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Comment by halotrope | Hacker News Reader

Generally great machines for Linux. Just a PSA from a X1E gen2 owner: Do NOT get the NVidia GPU, do NOT get the fastest CPU and most importantly: do NOT opt for the 4k screen.

With 1080p and Intel GPU it is a good, even great laptop with ok battery life (if you can look over the touchpad). Wonderful keyboard, good Linux support (even fingerprint reader works). But just as with the last Intel macbook, the GPU, 10th gen CPU on 14nm and thermally constrained chassis will make this a hot mess with 2 hours battery life , fans always spinning and poor framerates on desktop. That being said, Ubuntu has come a long way and in general. Not sure if I would go for a M1 mbp, or another Thinkpad today.

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> and most importantly: do NOT opt for the 4k screen

Good advice for any laptop purchase. You will burn through battery driving that and the pixel density is much higher than necessary. Yes, 1920x1080/1200 is slightly too low when it comes to pixel density at 15", but it's still very reasonable and with decent eyesight you won't have to worry about any of the mess of DPI scaling.

> > and most importantly: do NOT opt for the 4k screen

> Good advice for any laptop purchase. You will burn through battery driving that and the pixel density is much higher than necessary.

Hard disagree. I use my thinkpads on AC most of the time, at home.

The crisp fonts in a terminal is a game changer. That has spoiled me: the bare minimum I can work with now is 2k.

Likewise for OLED: except the X1 nano which I use in the daytime, I can't see myself ever using a non OLED screen, so much that I would be ready to pay a huge premium for OLED in a Thinkpad with the X1 nano form factor.

2K is only a few more pixels than 1920 x 1080 ?

I find the sweet spot minimum for my 27" desktop monitors to be 1440P. Anything that and above looks great.

> 2K is only a few more pixels than 1920 x 1080 ?

Given you said you use 1440p monitors yourself, I think there is a misunderstanding somewhere here, because 2K is just a less commonly used term for 1440p. And 1440p is definitely a bit more than just "a few more pixels" compared to 1080p (iirc around 78% more).

Since when is 2K used to mean 1440p? 1440p 16:9 gives a horizontal resolution of 2560px. That's more than what is considered 2K, which is generally either 1920px or 2048px.

> Since when is 2K used to mean 1440p?

No idea, since I haven't seen the term 2K being used much at all in the wild. So I simply googled that term, and it seems to be overwhelmingly used to refer to 2560x1440.

It's safe to say that never again will I buy a laptop with a display which can't scale properly to integers (2 or higher). If it's a 15 inch laptop, 4K is the absolute minimum resolution I'm going for.

Even after using a 27 inch 4K display with an abhorrent 163 PPI , I can't imagine using a display with lesser PPI. No matter what tricks (anti aliasing) you use, the fonts will look like shit compared to fonts on a retina display.

Note that the newer P1/X1E Gen 4 have a much upgraded cooling system if you configure it with an Nvidia 3070 or higher. I don't experience any heat issues, even during heavy compilation and integration test work. The exception is if I run games at 4k resolution on an external monitor, then the GPU appears to overheat, resulting in the screen randomly going black.

What's your battery life like?

> Wonderful keyboard, good Linux support (even fingerprint reader works).

I am on a T490s with Fedora now (this machine). Any tips on how you got the fingerprint sensor to work?

    $  cat /etc/os-release 
    NAME="Fedora Linux"
    VERSION="35 (Workstation Edition)"
    ID=fedora
    VERSION_ID=35
    VERSION_CODENAME=""
    PLATFORM_ID="platform:f35"
    PRETTY_NAME="Fedora Linux 35 (Workstation Edition)"
    ANSI_COLOR="0;38;2;60;110;180"
    LOGO=fedora-logo-icon
    CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:35"
    HOME_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/"
    DOCUMENTATION_URL="https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/f35/system-administrators-guide/"
    SUPPORT_URL="https://ask.fedoraproject.org/"
    BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"
    REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT="Fedora"
    REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT_VERSION=35
    REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="Fedora"
    REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION=35
    PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:PrivacyPolicy"
    VARIANT="Workstation Edition"
    VARIANT_ID=workstation

I have a T480 and used the following to get the fingerprint sensor to work: https://github.com/uunicorn/python-validity

I'm using Pop_OS (Ubuntu-based), but they also have instructions for Fedora.

One thing I found on Pop_OS is that I didn't need to use `fprintd-enroll` because after installing the package I was able to use the GUI in my user account settings to enrol my fingerprints.

Hope that helps.

Not the person you asked to, but heavy Fedora and Thinkpad user here. I know that already as of Fedora 33, for many users, the fingerprint reader worked out of the box with the T490.

It seems the T490 can have different models of fingerprint reader and maybe not all are supported.

You should start by identifying your model with something like this

sudo lsusb or # lsusb

then look for the details of the line corresponding to the fingerprint reader model.

Is this how I do that?

    $ sudo lsusb -s 004 --verbose

    Bus 001 Device 004: ID 06cb:00bd Synaptics, Inc. Prometheus MIS Touch Fingerprint Reader
    Device Descriptor:
    bLength                18
    bDescriptorType         1
    bcdUSB               2.00
    bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
    bDeviceSubClass        16 
    bDeviceProtocol       255 
    bMaxPacketSize0         8
    idVendor           0x06cb Synaptics, Inc.
    idProduct          0x00bd Prometheus MIS Touch Fingerprint Reader
    bcdDevice            0.00
    iManufacturer           0 
    iProduct                0 
    iSerial                 1 [redacted]
    bNumConfigurations      1
    Configuration Descriptor:
        bLength                 9
        bDescriptorType         2
        wTotalLength       0x0027
        bNumInterfaces          1
        bConfigurationValue     1
        iConfiguration          0 
        bmAttributes         0xa0
        (Bus Powered)
        Remote Wakeup
        MaxPower              100mA
        Interface Descriptor:
        bLength                 9
        bDescriptorType         4
        bInterfaceNumber        0
        bAlternateSetting       0
        bNumEndpoints           3
        bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
        bInterfaceSubClass      0 
        bInterfaceProtocol      0 
        iInterface              0 
        Endpoint Descriptor:
            bLength                 7
            bDescriptorType         5
            bEndpointAddress     0x01  EP 1 OUT
            bmAttributes            2
            Transfer Type            Bulk
            Synch Type               None
            Usage Type               Data
            wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
            bInterval               0
        Endpoint Descriptor:
            bLength                 7
            bDescriptorType         5
            bEndpointAddress     0x81  EP 1 IN
            bmAttributes            2
            Transfer Type            Bulk
            Synch Type               None
            Usage Type               Data
            wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
            bInterval               0
        Endpoint Descriptor:
            bLength                 7
            bDescriptorType         5
            bEndpointAddress     0x83  EP 3 IN
            bmAttributes            3
            Transfer Type            Interrupt
            Synch Type               None
            Usage Type               Data
            wMaxPacketSize     0x0008  1x 8 bytes
            bInterval               4
    Device Status:     0x0000
    (Bus Powered)

Yes like this.

Looking at your idVendor and idProduct it does look like it's supported: https://fprint.freedesktop.org/supported-devices.html

Also looking a little bit on what others tried.

First page: http://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&page=1#status

Last page: http://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&page=25#status

I see it working with T490 and Fedora 34: http://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&hwid=b31796679ad...

I see it working with T490 and Ubuntu 20.04: http://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&hwid=fdd063171e2...

For Fedora 35 but a X1: http://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&hwid=c740d7ae4be...

So the recommendation here would be to make sure you have the drivers ( although this would not normally be required post install)

https://github.com/freedesktop/libfprint meaning https://fprint.freedesktop.org/ ( page I also linked above)

Also make sure you have all the latest bios updates for the Thinkpad.

If this would be a fresh install, even when wanting to use Fedora 35 :-) I normally try with previous versions of Fedora or another Linux, like Ubuntu just to confirm it's not a hardware issue before anything else. :-)

While still on Fedora 35 you should also check, and taking on the suggestion from @JustFinishedBSG

fwupdmgr refresh

followed by

fwupdmgr update

and check if succeeds.

You need to do a `fwupdmgr update` to get a Linux friendly firmware of the fingerprint reader.

on my carbon x1 I had to use fwupdmgr to update the Prometheus fingerprint device firmware. Additionally the firmware that was "current" in the repo didn't work and I had to allow using the beta or experimental version. can't remember exactly the steps I took to enable the beta firmware, this was almost 2 years ago as well, so it could be that that version is the now the correct latest version in the repo. after that I just installed fprintd and followed those instructions. But for sure it didn't work for me until I updated the firmware. good luck.

Hmm... I have the model with the NVidia GPU. By default I have it turned off (using no extra power) and I have a simple script that I use to turn it on when I want to.

ThinkFan works well to control the fans too.

Lastly I found that the SD card reader prevented the CPU package from entering C10.

With all that I find that in idle mode my laptop (X1E Gen2, almost identical to P1 Gen2) consumes 3.9w, which is pretty good. The fan only turns on when I compile something large or do something with the NVidia card.

Can you share your script for toggling the video card?

No elaborate script is needed these days, the kernel's runtime power management suspends the card automatically as long as /sys/bus/pci/devices/…/power/control is "auto" and the device isn't being used (the nvidia/nouveau module is unloaded).

Documentation for the nvidia module claims [0] runtime pm is supported even when the module _is_ loaded for GPUs since Turing, but I haven't been able to test that (mine is older than that).

[0] https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/435.17/READ...

That. I used to use bumblebee, but with recent NVidia drivers it's automatic.

That said, if I want to start a process with using the NVidia driver and card I use this script.

  #!/bin/bash
  __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 \
  __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia \
  __VK_LAYER_NV_optimus=NVIDIA_only \
  exec "$@"

> consumes 3.9w

is this figure taken from software (powertop) or from a wall power-meter (i.e. including the psu)?

It's measured from the battery when unplugged: /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now

If have one those, without the 4k screen. No complaints so far, even GPU heavy games like the early versions of Battletech worked fine, battery life under gaming conditions is somewhere between 2 and 4 hours. Non-gaming around 4 to 6 hours. With the Intel GPU deactivated, getting external screens working while the machine was in hybrid mode was too much of a pain. After all I wanted it for the nVidia GPU.

Ubuntu is working right out of the box, I didn't try the finger print reader so. I prefer something I know to unlock over something I have.

Yes, I suspect it should be fine with dGPU and 1080p screen. I think in addition to the greater power draw, the compute needed to drive the 4k is just greater. In fairness I keep the dGPU active all the time as the Intel GPU produces significant UI lag under Linux at least.

I hate non-dedicated GPUs with a vengeance. As a gamer, they never are up to par anyway, and never were. Even way back, Windows struggled balancing both. So you had to switch one of them off. I get that they are useful for non-GPU heavy use cases, in a gaming machine I can perfectly live with dGPUs. As a result, I never tried the Intel GPU under Ubuntu.

Yes agreed. But as a gamer a thin Thinkpad running Linux would not be my first choice anyways.

The X1E Gen 2 was a nice compromise between a business and a gaming laptop. For the first 2 years it ran Windows anyways, now it is dual boot. With some exceptions, mostly older games, it runs my complete Steam library just fine. And for those rare occasions it doesn't, I can still boot it in Windows.

Linux, well Ubuntu, is refreshing to use. First time I tried Linux, and it feels a lot more like an OS should feel. Not crap or bloat ware, no calling home, no cloud account.

The machine does get hot sometimes, getting some more air under it mitigates this all the time, the X1 doesn't have a lot of space under it.

I have never experienced UI lag with Intel graphics on Linux (only ever on Nvidia, actually), so it's probably fixable. What DM are you running, and what are your PRIME settings?

Battery life is perfectly fine with an NVidia GPU on any modern laptop with Optimus or a MUX. You just have to set it up to fully power down the GPU. I get 9+ hours of battery life with a 3070 on Linux, it's just always fully powered down.

Even at 1440p 240hz, pushing 2x more pixels than 4k60, I still get 5-6 hours of battery life.

Yes, it sucks that you have to go through the weeds to get it to work, but once it works it works.

> You just have to set it up to fully power down the GPU.

Can you please tell us a bit more?

I have a NVidia + Intel GPU. I was thinking about using the NVidia for KVM (the NVidia would be powered down when not using KVM), and the Intel for native linux display with Pop or Ubuntu 22 LTS as another attempt to use Wayland (since I read NVidia GPUs can cause many issues)

On modern Linux systems the way to do it is using PRIME render offload.

That way, the Intel (or AMD in my case) integrated GPU will be used normally, with the Nvidia GPU fully powered down (you need a new enough card for this). Then, when you need it, you can use a command or environment variable or graphical launcher to signal to use the dGPU for offloading.

The GPU will then power on and render to a virtual display, and the framebuffer will be copied to the framebuffer of the relevant application on-the-fly.

Once no more applications are using the NVidia GPU, it will power down.

This way, there is no need to use a KVM, or do PCI passthrough, or anything of the sort, it mostly "just works".

If the (very small) overhead of passing through the iGPU is too much and your laptop supports it, you can also using MUX graphics and restart the DM with a config that will allow the laptop to rewire the screen into the dGPU, but I have never found this necessary or helpful.

> Display is configurable from the base version 15.6” FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS up to 15.6” 4K (3840 x 2160) OLED with Dolby Vision HDR.

> I had to choose the 15.6” FHD (1920x1080) Dolby Vision HDR screen, because 4K options are not supported on the integrated GPU. It’s a HDR400 WVA IPS display panel with 16:9 aspect ratio, 800:1 contrast ratio and 72% NTSC color gamut.

Sigh. There's no way I would want an NVidia card in any laptop, especially not a linux one. Why must companies do stupid configuration tie ins like this? At least there's a workaround.

Related: If you want a Dell laptop with Linux preinstalled, they probably won't let you max out the RAM and/or CPU.

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