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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

#131

Post by emerongi »

aceperry wrote: post #64

I love these linux on laptop articles. I've used linux since Redhat 5.0 and have almost always had to configure things to get everything to work. Nowadays, I don't really have the time to dick around, I used Gentoo for a long time, so I rely on Ubuntu to make it a simple plug and play install. Even with most of today's laptops, ubuntu seems to play well compared to the bad old days. I find I can throw Ubuntu on any l…

I used to use Arch Linux and moved to Fedora for the same reasons (don't want to fiddle with everything all the time). I was really surprised to see that it had HiDPI support by default. In Arch, it required some real gymnastics to make it work OK.

Basically, everything works, I can get like 80% of the customization I had on Arch, haven't had any BS for the few months I've used it (besides newest Spotify version crashing with Wayland, but a downgrade solved that). It's pretty nice.

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

#132

Post by sz4kerto »

kbart wrote: post #62
sz4kerto wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to have signed up for the MS Signature program, so you might now get pure Win10 without bloat.

I'm not sure Win10 is any better than Superfish..

If you're genuinely not sure then that shows a not-very-good judgement in my opinion. If it is a joke, then it's getting old.

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

#133

Post by walterbell »

Stratoscope wrote: post #94
endgame wrote: post #37

Lenovo are on my personal shitlist after superfish and abusing the windows platform binary table. When my current laptop dies (a thinkpad T440p that I'm reasonably happy with), I may have to suck up the performance hit and go to minifree for a machine I can actually trust.

ThinkPads never had Superfish nor the Lenovo Service Engine (the Windows Platform Binary Table thing you're referring to). Of course you're right that Lenovo never should have put those on any of their machines, but my impression is that ThinkPads and the consumer line are run by very different groups within Lenovo. https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_s…

Unfortunately, even a recent (Aug 2016) new Thinkpad T460p included a Lenovo Windows app that apparently runs daily to send "usage data" to Lenovo. It is easily disabled, but still troubling because most customers will be unaware that it exists.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2984889/windows-pcs/len...

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht102023

> As of September 2015: Lenovo systems may include software components that communicate with servers on the internet - All ThinkCentre, All ThinkStation, All ThinkPad

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

#134

Post by mathieuruellan »

I bought a TP s540 3 years ago, and a few days after the end of the warranty, the motherboard died. Lenovo was ok to replace it for free. 3 months after, the motherboard died again and this time, no free replacement. The s540 was really cheaper, but without 3y warranty, without full mil-specs. If you want reliability, choose T/X series. 3Y warranty on site is already included, a proof they trust these products. If you add the optional warranty on cheaper products, the price is higher than equivalent on T series.

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

#135

Post by s_kilk »

herbst wrote: post #126
s_kilk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus it has way better battery life. How much battery time are you getting? And which battery do you use? And are you running Linux or Windows? (I'm considering a T420 right now)

Linux, the 3 cell one (the one i got it with a 2 cell has about 4 hours left). I get about 9 hours with full light and wifi and about 14 with ethernet & slightly dimmed light. Obviously linux (also Arch), i dont think Windows can be optimized for such battery life. And in my experience Arch also beats Ubuntu. At least without a lot of hacking.

Good to know, thanks! :)

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

#136

Post by kayoone »

meddlepal wrote: post #29
karussell wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With discovered you mean you bought one? What about the noise and battery time under normal and high work load?

I used to have a Dell Precision M4800 and honestly you don't buy them for battery life. They're desktop workstation replacements that you haul off to meetings occasionally. I got about 2-3 hours of battery time on that thing when running usual work-related workloads on it... (IDE, VM's etc.). I don't remember the noise, but I'm not very sensitive to noisy laptops so I may have never noticed. I miss that laptop. The b…

The new Precisions are a lot less Desktop workstation replacements and more power efficient. I wonder if they still offer the same kind of performance though.

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

#137

Post by sandGorgon »

dogma1138 wrote: post #128
jhasse wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to use it, so I wouldn't count it as a disadvantage (only the things that come with it, like increased weight).

Reduced battery time (?), more stuff to fail and being dependent on software for hotswap functionality which may have some serious issues with non-Windows and even none NT10 based Windows operating system and the list can go on. We're not talking about a fingerprint reader here. Convertible laptops have to make very specific design choices/compromises which come with some disadvantages currently.

this is FUD. reduced battery has nothing to do with a convertible form factor. You are talking about the display resolution perhaps - QHD displays are obviously more power hungry than FHD. But then again, most people want "Retina".

Software has largely matured for hotswap. Fedora 25 with kernel 4.9 is brilliant on a convertible. Windows has had it for decades.

We already use the cheaper yoga and Dell inspiron convertibles in my workplace. They are awesome. Dell and Lenovo have had many years of experience in building convertibles by now. We are talking of 500$ laptops here. The Dell 5368 hinges are well reviewed by now [1] [2]

IMHO the design of Yoga 900 (with its "watchband" hinges are unparalleled).

BTW, we are in non-Apple territory here. Replacing hinges is damn easy. You can buy a ton of them on ebay.

[1] http://www.techarp.com/articles/dell-inspiron-13-5000-laptop...

[2] http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/laptops/1404957/dell-inspiron...

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

#138

Post by kayoone »

herbst wrote: post #3

Ive went with a T420 recently, mostly because of the keyboard. But also because $400 for laptop + battery + Samsung SSD + 16GB hyperX Ram sounded so cheap i could not resist. And honestly even after a 2015 MBP it feels perfect for all my needs. In fact due to the superior RAM and SSD it feels often way faster than the MBP for 5 times that price felt. Plus it has way better battery life. Seriously Thinkpads are the be…

The T420 is a 5 year old machine, i highly doubt it can have the same battery life as a modern Haswell/Broadwell/Skylake chip.

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

#139

Post by Insanity »

I have a Lenovo laptop at home that is quite old now (A dual-core machine that I used throughout university). I am not sure which one it is, but I have been running Ubuntu on it for quite some time now, and it is actually the only of my devices that has always worked perfectly with a vanilla ubuntu installation.

Recently running 16.04 on it as well, once again an update without any issues.

Whilst on my other machines (An HP laptop and custom destkop) I always had _some_ problems with Ubuntu or other flavours of Linux. The HP laptop had the movie player problem mentioned here in the post, and had some issues with running Skype webcam/voice-chat.

The desktop had an issue of freezing up randomly, and some audio issues at first.

Currently Ubuntu is running on all these machines, but the old Lenovo laptop was the only one that in all these years worked without any issues.

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

#140

Post by vetinari »

2bluesc wrote: post #65
sandGorgon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 on this. And for people planning to buy an XPS, just wait for a month. new models of XPS are being announced at CES. https://mspoweruser.com/dells-new-convertible-xps-13-leaks-a... The convertible, bezel-less XPS convertible = macbook pro + ipad pro

If you get the XPS and plan on Linux, plan to buy the Intel 7260 2x2 WiFi card. I tried the Dell DW1830 3x3 Broadcom WiFi and the driver support is rough for both WiFi and Bluetooth.

They do not ship Intel/Broadcom anymore, the current gen has Atheros ("Killer") wifi.
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