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Comment by young_unixer | Hacker News Reader

This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason.

God, the laptop market is awful.

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-...

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It depends. If you wan't to run linux, then on your location. If you want to run Windows, i can't help you. As others have allready mentioned, take a look at System76 if you reside in the US. Another option would be https://puri.sm/

Slimbook was mentioned, they are in the UK IIRC.

If you are somewhere else, https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/ might have something for you.

I have recently become aware of https://laptopwithlinux.com/

Looks good, thank you for another option.

Actually Slimbook is from Valencia (Spain). But AFAIK they send worldwide. At least I got mine in Finland at a reasonable shipping price.

I see, thanks for the correction. didn't check up on them. Had them mistaken for Starlabs, mentioned in your sibling.

Starlabs systems as well.

Yes, thank you. Took Slimbook for them cause i didn't check.

(edit) Tuxedo is based in germany.

Addendum for folks who might have favourited/bookmarked this, contains mainly additions to the excellent comments by others (credit where it is due):

Slimbook is actually from Spain, they are the guys who offer the KDE laptop, they donate a part of the price to KDE: https://kde.slimbook.es/ No idea how they get away with only 1 year of warranty in the EU though.

Starlabs is the company i confused Slimbook with, they have 2 laptops on offer: https://starlabs.systems/pages/laptops

Laptop on Linux (https://laptopwithlinux.com/linux-laptops/) looks really good, they are based in the Netherlands. They sell Clevo barebones without additional branding, interesting IMO. They offer a liquid metal by Thermal Grizzly as a paid upgrade instead of Arctic MX-4. Pricy at 47€ but going from 8.5 W/mK to 73 W/mK should be worth it for people who dislike loud laptops.

I've been buying Fujitsu laptop for all of my friends, relatives, and family for the last 10 years, and all the issues I've had is one dead fan and one shitty touchpad. Tough, reliable, no bloatware, "Made in Japan" sticker... why does nobody in the US talk about Fujitsu laptops?!

> why does nobody in the US talk about Fujitsu laptops?!

Probably little to no corporate availability? My past jobs have had Dell or Thinkpads as an option, none has ever had Fujitsu.

But now I am interested in it as a personal laptop. What would be the Fujitsu equivalent of a Thinkpad Carbon X1 or a Dell XPS 13?

I have a U939X and I'm very happy with it. Very light (<1kg), a lot of ports, even a Ethernet port. Nice keyboard, full sized cursor buttons, real PgUp, PgDown buttons. Pen and mate touch display. Does run linux without trouble.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Fujitsu-Lifebook-U939X-Review-...

Where did you buy it? I get exclusively old/reused machines when searching for Fujitsu laptops.

Hardware-wise, these do actually seem very compelling! Like a breath of sane design after a decade of worse and worse design.

I'm from switzerland and bought it from Dicitec (digitec.ch). They are not the cheapest, but they run forever. No bloatware, also my moms notebook does still run nice after 10 years. I just swaped the HDD to an SSD some years ago.

Guess Fujitsu Lifebook U9311 would be an alternative? Haven't bought any of these yet though, so I can't share personal impressions.

I went to Fujitsu.com and found their laptops, but no way of buying directly. I googled fujitsu + store, buy, laptops; all returned results for european sellers and refurbished laptops from 10 years ago. They have a list of resellers, but all they carry are scanners and printers. They don't make it easy.

I went to Dell.com and the first thing I see is a giant banner that wants to sell me a laptop. When I click on Products, I get a page describing their main product lines and the all say SHOP. They want to sell me a laptop. HP wants to sell me a laptop. Lenovo wants to sell me a laptop. Fujitsu does not.

Seems to be "out of stock" at all sellers. Found just 1 seller in Italy: https://www.ebay.com/itm/124852437225?

Fujitsu's PC division (FCCL) is now 51% acquired by Lenovo.

Even here in Japan, Fujitsu laptop can be bought everywhere but considered to mostly boring (except a few extreme lightweight models) but also not very rock solid. It's just a PC for average people and public sector. Enthusiasts buy ThinkPad, Let's note, Dell, HP, or Vaio.

I got an X1 Extreme, went to switch the graphics from Hybrid to Discreet in the BIOS to install Linux, and immediately bricked it. It was a bug.

No reset can fix it. They have to replace the motherboard. They had it four months before I finally got them to just replace the machine.

> I got an X1 Extreme, went to switch the graphics from Hybrid to Discreet in the BIOS to install Linux, and immediately bricked it. It was a bug.

See, you should have picked the "Discrete" option instead. Happens to the best of us!

(Apparently there is a workaround where you can remove the hard disk from the machine to make it easier to enter BIOS, then trigger the "Reset to factory defaults" and "Save and exit" options by blindly pressing the right key sequence on the keyboard. It might or might not work for anyone experiencing this.)

Hahaha. What a typo.

I didn't know about the workaround. The repair facility didn't either, evidently.

It wouldn't even show anything on the screen, or light up the keyboard caps lock etc...

Their entire graphics setup on the X1 and P1 laptops is atrocious, and I've definitely bitched about it here before. Basically, you can't turn off GPU without loosing the external HDMI, so you need to leave it on if you use an external monitor. But that eats battery. And you can't easily turn the GPU on/off whenever you "go mobile" - it requires an Xorg restart. There's some software crap you can do (Bumblebee? Primus?) that works on some distros but it's a total pain in the ass on others. There isn't a clear consensus on which to use either, and I haven't found a single sane set of instructions for it anyway. Avoid avoid avoid.

Isn't it the way Intel designed their reference motherboard?

No idea. All I know it's that the HDMI is hardwired to the NVIDIA on these Lenovo laptops. I don't think it has to be this way. Surely that Intel integrated graphics chip is capable of driving an external HDMI? Perhaps what they should have don't was make the hardware of the port switchable. Even a physical switch would have done.

It's so that you can drive more monitors than a single GPU supports. For example, my T430 with discrete graphics could drive 4 monitors simultaneously while the iGPU model was limited to 2 (3 unofficially).

It became so annoying at one point that I just replaced the motherboard with the iGPU version. Apparently now nvidia optimus support on Linux is improving somewhat, but having had to deal with this and other issues for years, I'm probably never getting an nvidia GPU again unless I absolutely have to.

If they broke the ability to easily connect 1x monitor in the attempt to support more than 3x monitors, I don't know what to say. The needs of the many should outweigh the needs of the few.

Honestly, I bought my X1 Extreme Gen2 explicitly for the Nvidia GPU. Having had trouble to get multiple external monitors to work, along the integrated display, I run it basically since day one with the Intel GPU deactivated in Bios. My understanding is that, besides the fingerprint reader, dual GPUs are the main problem regarding Linux on that machine. If so, I don't care. Not that I had the time trying it out so yet.

Absolutely agree with you. Still suffering from it. Worst and most expensive experience since more than 20 years of ThinkPads. I was buying ThinkPads for the good linux support, the keyboard, the Trackpoint, the excellent repairability and extendability. Last year august ordered the P1 Gen 3 without Nvidia, after being delayed for more than 2 months and I had to go on travel, cancelled it. In hindsight it was good to cancel, the gen 3 apparently has the same heat problems. Maybe the gen 4 will be better, however already now is known that key travel has been shortened. If there would be another brand that fullfils my requirements, would switch in a heartbeat.

Hmm, about two years ago I bought an X1 5 gen, it had horrible Linux support.. as in it just didn't work properly. So I sent it back for refund, that was no problem.

I'll say this: I respect Lenovo customer service.

No 15% restocking fee? Lucky you. Every one of my Lenovo customer service interactions made me regret my purchase.

Restocking fee must be some US only concept. At least that won't fly in EU.

Any idea if the accidental damage protection in the EU covers has international coverage? Probably the most annoying thing about Lenovo is that all their insurance partners are different depending on which region you buy their devices from.

Nope, no idea. I would cover accidental damage through my house/travel insurance.

Linux support usually improves in ~6-12 months after release. It is just a reality with how Linux kernel development process works - it takes some time for drivers to be accepted upstream and then for kernel to be released and propagate to distros.

However, this is good thing in my book compared to usual vendor "lol idk lets just outsource development of crappy drivers to lowest bidder and preinstall them on Windows (and also put bunch of workarounds for broken bios/fw there because it is cheaper than actually fixing and updating any of the firmware blobs)". Case the point - my X1C g6 now works quite well with Linux but I had some troubles initially when i bought it.

Is there no way to reset the BIOS in a semi-dead mode? I seem to recall some Lenovo laptops had a mechanism where you detached both battery and AC, and then pressed the power button for like 20+ seconds or something like that, and it would reset some settings. Did you try anything like that?

Others have a «router-like» reset button which you shove a paperclip into. I’ve seen it on at least one X1 yoga.

Neither of these would work. Even Lenovo said you have to replace the board (probably just a chip on the board but they replace the whole thing).

Same happened to me. They had to come twice, first time repare service came they had the wrong motherboard. Worst ever laptop ordering experience I had in my life, after more than 20 years of Thinkpad usage. Still sitting on the X1E Gen 1 - afraid to order a new one. I would absolutely like to go to another brand, does anyone have a suggestion? My requirements are:

1) Optimal Linux support (no Nvidia please)

2) Best possible US layout keyboard, centred, i.e. NO numpads

3) Trackpoint with physical buttons below, optimally 3, could live with 2

4) At least 15 inch screen, bright enough to work outside, and as good as possible to the eyes.

5) Option for 64 GB RAM or more

6) Option for 4 TB SSD or more

7) As much autonomy on battery as possible, as few noise and heat as possible.

8) Nice to have, but not crucial, would be repairability and extendability.

I don't care much about CPU power and prefer less power to heat and throttling. So if somebody has any suggestions, I would be very glad.

If a trackpoint is a hard requirement then you have very few options to choose from.

That's true, but I would like to know if there's a way to find laptops that have Trackpoints (or whatever they are named on different brands [1]). My experience is that there were different brands that had some models at some point in time (HP, Toshiba, Dell, Fujitsu), but don't even mention it on the website, and from one generation to the other they decide to remove or to add them. I would happily go with Dell or some other brand if I knew how to chase for all the requirements above.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick

Lenovo's BIOS setting is infamous for that. I once disabled built-in camera and it was bricked.

Interesting. I nearly got an X1E, but really didnt want a 15" model.

I actually got a Razer blade stealth instead. Despite the massive complaints about batteries (and im still in the window of it not affecting me) I have been happy. It works fine with linux, and has all the graphics chips i could want. I can switch to windows to quickly play some kerbal and back to linux for daily work.

That said i did have to go with a new-ish version of Ubuntu and a couple of the other distros I was using on my x200s (including Elementary OS) just flat didnt work.

But i assume thats more the 11th gen intel and drivers, especially Iris more than anything.

If spyware concerns keep you from Lenovo and you then consider Huawei.... I don't know, man.

I read that as a 'tongue in cheek' comment.

What a shame. I was about to recommend Dell as an alternative, based on GitLab's public documentation that recommends it for GitLab employees and indicates decent linux support. [1]

I made the mistake of sticking with Lenovo due to the expectation of good Linux support, and while most stuff works, I can't say I'm particularly impressed. Aside from a loud fan (not sure if that is due to poor Linux support or just a property of the device), the service in the Lenovo online store was impressively bad. Wrong descriptions of the hardware, insane shipping dates that were pushed out over and over, refusing to simply remove the unavailable component without cancelling the order and going to the back of the queue, and last but not least, Lenovo defrauded me by first having me jump through hoops to claim their 'best price warranty' promise then simply refusing to honor it altogether.

[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/business-technology/team-m...

I've 3 ThinkPads and never really dealt with Lenovo.

The reason why Linux users love ThinkPads is because they're mostly supported OOB by the kernel (not by Lenovo themselves). This wasn't true of most other laptops for quite a few years.

I bought my T61 in 2008, and the ThinkPad recommendation was old then. Things change with time. I believe most laptops these days are rather standardized, so linux support is ubiquitous.

My point being, it's not really Lenovo supporting Linux but the linux kernel drivers that for a number of years supported ThinkPad OOB where all(?) other brands required a lot of fiddling.

(And you probably just need to install thinkfan if you have full speed fans. Check out the ThinkWiki for your models.)

> I bought my T61 in 2008, and the ThinkPad recommendation was old then. Things change with time. I believe most laptops these days are rather standardized, so linux support is ubiquitous.

No, it is not. "Modern standby" on most laptops can't be disabled and will discharge your battery overnight. Also, non-Intel WiFi is buggy 90% of the time. And don't get me started on fingerprint readers...

To be fair, Lenovo is now pushing out firmware updates via fwupd, employs at least one engineer to work on Linux support for ThinkPads (Mark Pearson, does he have a team?) and apparently also asks their component suppliers for Linux compatibility now. They might not do all or even most of the work, but even the requirement to certify your devices with Ubuntu and Red Hat stickers is a positive change compared to the early days or vendors like ASUS who just ignore Linux entirely.

One problem I had with the Dell shipped linux was the abusive EULA/TOS that shipped with it. Just a heads up. I bet Lenovo is doing something similar.

I actually have an X280 in my hand. The reason why wanted it was so I would get 5 years of international warranty on it. Turns out most countries don't actually accept the accidental damage coverage from another country(I paid about $600-$700 in coverage, so for the first 3 years it's no better than an AppleCare, which is international as well).

Also when I wanted to switch it for an X1C because the new ones came out while I was waiting for the stock to arrive(and well they shipped me the wrong model without LTE). They wanted to charge me 15% restocking fee not only on the device, but also on Tax and Insurance.

Currently my touchpad randomly dies when the device goes into sleep. I suspect it's related to some recent firmware update that happened.

The amazing premium Lenovo warranty that everyone talks about must have been before my time.

But given that I want international coverage, I really don't know what options I have. Currently it seems better to just buy a framework laptop, save my money on the insurance and just pay for parts as I go.

For $600-700 you can get a backup laptop.

Dell lets you pay $100 for a "long-life" one-year extended warranty battery when new batteries are, you guessed it, $100. It's actually the exact same battery your laptop normally comes with only this one refuses to quick charge even after the warranty period is over, no matter if its done low cycles.

The same problem touchpad issue also exists on my Lenovo L380 Yoga. I don't think it is due to firmware issues as the problem existed with the original and the replacement motherboard.

I had two repairs done and a good experience. One time a fan and one time a motherboard replacement. Both times the Lenovo comes to you service promised dates were a day off. This was due to a regional holyday they could have scheduled for.

The reason why i think it might be firmware(not the touchpad firmware) is that it was working happily for 2 years and i just recently booted into windows to do some flashing(not firmware, just rockchip firmware) and lenovo vantage decided to upgrade.

MHH maybe you are right. I can't exactly say when it started with my touchpad. Is your https://xkcd.com/243 also affected? Are the buttons of the mouse pad also affected?

Touchpoint seems to be affected too, but starts working again when I suspend and resume. Buttons as well. The thing that doesn't recover at all is the touchpad itself. Although I have also had cases where none recovered.

How was it for yours?

I don't remember if the xkcd://243 is affected but I think so. Touchpad buttons are also affected. However the digitizer pen works, I don't know if it charges though.

The Framework laptop seems to be a safe purchase. Even though the company is still young, all the reviews are praising it.

Framework is only available in the US now, and no AMD option. Despite all their past shenanigans, I got a Lenovo as they have solid Linux support. Erased Windows from it right away.

No Linux support yet. Which is a real shame. If you sell an open laptop Linux should be the first OS you support.

I think latest Fedora runs out of the box.

I'm happy with my System76 Lemur Pro.

It's refreshing to buy a nice laptop from a linux vendor who are maintaing their own (ubuntu based) distro and actually shipping a very polished gnome experience.

Edit: Forgot to mention they ship with coreboot too.

After two System76 laptops I have now switched to Dell. System76 is good, but it's just too much of a hassle when buying from the EU; particularly when dealing with hardware defects under warranty. After all those years I had hoped System76 would have partnered up with a representative in the EU internal market, but alas.

Dell is also acting corporately weird by the way. The XPS 13 (9310) is available with Ubuntu 20.04 installed, but it's not possible to pick it in their Dutch online store like you can in the US one. You can buy it in the Netherlands (and presumably all of the EU) by calling them though. The Dutch Dell salesperson did find a way to configure it that way (with a proper 32GB of RAM too), but that took a bit of prompting and they were genuinely baffled that this option existed and that the configuration tool accepted it (they were cooperative; the knowledge just wasn't available).

Calling them may be a drag, but when I did so last year, the rep pulled the specs that I've chosen on their webshop and gave me a 5% discount, which is quite a bit considering a £4500 laptop.

I was forced to use Dell by my previous employer for many years. After a couple of kernel upgrades in the beginning everything was smooth and rock-solid. I bought several unused ones for a symbolic price from that employer and they still serve well as family machines (running Linux), despite being over 10 years old now.

Because I don't fiddle with my machine a lot I liked the way you just enter the service tag into their support site and even years later you got all relevent information about the machine including the full configuration when it was built.

Recently I had to do support for a new a Dell, some XPS 15 really high end machine. I was disappointed to see that they seem to have closed their Finnish internet store altogether, the links to the resellers are broken, the support page only tells me that the machine has run out of warranty 3 months ago (lasted obviously only 1 year). So no more Dell for me in the future.

>Dell is also acting corporately weird by the way.

My employer offers a modest Dell discount via an Employee Purchase Program. (EPP). You can order the 9310 with 16 or 32 gigs of memory through the EPP with Windows, but if want one with 32 gigs of memory and Linux, you have to engage their small business group and ask for a quote. Exact same machine in every way, just more memory. As I understand the memory is now soldered on the 9310 it's worth paying up front to get maximum, but I've read the storage is still upgradeable.

So Dell still thinks only businesses use 32GB of memory with Linux and for that matter Linux developers only want 13" screens. Both assumptions are (IMHO) obviously false, but there's that corporate weirdness for you.

If anyone from Dell is reading this please expand your Linux offerings to your larger laptops, preferably ones with bigger batteries and discrete GPU options. Not every developer on the planet wants an Intel-based macbook air clone, particularly when a) Iris XE GPUs benchmark slower than the current M1 GPU (which is about to get refreshed), and b) the i7-11{6,8}5G7 CPUs support 64 GB of memory. Stop crippling laptop features to fluff up your battery life numbers.

Dell isn't visibly offering Linux on their laptops in their Dutch digital store front at all. Despite being able to configure them. Which is weird, because the developers who want to buy it certainly exist.

I'm going to buy a steam deck and plug a keyboard into it. Perhaps carry around a really nice portable monitor as well.

The Steam deck is certainly an intriguing device, but it isn't even out yet. It will be interesting to see what can be done with its "native" gamepad input and touch screen, might enable some interesting use cases for actual useful work on the field.

According to the project at the Github page, the online check has been superseded by a newer one:

https://badssl.com/dashboard/

I have a Huawei matebook x pro and I would highly recommend it. Great build quality and 3:2 screen.

Taiwanese laptops? Asus is a contender in every weight class. Acer maybe too.

Or Japanese. I personally don’t like Sony, but they and Fujitsu are alternatives to crapware from the PRC too.

Have you considered a Framework? frame.work, mostly open, modular laptop

No official Linux for Framework yet. While its certainly possible to install it.

I'm looking at a Librem. System76 also does laptops, as does Pine.

I'd like to see Pine offer a larger screen and battery.

PineBook is fine the way it is, but the keyboard is abysmal, that's the only thing that made me switch from it as daily driver to my old Frankenpad.

Using preinstalled OS is weird. Just reinstall it front the scratch. Issue with Lenovo was that their BIOS injected their malware anyway. Dell is not so advanced.

I think Slimbook is also a brand that is worth considering.

The M1 macs are insanely amazing machines.

I look forward to using Linux on them shortly.

Nah, it's not. Buy a MacBook.

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