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Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

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Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#321

Post by diffeomorphism »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #289
diffeomorphism wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for comparison consider fishing rods: - cheap: plastic - decent: aluminium - better: magnesium, carbon,... > they feel cheap You mean they don't feel heavy. Some people confuse that for cheap. Similarly macs look like good engineering, but ...

> You mean they don't feel heavy. No. The 2011 MacBook Air was light but rigid. It is still used by my parents 11 years later. The hinge is still perfect.

> but rigid.

Again feels rigid, but .... You can actually step on a thinkpad, but just google "macbook air bend". The MacBook Air is still a great laptop, but if you think it is more rigid than the competition, no it just might feel that way.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#322

Post by orangepurple »

ptsneves wrote: post #254
orangepurple wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't use Grub or any bootloader if you can avoid it. I haven't used Grub in 10 years. Load Linux directly as an EFI executable via the EFISTUB approach. You almost certainly only need to run two or three efibootmgr commands to accomplish this. For most people that means only the "Using UEFI directly" section is relevant. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFISTUB S3 suspend was removed as a default option by many hard…

By not using Grub you lose the ability to fallback on a safe kernel. That may be quite dangerous depending on how reliable kernel update is for you. I have been saved by kernel fallbacks before. Double that for laptops whose ACPI drivers randomly break from version to version, as evidenced by your note on 5.17.x kernels. Regardless I sympathize, as I recently had a good deal of trouble updating from BIOS to UEFI. The…

I keep a USB key around with the Arch Linux ISO to boot an OS, mount my filesystem, and fix whatever is busted. I never needed to do this yet.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#323

Post by JetSetWilly »

323 wrote: post #300
JetSetWilly wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because it is not grounded. The leakage current then goes into the case. Unfortunately it seems to be quite difficult to buy grounded usb-c chargers. Most of them seem to come with C7 cables with no ground.

Grounding doesn't make much sense for devices which are completely plastic encased. I get your point about "pass-through grounding" to the laptop, but then again, a lot of time the laptop is not connecting to a charging wire anyway.

The problem is - laptops used to have their own dedicated chargers. And generally speaking, they were grounded. Now we're moving to usb-c though, it means we've lost it being grounded. And many laptops are made of conductive materials so therefore it is an extremely minor annoyance and downside of usb-c.

Also, I'm in the UK with its crap ring circuits packed with 240v/13amps. I'd rather have a ground when I'm one fault away from 3000 watts momentarily being delivered to my lap. Especially with these exciting new GaN chargers and their open circuit failure modes..

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#324

Post by skoskie »

tim-- wrote: post #317
anuragsoni wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macbook Air has never been marketed/sold as a 'Pro' device. There is the Macbook Pro line for that.

I am comparing this to a MacBook Pro. Edit: Admittedly the 8GB 2020 model, but still.

I also thought you were talking about the Air and had made a mistake when you said “pro”. I just totally forgot about that model until you doubled down.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#325

Post by jason0597 »

gabereiser wrote: post #45

I find it rather peculiar that tech folks think a plastic laptop is good build quality considering what we have from Apple and others. I wish more linux laptops had the build quality and support of macbooks. This isn't a rant from an Apple fan, this is a rant from a laptop fan. ThinkPad's aren't good laptops despite what the guy with the pocket protector says. They are flimsy and feel cheap. They still have 20th cent…

If you've ever taken apart a ThinkPad, you would notice that inside is a metal frame to support the entire laptop body. It's not plastic. Plus, this ThinkPad (and the newer ThinkPads in general) have a metal exterior

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#326

Post by jeroenhd »

PhDuck wrote: post #304
jeroenhd wrote: post #184

I have a model from this series. I find the trackpad to work great and I don't see the problem the author is having with it. Dragging works just fine, assuming you use the correct drag gesture (quick double tap, then drag, like usual). Compatibility wise, my experience has been slowly degrading. I've had to force the Intel GPU driver to use DRI 2 or X11 wouldn't work (this might have something to do with the manual c…

Honest question: Have you ever used a MacBook trackpad long term? From my experience with Dell XPS/Precision, Lenovo Thinkpads, IBM Thinkpads, and finally MacBooks, the MacBooks are far ahead. The Thinkpads trackpad are way too small, and Dell's are now days large enough but too imprecise. Both the Dell ones will sometimes trigger a click when typing on the keyboard since the trackpad is too sensitive.

I've tried them every time someone with a Macbook came over and told me I have to try the touchpad because it's the best thing since sliced bread. It's definitely a big touchpad, but that's about all I can say about it. It's definitely not worth the extra spend on Apple hardware and neither is it worth dealing with macOS. It's not a bad touchpad at all, it's just unremarkable in the higher end laptop space.

I'll agree that they used to be exceptionally good before the Windows 10 precision drivers became widespread, though. Those made a huge difference in the PC world, for Windows and Linux support, and it took the industry many years to get to that level.

Going by the current state of my touchpad, I use about 60% of the area of my current touchpad so honestly I'm fine with the size on my Thinkpad P1 gen3. The HP Probook I had before that (which, to be fair, is eight years old now) definitely had a touchpad that was too small.

Apple also seems to be the only company that produces a decent external touchpad, which is irritating. I feel like I'm more productive with a touchpad but finding an affordable touchpad with decent reviews is nearly impossible, except for Apple's magic trackpad. The best alternatives seem to be Chinese clones from Aliexpress but I don't feel like writing my own drivers to get those to work well with Linux.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#327

Post by xfs »

CaptainMarvel wrote: post #301
xfs wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used EFISTUB for 10 years but I wouldn't recommend it for the next install. The bootloader is the one arcane place that you don't want to be clever with and get reminded of its presence daily, because once it fails for some reason, it wastes much more time to find and read docs and diagnose than the time saved in boot speedup, because the knowledge to debug it is not something you would remember everyday. And…

I use EFTSTUB with Arch Linux and I agree about it taking up more of your time. However, for me, this was all the very start to first set it up. Since then, it’s been smooth sailing. I also use multiple kernels and I have had issues with kernel updates, and no issues with kernel parameters. However, there is friction with creating separate entries and so I created a very simple shell script to save my commands. I’ve…

Sure, it's common to have it working for a long time, because breaking changes and interactions between different systems occur very infrequently at the level of bootloader and firmware, but when it happens it can easily get into very difficult support situation. Logistically speaking, firmware is not a nice place to play around. It's not well coded, not well tested, and rarely "used" by an end user.

For one I wouldn't put great confidence in a script to manipulate UEFI boot entries, because it is not idempotent and there are precedents to brick the UEFI with unexpected sequence of interaction. Also Windows' reboot options and its annual upgrade tend to mess with the boot variables. I had to help repair colleagues' laptops that had Grub's boot entries erased by Windows upgrades.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#328

Post by sudosysgen »

halotrope wrote: post #110

Generally great machines for Linux. Just a PSA from a X1E gen2 owner: Do NOT get the NVidia GPU, do NOT get the fastest CPU and most importantly: do NOT opt for the 4k screen. With 1080p and Intel GPU it is a good, even great laptop with ok battery life (if you can look over the touchpad). Wonderful keyboard, good Linux support (even fingerprint reader works). But just as with the last Intel macbook, the GPU, 10th ge…

Battery life is perfectly fine with an NVidia GPU on any modern laptop with Optimus or a MUX. You just have to set it up to fully power down the GPU. I get 9+ hours of battery life with a 3070 on Linux, it's just always fully powered down.

Even at 1440p 240hz, pushing 2x more pixels than 4k60, I still get 5-6 hours of battery life.

Yes, it sucks that you have to go through the weeds to get it to work, but once it works it works.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#329

Post by sudosysgen »

halotrope wrote: post #201
hef19898 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If have one those, without the 4k screen. No complaints so far, even GPU heavy games like the early versions of Battletech worked fine, battery life under gaming conditions is somewhere between 2 and 4 hours. Non-gaming around 4 to 6 hours. With the Intel GPU deactivated, getting external screens working while the machine was in hybrid mode was too much of a pain. After all I wanted it for the nVidia GPU. Ubuntu is w…

Yes, I suspect it should be fine with dGPU and 1080p screen. I think in addition to the greater power draw, the compute needed to drive the 4k is just greater. In fairness I keep the dGPU active all the time as the Intel GPU produces significant UI lag under Linux at least.

I have never experienced UI lag with Intel graphics on Linux (only ever on Nvidia, actually), so it's probably fixable. What DM are you running, and what are your PRIME settings?

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#330

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

wlesieutre wrote: post #235
tim-- wrote: post #49

I recently acquired a ThinkBook 16p Gen 2, and while a different machine entirely to the ThinkPad, I must say that this is an _absolute beast_ of a machine. It's a total joy to use. It's the most fun I have had using a laptop since my first MacBook. Moving from the MBP to the ThinkBook has made me realize how... boring MacBooks are - not saying that's a bad thing. MacBooks do 'just work'. But the ThinkBook? The machi…

You could do 2x 4K displays with compression over a DisplayLink dock. Probably fine for UI stuff, maybe for video, not great for gaming. The newer 14" and 16" models would drive them natively (or 2x 6K + 1x 4K with the higher end SoC) but then it's not much of a fair comparison by price. The single external display limit is only on the basic "M1" processor and not any of the Pro/Max/Ultra followups. https://danielcom…

The latency on DisplayLink drives me crazy. Completely unusable for me, unfortunately, it's become difficult to find docks which don't use DisplayLink :/
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