Live data from Hacker News

Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development

karussell.wordpress.com

351–360 of 391 posts

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

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a non-problem if you are going to wipe out Windows and install Linux anyway?

And additionally a non-problem with the ThinkPad line, which is far less susceptible to this sort of tomfoolery.

Why would it be less susceptible? Isn't it the same company that makes them?

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

#352

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…

Which distribution you are running? You want to post output of xev to xorg-libinput bug tracker. Generally they are very responsive about fixing touchpad for new devices. I don't know why - but it appears that each device needs to be tuned separately (like there is no Universal Palm detection that works for all laptops).

FWIW, with my new T460 (likely exactly the same touchpad hardware as the T460s mentioned) on Fedora 25, the palm detection is actually pretty good. In a typing situation (recent keyboard events) it's engaged and I see the cursor sit rock solid, but if I remove my hands for a few seconds, replace them on the home row without typing, and then wiggle my palms I can see events generated.

This is IMHO exactly the desired behavior. Not sure whether this is a feature of Xwayland or Gnome...

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

#353

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 run windows on my t460p and haven't seen those touchpad issues, so it does sound driver-related.

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

#354

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 touchp…

Similar story here. Used linux in my HS/early college years, but switched to Mac when the swapped to intel. Recently looked at the possibilities of using linux again, but haven't really found any hardware that "just works." There is that one dell ubuntu dev laptop, but that is a pretty expensive gamble at $1800. The best luck I've had for now is installing ubuntu on a crappy cheap Samsung Chromebook. Runs really well…

We have more than one (dell.com/sputnik), several of which are less than $1800. If you're in Europe, you can also order online most of our Latitudes with Ubuntu too (should be able to by phone in the US too).

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

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thus they barely get their stuff working on the major commercial platforms, and all the rest have to either beg for specs so they can write their own (good luck) or reverse engineers (and risking bricking the hardware because of abusing standards for firmware flashing and whatsnot). Thus the shortest way to get a working system is to stop being an hipster and use one of the major commercial platforms.

> Thus the shortest way to get a working system is to stop being an hipster and use one of the major commercial platforms. Being a hipster has very little to do with using Linux these days. Wanting a productive, customisable work environment has a lot, on the other hand.

Whenever you're stuck with bad drivers, hardware issues and having to reverse engineer your platform, you are not productive.

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

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So which is it, they're spreading "Fear, uncertainty and doubt" or they're right? They're spreading the FUD that Linux laptop hardware support is frustrating, no questions asked. It's FUD because it's a fear-inducing oversimplification of the current state of things, which is that Linux laptop hardware support is enjoyable -if you do your homework- .

I think the point was that most would rather just have a machine that works out of the box so they can do their actual work instead of 'doing their homework' on how to get their machine to hibernate, connect to wifi reliably, etc...

OP meant on what machine to buy (something you'd probably do before buying a Windows laptop anyway). But if like me can't be bothered with even this then just buy a system 76 or an xps with ubuntu pre-installed... No homework required.

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

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently switched back to Linux (ThinkPad/Arch/Kernel4.8) after 5 years using a Macbook Pro (after using linux for 5 years previously). Linux hardware support has become much better without a doubt. However just in the last couple days I've had the following sporadic issues: * External usb keyboard/mouse simply wouldn't work (and doesn't show up in lsusb). Restart fixed. * If left overnight, occasionally won't wake…

But macOS is famous for having fast wake from sleep. It's always had this, years before Windows and Linux started catching up. It's always been near-instantaneous for me. That said, it would seem that they have, and continue to have, issues with waking up with a new external monitor. Maybe you're being hit by this? Occasionally when I arrive at home or the office and plug my asleep-and-lid-closed MBP 2015 in, the scr…

I should have been more specific, and the word 'forever' was overly hyperbolic - though when you're doing it 20 times in an hour it gets to feel that way.

Relative is the key:

Linux wakes up in milliseconds every time; by the time I open the lid all the way it's ready to go. rMBP (2012) can be from almost as fast as linux to ~10 seconds. I'd guess the average is ~3 seconds; though sometimes even when it wakes up fast I'll still get a beachball for a bit.

I mostly use my laptop around the house and often open and close it many times in a short period -- for instance say I'm reading something technical on the kindle in the armchair; I'll flip it open quite often to test or look something up quickly, so even having to wait a few seconds gets obnoxious.

I could just leave it open, but I don't always have a safe place to put it while open.

note: no external monitor, so that's not the issue.

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

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* Macbook takes relatively forever to come back from sleep; thinkpad is practically immediate. Waking up from sleep has been nice and fast in Linux for a while, but I have to say that regardless of all the frustrations I've found using OS X over the last year, waking from sleep isn't one of them. It has been nice and fast every time. >* Macbook wireless constantly has issues connecting, to the point of having to tur…

You can change your sleep mode to get rid of the hibernate restoration. I have to warn you although, your battery life of your sleeping laptop will go down: http://www.macworld.com/article/1053471/software/sleepmode.h...

Thanks! I didn't know about that. Maybe that's the difference as my linux is solely suspend to ram (never could get hibernate to work)

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

#359

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

Actually convertible is a disadvantage for me. Why would I need this?

Well, the old non-convertible will get cheaper when the new convertible model comes out, that is advantage :P

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

#360
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird - we've got an office full of x240s & x260s and they all seem fine from what I can tell. Never had a hardware related issue in ~2 years of use. Well except that one bluescreen a couple months back - that could be hw I guess. The screen res pisses me off though. :/

I am not saying that you cannot get a decent X260, but notice how now in every Thinkpad thread there is a significant number of "me / my team had a number of thinkpads, we've had to go through N replacements during the last year", whereas a few years ago they were the poster boy for reliability. Thinkpads now have the engineering/manufacturing tolerance of a low to mid range consumer laptop, even though they are supp…

What would you suggest then?

In my experience, only Thinkpads and Latitudes have provided me satisfying user experiences.

Except XPS 13 and Macbook Pros, which I tried and I don't like the feeling.

Post reply on HN