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Comment by kauffj | Hacker News Reader

I'm currently on my fifth ThinkPad, so you could say I'm a fan. But I'd like to warn everyone that uses Linux to be careful about buying one.

I bought a T540 3 years ago that shipped with a Bay Trail processor. This processor was absolutely unusable on Linux due to this bug (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109051). Even setting max cstate to 1 resulted in regular freezes.

Not only would Lenovo not accept a return of the laptop, I could not even get them to update their Linux compatibility page to warn other users!

To this day:

- The cstate bug is not fixed, and running Linux on a Bay Trail processor will cause lockups

- Lenovo continues to recommend laptop versions that are flat out broken on Linux (https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd031426)

So be careful!

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> I bought a T540 3 years ago that shipped with a Bay Trail processor.

You didn't. Bay Trail is an Atom and there has never been a ThinkPad T with an Atom chip.

Not to mention that the 40 generation didn't have a T540. It had a T540p with various Haswell CPUs from cheap i3 up to i7 4700MQ. ThinkPads always ran wonderfully with Linux. It is the only with a p, all other T5x0 machines from the T500 to T580 didn't have a p (performance) postfix.

I do not think there was any ThinkPad ever for that matter with an Atom chip but here I might forget some bad apples. But certainly not in the T and X2... series, these are flagship business class machines.

Maybe some Ideapad? Yoga? Flex? whatever 2-in-1 -- but who cares about those.

Actually, there were also Bay Trail Pentiums and Celerons:

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/55844/Bay-Trail

I meant the Atom architecture in general, trade names nonwithstanding. Bonnell, Saltwell, Silvermont, Airmont, Goldmont, Goldmont Plus. ThinkPads, on the other hand, in roughly the same time frame have used Merom, Penryn, Arrandale, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake and Kaby Lake R CPUs.

Does that more satisfy you my hair splitting, persnickety friend?

Yes, you're right. I thought there might have been a Celeron T540, but the T series never has a Celeron processor option.

Or one of the ill-advised "ThinkPad" branded "business tablets" like the ThinkPad 8 or 10. You're right that Lenovo have never shipped a workstation class ThinkPad laptop with Bay Trail, but their attempts to extend the ThinkPad brand have definitely led them to ship some Atom-based duds.

I'm going to extend OP the benefit of the doubt on the model name here and say this: it sucks that Lenovo have diluted the "ThinkPad" brand and it sucks that they didn't remove the bad models from their Linux compatiblity list.

On the flip side, I think ThinkPad workstation laptops (T-series and above) are still safe for Linux. Just avoid the convertibles and tablets as well as the budget-range Edge series, which are frankly bad computers overall.

Uh, okay so it was a T540p? I don't see how this changes anything. They list the computer as Linux compatible. It was not, and they were neither interested in returning it or updating their site.

The difference between T540 vs T540p doesn't really change anything. What did matter to 'chx' is that you said it had a Bay Trail processor, and strongly implied that the problems you had with running Linux on the machine was due to your machine having this Bay Trail processor. To those who are intimately familiar with these ThinkPad's (not me) this is an egregious error.

I'd guess that if you came up with a link[1] showing that the T540p was indeed sold with a Bay Trail processor, 'chx' would apologize profusely, publicly eat his hat, and probably come over to mow your lawn. Alternatively, if for some reason you misspoke as to which processor generation it had, you might consider making the world a slightly better place by correcting your error and apologizing for the apparently trivial bit of misinformation.

[1] Like this one, but with Bay Trail than Haswell: https://www.cnet.com/products/lenovo-thinkpad-t540p-15-6-cor...

So the problem is kauffj alleging a ThinkPad T not working with Linux. Plain and simple, there is no such thing. Further, their description of said laptop has the wrong name (T540 vs T540p) and the wrong CPU very strongly indicating their laptop is not a ThinkPad T after all but something else. What else, I can't even guess.

This merited a strong reply because contrary to this allegation, the rule of thumb is to recommend a ThinkPad T or X for someone looking a Linux laptop.

You can accuse an old Porsche 911 SD of having problems with the front engine but people will be quick to point out that a) Porsche 911 only had an SC and not an SD version b) the Porsche 911 engine is in the back.

As a counterpoint - there are plenty of ThinkPads that run Linux quite well. My team at work is almost 100% ThinkPad X1s or T450s, with a variety of distros (Debian, Fedora, Arch) and we don't have too many problems.

It's a shame Lenovo's documentation is inaccurate though!

My W540 is absolute shit running Linux too, the thing randomly locks up and just running VMWare workstation causes the damned thing to heat up.

The ThinkPad was once venerable brand, but I've lost all respect for it - at this point I'm probably just going to buy a MacBook Pro and send the W540 back to the office because I'm tired of playing the Linux compatibility game on modern notebooks.

Uhh. This is depressing.

I picked up Slackware and FreeBSD a long time ago and had so much fun plus found a career.

I finally through in the towel with Linux as my main machine a long time ago and went back to Windows as 7 was pretty good.

With Win10, I've tried to deal with both VMs and WSL, but once I got a MBP there was no turning back. I simply don't have the time or patience to deal with the issues Linux now has.

Don't know what the solution is. Perhaps dump Systemd and the rest of RedHat's decision.

Or maybe Redhat, Suse, or whover could just get one disto working perfectly on two or three hardware models a la Apple.

But not happy with how things have turned our with Linux on the desktop.

https://system76.com/ and https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ both sell laptops specifically for the Linux market. Recent Dell XPS laptops are also supposed to be great.

In europe you can order similar machines tuxedocomputers.com

Disclaimer: Just a customer

"at this point I'm probably just going to buy a MacBook Pro and send the W540 back to the office because I'm tired of playing the Linux compatibility game on modern notebooks."

Former ThinkPad fan, current MacBook user: I am likely to buy a Dell for my next laptop. Dell expanded the range of machines that they will preload with (Ubuntu) Linux last year, and were the first big vendor to sign on to the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, so that supported computers can get easily get firmware upgrades.

Former mac user, now Dell XPS user - my first impressions were great, second not so much. XPS laptops have a horrendous coil whine and a lot of model lines have an issue where the computer won't go to sleep(instead stays on with the fan off, resulting in the machine reaching burning temperatures if you just close the lid and put it in your bag). I've had the motherboard replaced 3 times now - both issues are still present. There's thread upon thread upon thread about both on Dell forums - and it seems Dell doesn't have an engineering solution, despite being on the 7th(?) generation of that laptop.

"Former mac user, now Dell XPS user - my first impressions were great, second not so much."

Yeah, I definitely should have qualified that I probably would not get an XPS, because there seem to be consistent issues with that line. That's why I'm pleased to see that Dell have expanded the number of ranges that they offer Linux support on: hopefully there will be some good models at the time that I need to buy a new machine. Or I could buy an unsupported model: none of the ThinkPads that I used had Linux support from the vendor.

Except Dell's QA is an utter shit. Around here we have eight XPS 13, two XPS 15, and only one XPS 15 and one XPS 13 didn't had any problems. From stuck fan to failed SSD or the computer that just won't wake up.

Yea my XPS 15 running Linux is falling apart. The compatibility was all there, but the touchpad already broke; speakers are blown (no hardware limiter and it was over 100% when I unplugged some USB speakers) and the battery is even starting to swell. I just use it as a desktop now.

I use an HP Spectre as my Linux laptop now. Everything worked on a modern kernel out of the box and the quality seems way better.

FYI Dell issued a recall for XPS batteries. You should check their support pages and make sure to get it replaced (or have one shipped to you).

"I use an HP Spectre as my Linux laptop now. Everything worked on a modern kernel out of the box and the quality seems way better."

I know that Martin Wimpress, the Ubuntu MATE lead, sometimes uses a Spectre. They look to be quite a different thing to what we might expect from a HP laptop.

Probooks and Elitebooks have generally been quite good, we used them for many years at my current workplace, before switching to Thinkpads around the end of the T430/X230 generation.

I certainly didn't have any complaints about them. Absolutely stay away from consumer models, obviously.

I'm assuming you're going to switch to MacOS then, because running Linux on a modern MacBook Pro is a pain and a half. I did a write-up on it:

https://penguindreams.org/blog/linux-on-a-macbook-pro-14-3/

My Wi-Fi and battery status still don't work. I use a Wi-Fi dongle at work. :-P

Yes, I would run macOS - beyond my hardware issues and as much as I love open source desktops there's still too many software pains I have as well. Evolution has a terrible UI and does not play nicely with calendars on Exchange servers (I frequently find my attendance status has not been sent, plus it often won't show me the status of attendees to meetings I have sent out), Akonadi's EWS provider likes to randomly freeze up trying to sync my mailbox (which is large, but people have larger IMAP inboxes with GMail) so Kontact/KMail isn't a great solution either.

VMWare's stupid kernel modules are always breaking in one way or another as well, plus I never get guest 3D support because of the switchable graphics in my laptop and I just cannot be bothered to fight and fight to get it to work. I tried using gnome-boxes instead for a while, but audio inside the guest would constantly get garbled and have cuts, support for guest drivers beyond VirtIO disk/network was hit and miss.

I've got more, but I don't want to make it into a rant about the state of the Linux desktop - because for all the problems I have I still love it, but I need a computer and software that works smoothly out of the box because I have work to get done.

As a contrary point of view - I have a W541 that is provided by my enterprise overlord including all the virus scanner and corporate crap that comes with it on Windows. I actually quite like Windows, but I prefer to use the right tool for the job - which is often Linux. I boot into Linux (daily) without one issue at all - it all worked out of the box and I have no complaints at all.

The closest thing to an issue is the poor battery life - but this has been my experience with all laptops and Linux.

I can't comment on the W540, and I wonder if it is that different compared to the W541.

Check out the Dell XPS 13 which you can buy with Linux preinstalled (and therefore support out of the box).

It appears bay trail was a particularly bad release.

Not to defend Intel but that was 3 generations ago; I would certainly consider a Gemini Lake for my next nettop - where media-pc quiet is more important to me than performance. (provided no showstopper bugs exist!)

Interesting. Couple of chromebooks use Bay Trail chipset, though a audio firmware related issue on linux is quite known (https://github.com/GalliumOS/galliumos-distro/issues/180) I didn't know about the cstate bug.

I wonder how ChromeOS avoids(fixes?) both the above said audio issue and the cstate issue mentioned by you.

Related: what older models are known to work well with Linux/are preferred by users here?

Do any options have open boot/something close?

I literally hoard good condition X220s, dreading the day when they're no longer fast enough for my needs (hopefully a long way off still). It's the last (going by manufacture date) laptop I enjoy using. The keyboards are superb, the build quality is excellent, perfect compatibility with modern Linux distributions and the battery lasts 4-7h of real world use (6 and 9 cell versions, respectively). You can get models in perfect condition for 300-400 euros on eBay, and they still make new keyboards, batteries, etc. for them. It's the perfect laptop for those of us who dislike chiclet keyboards, the thin > all design fad and all the other maladies of modern laptop design. With Sandy Bridge i7s and 16gb RAM, they're powerful enough for my needs and thankfully let me write and debug AVX-capable code (with the usual profiling caveats associated with the SB architecture).

As for open boot, I understand the X220 supports both coreboot and libreboot, but I don't use either, so I can't comment on it in detail.

I bought my X220 from a friend for a hundred bucks thinking it'd be a fun toy to install Linux on, but it has become my daily driver. My only gripe is the flimsyness of the plastic just above the ExpressCard slot.

It's much better with a card inserted. Infact the ExpressCard-slot made me choose an X220 over the X230. It can be used to connect an external GPU!

.. this

I have bought a couple of newer Thinkpads but they end up reverting to my x220. x230 is almost as good but doesn't have the old school keyboard.

On reddit.com/r/thinkpad there is huge following for moding them.. My only recommendation is to ensure it you have an SSD and load up on RAM.

You can, nowadays, use a BIOS patch and an X220 palmrest to put the X220 keyboard into an X230.

Hate to bother you, but could you point me to the exact model (eBay or whatever) you're talking about?

I'd love to find one damn laptop that we know works well.

Lenovo ThinkPad X220 [0] with an IPS display and i7, so it also has one USB3 port. I guess this is a quite safe bet as a daily driver, if you don't want to invest into the new models.

By saying that, the 2018 generation of ThinkPads finally includes excellent panels. If you get the new X1C or T480(s), you can choose a bright IPS panel with a good resolution. With the old ThinkPads, especially X220/X230 you just need to be VERY sure you DO NOT get the TN panels.

[0] https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X220-Laptop-Core-i7...

I love how good the IPS panel looks, but unfortunately it is rather fragile compared to the TN version, there are so many of them out there with bright spots from pressure damage.

Personally I care more about ruggedness (my X220i is my travel computer) than color fidelity. Compared to my old Acer Chromebook 13's absolutely horrible TN panel, the one in the X220i is actually quite decent.

The screen from the Lenovo Twist is a drop-in IPS upgrade and entirely shielded by a protective touchscreen that's removable. I have a slide deck that explains the procedure in detail: https://anddevw.com/gdgsf-chromepad-chromium-for-thinkpad/

From what I heard, it's vulnerable to pressure from the rear, like if you jam it in an overpacked bag. But that's the original panel, I don't know about the Twist panel, thanks for the link.

Still, from what I gather the IPS panels suck a bit more power than the TN panels (not a huge difference, though), and for my use (travel PC getting lugged all over the world in hand luggage) I'm primarily interested in ruggedness and battery life. I use it to browse and read email, with the occasional Youtube video, not for anything color critical. I would be much more interested in upgrading the mediocre built-in speakers, apparently you can use the speaker from a Nexus 6P for a nice boost in volume and quality.

The speakers really are exceptionally terrible, but upgrading them seems like a lot of work for not a lot of improvement. There's a detailed guide to the speaker upgrade over here: https://petrosprojects.blogspot.com/2017/12/thinkpad-x220-sp...

I upgraded the TN panel on my i5 X220 to a matt IPS 18 months ago. It was about £50 from eBay; and a careful 5 minutes with a set of electronic screwdrivers. (All quite easy, you just have to be very very careful when removing the ribbon cable, to not slice one of the thin wires.)

The display is vastly superior. Everything is more crisp, and it is brighter.

The X220 is still fast enough for Chrome / YouTube / Netflix without spinning up the fan. Running a high res external display is a bit too much though; the fan kicks in most of the time.

fwiw the X220 does not support Libreboot, but the X200 does.

The X220 works great with Coreboot.

Yes. I was addressing the parent comments claim that it works with Libreboot, which it currently does not.

I got a screaming deal on a mint condition X220i a little while ago. It's only the i3, but it has 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, dual-band wifi, completely tricked out as far as the previous owner could do. It's plenty fast with Linux Mint for what I need to do, including a bit of gaming. Darkest Dungeon and other 2D games that run well on Linux aren't too bad on system requirements (although they do sort of kill the battery life), and there's a whole host of old games I can still play, I'm not trying to run GTA IV on it or something.

I would like to get an 802.11ac card for it at some point and that's about it. It came with a 6-cell battery with 70% capacity left, and I've put a new 2Power 9-cell battery in it, getting around 6-7 hours battery life as you say. I would sort of like to have an external charger so I could always have both batteries topped up, but they seem to be rare as hen's teeth.

In my opinion, the X220 is probably the best Thinkpad ever made. The i3 isn't a problem, I used a T42 for years and years despite its slow-ass Pentium-M, and I only sold it because a lot of Linux distros started going 64-bit only.

A Coreboot X220 is exponentially better than a stock X220. On top of a drastically reduced boot time and better battery life, Coreboot allows booting from the ExpressCard, which makes booting from a USB3 possible on the I5 models. Another big plus is that Chromium OS works perfectly on a Coreboot X220, right down to the fully functional built-in SIM modem.

I have both a X220 and a T530 and they both work perfectly with Linux (Mint on one and Solus on the other).

I can also vouch for the T530 working perfectly (Ubuntu).

My only issue with the T530 is battery life, I barely get 2 hours on a full charge (not sure the replacement battery is very good, however).

It's worth running 'powertop' and seeing what it recommends. I've then put a set of suggested shell commands into a script which I run. On my X220, with WiFi and Chrome and medium brightness, consumption is about 10 W.

Thinkpads can also support not charging the battery to 100% / over-cycling it, which can help prolong battery lifetime:

    sudo modprobe tp_smapi
    echo 40 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh
    echo 80 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh

I seem to recall the folks behind Solus (the distro I use) remind people not to use TLP because it leads to lock-ups or unwanted behavior and it ends up not being worth the trouble. Not sure if powertop is any different, I may give it a go.

Powertop echo's the shell command it is doing to effect the change. Most of it is just changing defaults in /proc. You can experiment yourself. For instance, I find that making the audio-codec go power-saving leads to pops and crackles over headphones.

Mint on an X220i is absolutely flawless for me as well. The only thing I had to do was to install the Intel microcode driver, and that isn't even strictly necessary.

I have a 4th gen X1 carbon.

Install of Linux mint was simple and it’s been running well with no issues.

I've used an X1 Carbon, X60, W500 and now T25 with Linux, and they just all work perfectly with Linux. Whatever the distribution, the laptops are superb programmer's workhorses.

I bought a refurbished t430 from ebay for like 250€ with ssd, 8gb ram and 9cell battery. Just upgraded the ram to 16gb and installed Fedora, it's the perfect laptop for me (~10-12h of battery life)

I am not planning on changing or upgrading it until it dies.

Web dev / data scientist.

I can agree with you. I own a t440s. My only qualm is the touchpad but other than that it's great for web dev.

I have a couple of t430s models. One is a backup server and I use the other for coding mini projects.

It’s fine, but my work laptop is a 15” rMBP and I know which screen, pointing device and battery life I prefer.

I understand but you have to admit there is a pretty big difference in prices between the current one of the t430s and a 15" rMBP.

Oh, this seems to be the bug I've been experiencing!

If it doesn't run Linux well, I don't see why I would ever buy a Lenovo/ThinkPad over a MacBook

I think GP is right to warn people. Historically "Thinkpad" has been the brand that was most likely to run Linux flawlessly, times are changing since Thinkpad is no longer IBM owned and has been on a gradual decline ever since Lenovo bought the rights to the product line.

I've seen them recommended by quite a few OpenBSD developers as well. Sad to see this.

> Thinkpad is no longer IBM owned

Pretty much nothing to do with that. It's been years since IBM does not own Thinkpad anymore but Lenovo was perfectly able to provide proper Linux support up until recently.

I actually agree with blaming Lenovo here, to a degree. While OP is incorrect about the ThinkPad workstation series, which can't have had the c-state bug as it never shipped with an Atom-based processor, Lenovo have extended the ThinkPad brand to a lot of computers (Edge, ThinkPad 8/10 "business tablets" / convertibles, etc.) that are not only not very Linux compatible but are also bad computers overall.

The Edge Series was not SO bad. I've owned a Edge 13 for years and it is quite solid with good Linux support.

It took quite some time for the laptops Lenovo was selling to actually be entirely new designs. For years they were selling incrementally improved classic thinkpads. Around the time when they switched from the thin walled barrel power connector to the USB looking thing is where the designs substantially changed and everything really took a turn for the worse in general.

The T-series has been VERY good, still is. If you pick up a T4(6-8)0 and max it out, I can't really think a better programmer's laptop.

Because of the other differences?

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