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Comment by arkj | Hacker News Reader

>>If you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague. They have absolutely zero quality assurance for Linux.

Isn't this a bit too harsh on them? We've had good experiences on T and L series.

I am using L470 with fedora 27 for the last 2 years and I have not had any issues so far. I have gone till 78 days without a shutdown. It's been more stable than windows on suspend to ram cycles.

I did have issues with fonts out of the box but fixing was easy. One of the advantages of using Linux is it forces you to fix the broken parts and personally it has been a very rewarding experience.

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I've had mixed experiences in this regard.

Thinkpads from the T and X series (don't know about Yoga, P or L) are really great, usually work out of the box and if there is broken hardware you are visited tomorrow by a nice guy from IBM (yes, really!) who fixes things without complaining about the weird OS you are running (of course you should be able to test that the new component works somehow).

Non-Thinkpad laptops from Lenovo are worse at running with Linux and the hardware support seems to be far worse, send it in, wait a few weeks, no solution.

Note that other vendors are very similar: there is a big difference between the "for professional business use" and "for home use" lines, in prices as well as support for software and support if broken.

You have a pay a premium for that next-day, on-site warranty. But it's worth it.

> by a nice guy from IBM (yes, really!)

Why IBM? IBM sold Lenovo to China years ago, does IBM still handle support for Lenovo in your country?

Here in Germany, they seem to. Don't know if this has changed recently, but for the last personal visit 2 years ago, it was an IBM guy.

Cool to know!

No, it's not too harsh.

I have a T440s, bought with the wrong (rtl8192ee) wifi chipset, and their support has been practically nonexistent.

If you're a big company, you can test the hardware before letting all your employees adopt it (and I know that my colleagues are quite happy with their X1 Carbon), but if you're a consumer and you find out that the hardware doesn't have (good/reliable) Linux drivers, you need to be prepared to return it... or to find a replacement FRU yourself (good luck with that!)

The biggest take away is make sure your hardware supports the software you want before you make expensive purchases.

Is that information that Lenovo publishes? In the following page it shows some model numbers. Is there a guaranteed 1:1 mapping from model number to chipset?

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd100264

Based on this thread you don't want to trust what Lenovo or Canonical say. You need to find first-hand reports about particular models.

Sorry I just saw this. ThinkWiki may be a friend if you're looking for thinkpad specific documntation

I think they’re one of the manufacturers that has a whitelist of wireless cards as well. So sometime you can’t even replace it with something that works.

I've had mostly good experience with P5x laptops. I haven't gotten the fingerprint reader to work, and have had some minor issues with multiple monitors with the proprietary nvidia drivers. But other than that they've worked pretty well.

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