I mean, the fans don't even spin up that often under Linux unlike the near constant fan chorus Windows gives me. Also, a computer without a single fan so I can comfortably use it on my bed? With possibility to replace it's SSD? It sounded a lo…

> imagine the battery life could be better under Linux based on my experience with Windows 11 on my own laptop God, I have experienced the exact opposite with Linux on laptops. Battery management is so bad I am considering moving to a Macbook.

I have had both experiences. The base system for Linux will be great for battery life (has been ruthlessly optimized for power savings by the biggest companies in the world), but some of the desktop software on top will brutalize your battery.

I've experimented a lot (mainly on Fedora) and the biggest offenders are browsers, but also sometimes Gnome gets in a bad state and eats up a lot of CPU. It's often gjs eating CPU so it may be an app I'm leaving open or even an extension. I've tried to narrow it down but haven't fully figured it out yet.

But, if you keep only a small number of tabs open and close everything you aren't using, battery life on Linux can be really great.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#75

Post by oneplane »

hospitalJail wrote: post #65

Its 2023 and I still don't understand the point of CPU speeds, even as a dev doing both single and multithreading. AI is continuing to put priority on GPUs. In the worst case, I wait an extra fraction of a second with a bad CPU. With a bad GPU, you are basically excluded from the latest technology. I'm sure ARM really wants to advertise that CPU is relevant, but it continues to be nearly irrelevant when you buy somet…

I suppose it depends on what performance bracket you are targeting. Scripting and interpreted languages, JIT next and VM after that (i.e. JVM, CLR), native code after that and optimised low-level code after that would all have very different reactions to 'good CPU' vs. 'bad CPU'.

A 'slow' process (±10s) taking 1 second longer won't seem that much slower, but a fast process (±100ms) taking ten times as long does definitely become problematic.

As for AI, it's mostly irrelevant what your local machines does, unless you are an end-user (i.e. you are running a model from a vendor on a local accelerator for local processing instead of remote processing). Development happens on remote farms and on-line usage also happens on remote farms.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#76

Post by solarkraft »

hospitalJail wrote: post #62
sspiff wrote: post #49

I find that battery life extremely uninspiring. I wonder if that's because of Windows, JetBrains or a combination of both. I run a x86-64 laptop with Linux AND decicated graphics (Ryzen 6850u and Radeon 6800S) and get 6-10 hours of battery life while developing. Granted, that's after quite a bit of tweaking - I've configured my monitor to go to 60hz, limit the CPU to only 4 cores/8 threads and 2200MHz while on batter…

Meanwhile I've had my laptops plugged in for 99.999% of their life. Sometimes I'll unplug to bring it to an overnight christmas party or camping to watch a movie at night. Then I'll probably end up plugging it in when I arrive. Just remembered, one time I brought my laptop to a real estate meeting, and it was so boring I did work during it. But the meeting was over in an hour. I'm sure some people like having their c…

My laptop is plugged in 95% of the time. In the 5% of cases not having to worry about plugging in is great.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#77

Post by tracker1 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #10
jeroenhd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux 6.0 and higher supposedly support the device. The system boots using EFI so as long as you can get a compatible kernel and the right firmware, it should work. Based on this: https://blog.rymcg.tech/blog/linux/thinkpad-x13s/ GPU support seems to have issues, which is a shame. That was written a few months ago, though.

Yeah, tough. I will wait to see if somebody more explicitly Linux-friendly makes a good workstation class ARM (or better, RISC-V even) laptop, because I've had nothing but problems with my Thinkpad Z13 Gen 1 Radeon/Ryzen and Lenovo is in my bad books. I had a M2 MBP issued for work by my previous job and it really was excellent; performance and battery life. But I'd have a hard time giving up Linux, and I'd worry abo…

For me, don't mind mac so much as do wish I could stick to the linux/windows keyboard bindings I'm used to. Rosetta2 and docker have come a long way since i got my m1 as well.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#78

Post by dantaro »

soulbadguy wrote: post #50
csdvrx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us (me included) just refuse to use a Mac. If I couldn't find a good Thinkpad, I would get a Surface.

May i ask why ? I don't use Macs because my day to day requires X86 and linux. But pounds for pounds if someone doesn't mind MacOs. The new Mx series of macs is just a better value than most high-end laptop theses days

Hey there, author here, for me personally it's about the windowing and file explorer. I spent 6 months trying to get used to it at a job, and even bought a M1 Macbook Pro last year to try, but I just couldn't find any combination of plugins and programs that made it feel right. I know, it's not a great reason, and I have no hate for anyone who yums my yuck, but at the end of the day it's what stops me from using MacOS.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#79

Post by csdvrx »

kamma4434 wrote: post #51
csdvrx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us (me included) just refuse to use a Mac. If I couldn't find a good Thinkpad, I would get a Surface.

I used to as well. But the M series just blows away every laptop - every Pc - I’ve ever had in the last 30 years… at some point it is an ideological proposition.

My position is everything but ideological: I will consider a Mac as soon as 1) the hardware offers an OLED touchscreen and internal LTE (everything else is secondary, with DDR5 I've even relaxed my requirements for actual ECC) 2) Linux can run as well as it does on my Thinkpad or Surface.

Until then, I refuse to use a Mac, because I don't like the OS or the limited hardware choice.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#80

Post by einpoklum »

For a developer, this laptop sucks.

... but, why would I use such harsh rhetoric?

That's ecause the most important component of a laptop is not its CPU; it is the --==[[ keyboard ]]==--.

A laptop without a keyboard with decent key travel and tactile feedback simply deters you from using it. People who do not write much (code, documents, etc.) - can perhaps make do with point-and-click-oriented laptops. We cannot. That's why are currently condemned to choose between 10-year-old CPUs and I/O ports, but with decent keyboards; and fancy modern CPUs in laptops that are inconvenient to use.

Now look at this laptop's keyboard:

https://p3-ofp.static.pub/fes/cms/2022/03/03/ww9s3cycoxj6gbs...

they keys barely even protrude from the surrounding surface!

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