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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

#181

Post by excessi0n »

vegardx wrote: post #151

It would be so much easier to love my Thinkpad T460s if it wasn't for the touchpad. Coming to Thinkpad and Linux after many years as a Mac-user this was almost a deal breaker for me. The palm detection in synaptic driver is laughable. People installing Linux on the new Macbook Pros are going to have a blast with that gigantic touchpad. And I don't even think it's just a driver problem, as the touchpad can register a…

I had the touchpad problem on my T430. Installing Touchfreeze greatly reduced the problem. That was 3 years ago though, now gpointing-device-settings is recommended. Haven't tried that.

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

#182

Post by dorfsmay »

sandGorgon wrote: post #137
dogma1138 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 convert…

Touchscreens do use more power than equivalent regular screen.

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

#183

Post by nickjj »

okasaki wrote: post #14

I could buy 3 equivalent laptops (finding IPS might be a problem) for the price. Is the Thinkpad brand really worth that much?

You can get a 13" 1920x1080 IPS panel on a Chromebook for about $350. With ~5 minutes of labor (swapping in an SSD) you can install Linux natively on it with GalliumOS.

Full details can be found here:

https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromeboo...

Been using it for a few months now for development and it's been great.

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

#184

Post by karussell »

cel1ne wrote: post #145
karussell wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not loose your data with both methods as power is used for suspend to RAM. BTW: OSX has not a "pure" suspend to disc anymore and the default method is suspend to RAM when closing the lid

Parent poster stated "What often does not work is hibernation (recover from disc)". Which means the user loses data.

Parent poster was me and you do not loose data. Instead it just does not go into hibernation in my case :)

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

#185

Post by taeric »

karussell wrote: post #172
vegardx wrote: post #151

It would be so much easier to love my Thinkpad T460s if it wasn't for the touchpad. Coming to Thinkpad and Linux after many years as a Mac-user this was almost a deal breaker for me. The palm detection in synaptic driver is laughable. People installing Linux on the new Macbook Pros are going to have a blast with that gigantic touchpad. And I don't even think it's just a driver problem, as the touchpad can register a…

Thanks for pointing me to the correct wording 'palm detection'. Investigating this I found it was completely disabled and now when using it it seems to improve the situation, but will test further. I'm wondering why this touch pad issue is so important for you if you do development. When I'm not mobile I have a mouse, an external keyboard, headset or external sound system, external monitor etc

The trackpad of a mac really is addictive. Especially if you get used to any gestures.

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

#186

Post by dorfsmay »

ynniv wrote: post #163
_lbaq wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learn to use the trackpoint instead and disable the touchpad.

The method of interaction is so different it would be nicer to advise people to not use a pointing device at all. I've always wanted to like them, but the track point is a poor man's trackball, and where do you see a trackball these days?

Trackpoint is superior to trackball and touchpad because you don't need to raise your fiber from it when going long distance (say one corner of your screen to another corner), and of course the fact that you don't need to take you hands off the keyboard like others mentioned.

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

#187

Post by rayiner »

TobbenTM wrote: post #8

And one of the most awesome things about Thinkpads not mentioned; you can get every (most?) replacement part directly from Lenovo. You can actually look up the part number in the service manual, order it, and replace it yourself. For nerds like us, this is sooo nice sometimes, when you just wanna get it fixed quickly, from the comfort of your own home.

Except Lenovo takes forever to ship anything. I can walk down to the Apple Store and have most fixes done the same day.

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

#188

Post by herbst »

kayoone wrote: post #175
herbst wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well i am sure more modern chip sets are better overall. But its still better with my 3 cell than i had on a brand new 2015 MBP.

Sorry, but then you did something wrong. Since Haswell they are not only better overall but also much more energy efficient. The Macbooks went from 5-6hours to 10 in that generation.

not sure what we are arguing, maybe i should have mentioned the fact that my macbook ran OSX and my Thinkpad runs Arch Linux? I've did several battery management optimizations as well.

If i could run Arch painfree on a mac i would agree that i would have better battery life most likely.

I am mostly just arguing against the constant mention for "macbooks having the best battery life for developer laptops". Which is not true if you could also use a Thinkpad with Linux

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

#189

Post by ninjin »

todd8 wrote: post #166
HarrietJones wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to consider w.r.t. SuperFish is it was two years ago, and Lenovo did apologise for it. Sometimes you have to keep a grudge, but my opinion on this is it was something that pretty much any laptop manufacturer could have done and they did deal with it. YMMV.

I have avoided buying anything significant made by Todhiba for 30 years. It's probably time for me to drop my grudge against them (it has to do with milling machines and corporate misconduct during the Cold War).

For those of us that were somewhat puzzled about the mention of misconduct, I think this is what todd8 was referring to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba-Kongsberg_scandal

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

#190

Post by mangecoeur »

As an ex-linux user and current mac user, I'm still frustrated by linux laptop hardware support. Ethernet ports that need to be re-plugged, suspend-to-disk not working... lots of glitches things that were already annoying 6-7 years ago but now are hard to justify compared with the polish you can expect from other systems. I could never go back from my macbook because I need everything to just work - no glitchy touchpads, dodgy networking, haphazard sleep (and that's before we get into the quality of the available hardware). I want to actually do things with my computer, not spend my time fixing glitches.
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