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Comment by orhmeh09 | Hacker News Reader

Lenovo might be known that way, but they are exceptionally bad at supporting Linux. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-admits-ThinkPad-CPU-thr...

As far as I know this issue is still not fixed so I have to use this hack: https://github.com/erpalma/throttled

I’ve also had tremendous Thunderbolt-related firmware issues that could only be fixed in Windows. If you use Linux, there are much better options than Lenovo. I still use my T480 daily but I miss my old XPS 13, which gave me no issues ever.

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Exceptionally bad is a bit harsh. Windows is first tier support with Linux coming in as a second. In my experience they are pretty good about fixing remaining issues in firmware updates, which can be installed using fwupd (I don't have a Windows partition at all). I belive there's even a GNOME Software front-end if you prefer things being very easy.

I don't need to use throttled on my X1 Carbon 7th and they recently added mainline support for the fingerprint reader. All I had to do was enable it in GNOME Settings.

I have X1 Carbon 7th and need to use throttled to get full power.

Try to run performance test with s-tui if you see a difference.

On Arch the command to enable the fix is:

sudo systemctl enable --now lenovo_fix.service

I love my X1 (also 7th). This is the laptop which made me retire my actual desktop. Bought a docking station and a MOTU 8A for sound connectivity, and have no need for a classical desktop since.

I am not into gaming or graphics though. Still, with my (unusual) usage pattern I get almost 10 hours battery life time on the road, and all the CPU power I need locally. For heavy stuff, I compile remotely anyway.

I can't stand the (lack) of brightness on my X1 7th gen. Is that not a problem for you?

I can't for the life of me get it to be bright enough to use in a lit room. A bit of hyperbole here, but I basically have to hide in a closet and stuff a towel under the door to see the fucking screen. I love the keyboard, but I basically won't use the thing now because it's such a drag to use.

I don't think I've ever even set my 7th gen X1C to full brightness, it's perfectly usable. Is this a problem you tend to have with screens?

This is the only screen I've ever had to fight with to get something bright enough, and I'm nearing 40 so I've been through a metric buttload of computers and screens. It is hands down the worst screen I've ever had (and I still have a couple ~ 2006 20" acer lcds pressed into service in various comms closets and shop space in my house). The brightness on these is appalling and it doesn't help that Mint insists on resetting the brightness to 60% on every boot so I feel like I'm trying to walk through a house of horrors with only a single birthday candle for light.

Edit: the joke is that the house of horrors is my code

I had similar thoughts after purchasing my X13 AMD, not sure if you're experiencing the same thing I did. I was extremely disappointed with stock brightness when I first turned it on.

Turned out windows power saving and battery settings actually capped my brightness. So my user-controlled "100%" (via keyboard) actually becomes more like 60%, depending on the power profile.

As soon as I got a new m2 ssd, I shelved Windows and installed Fedora WS, which has no such issue. That is, if I say I want 100%, it obeys.

You can quickly test with either a live USB, or tweaking your power profiles.

I am blind (no joke), I couldn't care less about brightness :-) Well, actually, no, I execute a script after boot which basically does:

for backlight in leds/tpacpi::kbd_backlight backlight/intel_backlight; do dir="/sys/class/${backlight}"; if [ -d "${dir}" ]; then echo 0 > "${dir}/brightness"; fi; done

Thinkpad was one of the first laptop series which supported Linux explicitly.

Their competitor was Compaq NX series (HP EliteBook of today). Dell was late to the party and closed the gap by actively developing software for Linux (DKMS, Privacy Drivers, etc.).

I don't think you can conflate classic Thinkpad and current "Thinkpad".

Why not?

Lenovo's ThinkPad line is still quite differentiated from their other offerings. What are your objections to it?

When IBM didn't like the panels they could source for Thinkpads, they started a new company called International Display Technology to manufacture panels they did like. Thinkpads used to be special.

While it's entirely possible there's a connection between decisions like that and IBM's PC division being unprofitable enough they sold it to Lenovo, it might be reasonable to hope that Lenovo would make the effort to offer competitive panels when it's obviously possible for their competitors to source them.

Are they doing anything to prevent Linux from running well on them? As far as I can tell, since all big three (XPS, EliteBook and Thinkpad) are considered enterprise devices and their BIOS, IO tables and hardware layouts are crafted with Linux compatibility in mind.

They're explicitly sold with FreeDOS option to imply that you can directly install Linux on them.

Even my run on off the mill desktop shows more soft-errors about IO layout and memory mapped devices on board.

>Lenovo might be known that way, but they are exceptionally bad at supporting Linux.

Absolutely no trouble on x395. It's been running Linux (Arch) for a year, and it is my main system.

Piling on to say I cut on teeth on Linux installing Breezy Badger on a Thinkpad T20. Since then I’ve never struggled with a Debian based OS on Thinkpads.

I run Linux (Debian) on my Lenovo X1 Carbon and it works perfectly.

Linux works perfectly on mine as well, but I use Fedora.

The trackpad is bearable, and I have a 3rd generation so my 1080p screen isn't IPS, but it works well enough for $200.

Not sure about Carbons, but for T-series there are aftermarket IPS displays that you could swap for the original TN ones. Could be done in 30 min, with no previous experience, just with the service manuals from Lenovo and enough dexterity to handle a screwdriver.

The firmware issues are fixed just fine with fwupdmgr. It also integrates nicely with Gnome.

You can even buy thinkpads with ubuntu out of the box now, so hard disagree.

I don't know about Ubuntu, but Lenovo offers machines with Fedora already installed.

> Lenovo has now admitted to the problem – and announced that it will be fixed.

How is that exceptionally bad support? I'd say that's the opposite.

I get firmware updates on my X1C because Lenovo decides to work with fwupd and the open source community, something most manufacturers refuse to do.

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