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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

#51

Post by JoshTriplett »

karussell wrote: post #10
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.

Didn't knew this, thanks. I also like the fact that the (rear) battery is easily replacable. Also something more recent laptops do avoid due to "the thin contest"

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.

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

#52

Post by karussell »

sandGorgon wrote: post #50
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…

+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?

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

#53

Post by EdwinHoksberg »

I bought a T460p a few months ago and am not very happy with it. The problem I have is that linux(I am running debian) has quite a few problems with the Skylake architecture, especially the graphics driver. I tried everything I can think of, installing the intel driver manually and installing the newest kernel(4.9.0) but I still have some troubles with the graphics glitches. So I when I'll be buying a new laptop I will definitely avoid the Skylake arch, every other version I tried worked a lot better.

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

#54

Post by 2bluesc »

chx wrote: post #43
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…

How's the keyboard and the TrackPoint?

"just works". Touch surface is smooth, clicks require slightly more force then an old rMBP I had. Only real concern is that it might be too sensitive and clicks while my finger is hovering. This might be configurable, but haven't cared enough to try.

As for keyboard, feels great to me, but I'm not that picky.

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

#55

Post by chx »

rincebrain wrote: post #18
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…

What about the T-series keyboards changed recently that bothers you? If it's actually the touchpad changes, they reverted them on the xx50 and up (or made them optional, I forget which). (Typing this from a T430 I'm using while my W550s is being repaired, and I can't recall any drastic keyboard changes that had me in an uproar in the last while.)

Not recently but simply the amount of keys have dropped from T420 to T430. The Home - End - PgUp - PgDn keys are the same place on my T420s (which is upgraded to a quality full HD screen) as any 101 key keyboard in the last 35+ years. Insert - Delete isn't but that's kinda OK because Insert is rarely needed anyways. Taking away the 7th row is the cardinal sin of the T430+ keyboards. Also switching to keyboard backlight from ThinkLight is a moronic decision, there are more things to light than just the keyboard.

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

#56

Post by dajonker »

aiur3la wrote: post #35

> ... I find the boot time compelling enough (~23sec until login, plus 2sec to open the browser) that I do not need this. I think something is slowing down your boot, I get faster boot on a 2008 thinkpad running the same OS. OT: systemd was supposed to improve boot performance but it has actually become much worse. Upstart on a weak chromebook boots in under 2 sec, why shouldn't your current generation thinkpad with…

Oh yeah, with Arch linux and some tweaking I got under 10 seconds on my X240. But I switched to Fedora, which is still under 20 seconds.

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

#58

Post by jusssi »

ktta wrote: post #26
karussell wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Linux I highly recommend a further waiting of 6-9 months (e.g. (x)ubuntu 17.04.1)

But it's not LTS. All the major software stuff will be well supported for 16.04 till 18.04. If you look around, you'll mostly find 14.04/16.04 in supported OSes. Even for OSS software, not just commercial stuff.

I think the parent means that it may take some time until the hardware support gets to Linux kernel.

I bought a Broadwell laptop right when the first ones came out, and had a lot of trouble with the integrated graphics (Intel, who supposedly do a good job with their Linux drivers compared to anyone else). It took about an year for Ubuntu to package a kernel that didn't either have annoying blinking glitches or hard lock-ups regularly. Obviously, I've been using the mainline kernels all that time, but even with them it took a couple of months.

So yes, caution and patience with bleeding edge hardware is advisable.

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

#59

Post by cel1ne »

aiur3la wrote: post #35

> ... I find the boot time compelling enough (~23sec until login, plus 2sec to open the browser) that I do not need this. I think something is slowing down your boot, I get faster boot on a 2008 thinkpad running the same OS. OT: systemd was supposed to improve boot performance but it has actually become much worse. Upstart on a weak chromebook boots in under 2 sec, why shouldn't your current generation thinkpad with…

I find it curious that you care about boot-times. I use macbooks and just close and reopen the lid. Waking from this sleep takes less than a second usually.

My average uptime is about 22 days until I reboot for an update or something.

I used Linux for years, and I understood that in 2008 sleep/resume on notebooks didn't properly work, but now we have 2017 - 9 years later!

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

#60

Post by aiur3la »

karussell wrote: post #44
aiur3la wrote: post #35

> ... I find the boot time compelling enough (~23sec until login, plus 2sec to open the browser) that I do not need this. I think something is slowing down your boot, I get faster boot on a 2008 thinkpad running the same OS. OT: systemd was supposed to improve boot performance but it has actually become much worse. Upstart on a weak chromebook boots in under 2 sec, why shouldn't your current generation thinkpad with…

Would be nice to have a faster one, yes :) ... some recommendations? Just fyi: I measure boot time from the time I press the power button. The BIOS logo appears a staggering 8sec or something although the BIOS fast boot is enabled. (Maybe the sync with NSA or something ;))

I haven't tested any of these myself, but this page contains some great suggestions:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/10290/how-do-i-improve-boot-...

The initial boot delay is VERY annoying. I wish libreboot was supported on my laptop, then I could ditch lenovos ancient BIOS (and the NSA ping) once and for all:

https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/#supported_laptops_x86intel

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