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Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

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Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#111

Post by cryptarch »

endgame wrote: post #92
cryptarch wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd recommend going with another vendor than Ministry of Freedom (by Leah Rowe). I ordered a laptop from there and it took months to get the payment processed and the laptop shipped, with barely any contact in between. I thought it was very unprofessional and it definitely was the worst online shopping experience I've had so far. Expect to wait at least three weeks for every time you send them an email. The laptop is…

Any vendors you'd recommend? (Non-x86 is fine.)

This is the only other option that has the FSF RYF certificate:

https://shop.libiquity.com/product/taurinus-x200

One piece of hardware I'm very excited about is LowRISC: they're developing a fully open-source SoC, including open source chips, SoC and firmware.

I think it's the most promising platform for formally verified computing, because it's open and thus possible to model and verify all the way down.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#112

Post by sspiff »

kogepathic wrote: post #34
2bluesc wrote: post #12

I've owned Thinkpads in the past and almost bought the T460 last month, then I discovered the Dell XPS / Precision line and fell in love. I picked up a manufacturer refurbished XPS 15 on eBay and wound up swapping in a Dell Precision E3-1505M motherboard I stumbled across. The line has Intel quad core CPUs, minimal bezel (my 15" is almost the same size as the 14" System 76 Galago Ultra Pro it's replacing), reasonably…

> Xeon E3-1505M machine Except they don't ship with ECC memory. > 32GB, DDR4-2133MHz SDRAM, 2 DIMMS, Non-ECC [0] So what's the point of having a Xeon? The Core i7 options offered for the laptop support all the same processor features [1], except ECC memory [2], which Dell isn't even shipping. [0] http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstatio... [1] http://ark.intel.com/products/88970/Intel-Core-i7-6820…

In Dell's Belgian shop at least, you can pick every memory config for the Precisions with or without ECC, provided you have picked a Xeon CPU as well.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#113

Post by pmontra »

karussell wrote: post #81
eltoozero wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac is my daily driver for this very reason, I'm a consultant and I need to frequently grab and go. I've had Linux on mobile for ages and have yet to have reliable sleep/wake behavior on a dozen machines over the years. Sleep on Linux works reliably if you run it inside a Mac VM though, FWIW! ;)

Important difference: sleep usually works and is fast. What often does not work is hibernation (recover from disc)

According to a comment in the post it fails when the swap partition is encrypted. However why enable swap with 16 GB of RAM? I've been running without swap for almost 3 years and never had any trouble. If I start approaching the limit I'll buy another 16 GB.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#114

Post by dom0 »

yuhong wrote: post #106
dom0 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, such things are often outdated, but the availability of different memory chips does not change existing hardware. The MC really doesn't support it, there is no way to change anything about that... I believe there were other chips at the time that supported more than 8 GB (i7-9xxM perhaps), but these are a different die (Clarksdale quad cores, ie. high end mobile chips that are selected desktop chips).

And if you read http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/core-... , it does not say anything about 4Gbit DDR3 either.

The difference is that with the one DS we know it's accurate because anything beyond 2 Gb simply doesn't work. So that DS is accurate. On the other hand we know that with Clarksdale more than 2 Gb does, in fact, work, just like they work on Lynnfield. As one would expect, it's the same silicon after all.

If you'd excuse me now, I believe my work here is done ;)

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#115

Post by cel1ne »

karussell wrote: post #81
eltoozero wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac is my daily driver for this very reason, I'm a consultant and I need to frequently grab and go. I've had Linux on mobile for ages and have yet to have reliable sleep/wake behavior on a dozen machines over the years. Sleep on Linux works reliably if you run it inside a Mac VM though, FWIW! ;)

Important difference: sleep usually works and is fast. What often does not work is hibernation (recover from disc)

...which is crucial since you don't want to lose your data when closing the lid. (Non-tech-term is on purpose here, since users shouldn't need to know about the difference. Also I believe OSX uses a hybrid approach).

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#116

Post by JoshTriplett »

Xylakant wrote: post #103
JoshTriplett wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent laptops don't just avoid replaceable batteries due to thickness or weight; they avoid them because they want to cram as many battery cells in as possible, and provide longer battery life. A modern laptop chassis contains 50-80% battery cells by volume; every bit of the volume not occupied by other components gets filled by battery.

So thickness and weight are the drivers for this: You can always build a laptop that has the same battery capacity with a detachable battery as you can with a non-detachable. It's just going to be thicker and heavier.

It'll also have a great deal of wasted space, more moving parts, more breakable components, less structural support, additional hardware and software validation requirements, and require some careful engineering to avoid having it fall over backward when you open the screen slightly past vertical (battery cells work nicely as a counterweight). All for a laptop that wouldn't sell as well because people do care about size and weight.

Getting the same battery capacity would require a battery much larger than the classic removable ThinkPad battery; you'd need a system where you can remove a battery 60-80% the size of the chassis.

On the flip side, you can still replace the battery after a few years when it loses enough of its capacity; it just requires a bit more work. And for people who want more battery capacity and currently swap batteries for that, the trend towards using USB-C as the universal charging port will make it easier to have compatible external batteries, that will also work with your phone and other devices.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#117

Post by Xylakant »

aiur3la wrote: post #16

I am sure it is a great laptop, but it also looks like a X1 with larger bezels. Why would you want that instead of X1?

The X1 does not offer docking stations nor does it offer the port range that a T460s offers (full ethernet, card reader, etc). The T460s is a few mm thicker than the X1 and about 200g heavier, but it shares a lot of hardware with and can use the same dock as the X260, T460 and T460p which is interesting if you're a business customer that wants to support a range of options from ultra-portable to powerful.

If you're a single freelance person or consumer, the X1 may be the more appealing choice.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#118

Post by INTPenis »

My 2 cents about thinkpad, I have an x230 and am very happy with it.

3. Same resolution but smaller monitor and smaller overall size makes for easier traveling imo.

7. I have the exact same issue with hitting the touch pad when typing, but I've learned to go slower and avoid it.

8. I first ordered the x230 by accident with the larger battery and was amazed at the working time of 12-15 hours but it was also quite bulky. So I re-ordered with my missing keyboard backlight and with the slimmer battery and I'm quite happy with the slimmer form-factor while still having a good 6 hours of work time.

11. It's clearly not a media machine, it even lacks shortcut keys for pause/play media.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#119

Post by endgame »

cryptarch wrote: post #111
endgame wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any vendors you'd recommend? (Non-x86 is fine.)

This is the only other option that has the FSF RYF certificate: https://shop.libiquity.com/product/taurinus-x200 One piece of hardware I'm very excited about is LowRISC: they're developing a fully open-source SoC, including open source chips, SoC and firmware. I think it's the most promising platform for formally verified computing, because it's open and thus possible to model and verify all the way down.

Thank you, but it doesn't ship outside the US. Are you aware of any other decent libreboot machines, even if they can't be liberated end-to-end?

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

#120

Post by Xylakant »

ekianjo wrote: post #5

Did they make a 460s version of the 460 this time around?

There's a T460s that is lighter and slimmer than the standard T460. No swappable batteries though. The RAM options and screen options are slightly weird - the HDPI Screen is only available for the students edition, but can be swapped after purchase and parts of the RAM are soldered, so the machine maxes out at 20GB. Still, it's a nice workhorse and easily portable.
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