Linux on the Fujitsu Lifebook U729
borretti.me
borretti.me
Things I learned to look out for:
- Locked BIOS
- Look into the manufacturer's repairability reputation. I replaced the entire keyboard on my ThinkPad X1 Carbon and it was perfectly fine. It was a pain to get to, but no problems. On a Dell Latitude, it refused to charge my non-OEM battery replacement. My fault - I should've done some research.
In my experience, Dell and Lenovo have excellent Linux hardware support. I don't know about other manufacturers, but I hope that that's also the case now too.
Don't buy any recent Intels. Some Intel ThinkPads have accelerometers built-in just to throttle your PC to oblivion when it moves. Basically unusable in any moving vehicle such as a train. It's basically anti-portability baked-in.
When it doesn't throttle, it just has abysmal battery life compared to AMD Ryzen ThinkPads of the same generation. Both lose horribly to Apple's ARM chips though.
They also tend to have soldered WiFi modules, making it impossible to upgrade later when newer and better WiFi iterations come out. If that had been the case with a few of the older models I still have, they would be unusable at this point.
There are plenty of firmware bugs as well. For example plenty of Lenovo (especially Intel as far as I've seen) models have stuttery and freezing touchpads. Though the touchpads tend to be horrible anyways.
I'd say the older (5+ years old) generations might have had slightly better driver support or they're finally fixed at this point. But there's nothing I'd spend my money on if I can just as well install Asahi on an M-series laptop.
In general when I install Linux on an Apple device I just assume there isn’t the same level of performance. I remember installing mint on a 2016 intel MBpro and the limitations/cons didn’t surprise me at all because I just kind of expected it to perform at 70% of what I expected from macOS but with far more free freedom/control. It ran very smoothly but you definitely lose a lot of functionality.
That's very cute, but it's not why Apple laptops run Linux poorly.
Apple Silicon has terrible and inefficient support because Apple released no documentation of their hardware. The driver efforts are all reverse-engineered and likely crippled by Apple's hidden trade secrets. This is why even Qualcomm chips run Linux better than Apple Silicon; they release documentation. Apple refuses, because then they can smugly pride themselves on "integration" and other plainly false catchisms.
And on Intel/AMD, Apple was well known for up-tuning their ACPI tables to prevent thermal throttling before the junction temp. This was an absolutely terrible decision on Apple's behalf, and led to other OSes misbehaving alongside constant overheating on macOS - my Intel Macs were regularly idling ~10-20c hotter than my other Intel machines.
I have no doubt you have good information after this, but this sentence makes me not want to read any further.
And yes, your statement was a cutesy catechism with no actual evidence provided. A big reason why Apple tech doesn't work like a normal computer is Apple's rejection of standards that put hardware and software in-concert. ACPI is one such technology, per my last comment.
iBoot2 loads the custom kernel, which is a build of m1n1
So can Apple stop signing new iBoot2 versions? Sure! And that sucks. But it's a bit of FUD to claim that Apple at arbitrary points in time is going to brick your laptop with no option for you to prevent that.
Granted, if you boot both macOS and Asahi, then yes, you are in this predicament, but again, that is a choice. You can never connect macOS or recovery to the internet, or never boot them.
In other words, you're completely fucked if you brick your install. I consider iBoot a direct user-hostile downgrade from UEFI for this reason.
YMMV, but I would never trust my day-to-day on an iBoot machine. UEFI has no such limitations, and Apple is well-known for making controversial choices in OTA updates that users have no alternative to.
That's a bit of a creative perspective, isn't it? You have no control over the UEFI implementation of your vendor, same can be said for AGESA and ME, as well as any FSP/BSP/BUP packages, BROM signatures or eFused CPUs. And on top of that, you'll have preloaded certificates (usually from Microsoft) that will expire at some point, and when they do and the vendor doesn't replace them, the machine might never boot again (in a UEFI configuration where SecureBoot cannot be disabled as was the case in this Fujitsu - that took a firmware upgrade that the vendor had to supply, which is the exception rather than the rule). For DIY builds this tends to be better, Framework also makes this a tad more reliable.
If anything, most OEM UEFI implementations come with a (x509) timer that when expires, bricks your machine. iBoot2 is just a bunch of files (including the signed boot policy) you can copy and keep around, forever, no lifetimer.
Now, if we wanted to escape all this, your only option is to either get really old hardware, or get non-x86 hardware that isn't Apple M-series or IBM. That means you're pretty much stuck with low-end ARM and lower-end RISC-V, unless you accept AGESA or Intel ME at which point coreboot becomes viable.
We're done here, have a nice day.
[0](through any user-accessible software action, obviously)
Wtf? That sounds crazy, any sources?
https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/pubs/x1e_p1_gen5/html/htm...
> The Cool and Quiet on lap feature helps cool down your computer when it becomes hot. Any extended contact with your body, even through clothing, could cause discomfort. If you prefer using your computer on the lap, it is recommended that you enable the Cool and Quiet on lap feature in UEFI BIOS:
(it can be disabled on this laptop)
more: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1416567/disable-lap-mode-on-...
My work MacBook Pro on the other hand could do with the opposite some times. Burn a bit of battery to heat up the aluminium case please!
People used to write Linux utilities that read these accelerometers, allowing for example to switch virtual desktops by physically smacking the machine on either side.
Hard drive active protection system parked the heads in Ms, fast enough to handle a hard drop off a desk
But such laptops don't work 100% with Asahi. Speakers and mic, external displays, fingerprint reader, suspend are the sore points I've read about, and shorter battery life compared to when they run Apple's SO.
So, my daily driver is an oldish dell latitude (8th gen intel) running openbsd. Not for the faint of heart, but for a tinkerer, it's a dream.
I understand there is low level system stuff I can't control, but I've made my peace with that. When using Linux I hadn't touched its internals for years.
It could be fine. I'm also OK with GNOME's strict approach to design. But with Apple, you wait the next release with dread because you never know what they will pull next.
GNOME from 2006? Quite a different story.
I agree on lower-level stuff. Nowadays you have to partially disable SIP to use DTrace, which is meh... (and it seems largely unmaintained) Instruments is quite great though.
This is my go to way of buying a new laptop. I've gone through 2 machines in the last 8 years (Dell 7270 and 7330). Both bought for <$400. Linux works ootb, though I haven't tried any of the more obscure distros.
Though now manufacturers are doubling down on soldered components, so buying a cheap machine and upgrading the components yourself is not really possible :(
One is well advised to upgrade them to 16 GB RAM and put in a 1 TB SSD, and possibly a new battery. My better half wanted one of those again after I gifted her a brand new MacBook Air, so used she got to the DELL and Ubuntu running on it.
Still happy with the result and I agree that 2nd hand business machines give great bang-for-buck. I adore my beater Dell Latitude for example.
I believe mine was a gen 3 and I I had to remove everything and the keyboard is the last part you remove before putting the new one on. I assume it was similar for you considering the time spent?
The more traditional thinkpads have the dream situation where it just pops off, if I recall.
I had to stop and go out to purchase a Dremel to cut a notch in a screw on the main board that was stripped before I had gotten it. Good times!
I think it used to be more or less "undo screw, remove cover, remove keyboard" ... with other parts being under the keyboard rather than vice versa. It's been a long time though.
One thing in favour of Lenovo and Thinkpad then and now is that you can download all the field service guides - so at least one isn't guessing which worryingly fragile part to remove next. Another point in favour of ex-corporate devices.
They shipped a box and allowed me to swap out a hard drive for a spare (I had study data on there), I then used the box to ship the laptop to them. A few weeks later the laptop gets shipped back with a parts replacement list, which was essentially every single PCB in the laptop and I asked them to replace the keyboard too because one key was sticking. Brand new parts in a slightly cracked chassis.
If Dell still has customer service like that, it's double thumbs up from me.
I'm currently using a Lenovo laptop which has been solid so far. I do want my next laptop to be open to repairability (even if I have to create it myself).
I bought a new Dell laptop 20-ish years ago along with whatever the super-duper coverage was called at that time (Complete Care, maybe?). IIRC, it only excluded deliberate damage (and "hammer marks" was used as an example).
But they had no trouble sending me parts. Power brick soaked in a flood? No big deal; a new one is on the way. Dropped a screwdriver on the screen at work? They sent a whole person over to replace it.
It was very expensive coverage -- it cost more by itself than the used/refurb laptops we're discussing. It was sold separately. It did not, by my estimation around that time, ultimately pay for itself.
But if you score it for "free" with a used machine, then sure! Bargain!
(A person can check the warranty/service status of an unmolested Dell machine here: https://www.dell.com/support/contractservices/en-us )
Or do you not want people of less means, having used laptops?
It felt very satisfying to tell the Dell rep who cold called me to sell my employer hardware why I’d make sure we’d never give them a dime.
And yet other people have wonderful luck with them, apparently! Go figure.
Since Amazon honored the warranty in less time than it took me to look up how to contact Logitech and go through their ridiculous process, that mouse was replaced with another Logitech one bought through Amazon. Wouldn't buy anything directly from the Logitech store, though.
Extremely impressive logistics. I guess they reuse the same network as for emergency server parts/repairs.
I have tried just one cheap Dell laptop, Vostro 3515, which works mostly fine with Linux (it came with Ubuntu, I have installed Debian), but the touchpad becomes unreponsive sometimes (probably after a sleep), and at some point it refused to charge, which required an UEFI firmware update to fix, which in turn required Windows (I had to use Windows PE) to install, as the direct update (from the UEFI itself) was failing, and there is no Linux option.
Could have been worse, but now considering a Lenovo ThinkPad as a future replacement.
Can you tell me what you found breaking as I will have to deal with that.
Some (not all) of the systems were picked up by other people. I do not know where you're getting the information from, but if you want to, please share.
Rock solid, expandable and stable
Build quality that rivals MacBooks, but with superior keyboard, very nice battery life and an oled screen on top of it.
The problem I had with the oled screen is that I thought it oversaturate reds out of the box on Linux, which I corrected using hyprshade: https://github.com/gchamon/archie/blob/main/hypr/shaders/vib.... I am looking for a better solution because the filters get picked on screenshots and washes out the colours. I need to find an ICE profile or export one from Windows.
The camera also behaves a bit weirdly. It has noticeable quality difference when using chromium and other browsers, the latter with perceptible quality degradation.
Other than that, a very good mobile linux driver, snappy, cool, quiet, charges fast and a joy to use.
Another option would be Redshift, which has a nice widget (Redshift Control plasmoid) for KDE Plasma. It doesn't affect grabbed screenshots or stuff like simplescreenrecorder, BTW
It's awesome for text though. The only issue I found was the overblown reds.
I briefly owned a Slim 7 32gigs but sold it because it felt too heavy for a 14incher. Got an M1 instead.
I finally bought one from iFixit.com. Far more expensive than eBay, but the battery actually worked great for about a year. Then about a month after the 1-year warranty expired, it degraded noticeably (maybe to 80%) with only about 100-200 charge cycles. Even iFixIt cannot source a battery as good as the original Apple.
Right now, it's at 65% capacity after 584 charge cycles, after 4.5 years of service. I will probably go back to iFixIt. At least I'll get one year of full capacity from them, instead of the fake or DOA ones from eBay.
For example, the fan did not work out of the box. I had to install something called 'macfanctld'.
Sleep did not work, it would wake up as soon as it went to sleep. I had to install something called a 'suspend-fix.service' hack.
Brightness control was flaky. It would always wake up at the lowest brightness setting. Disabling auto-dimming caused it to wake up at the highest brightness.
As an "ultrabook" it came with 16GB of fast SSD which could be used as a cache via some Windows-specific Intel feature, while main storage was a slower spinning disk.
As Linux did not support cache feature, I thought I can just format it as ext4 and use as a storage for things which can benefit from more iops, e.g. running DB tests. And as SSD technology was still rather new at that time, I started with running some IO benchmarks.
Well, it survived formatting into ext4 and few minutes of that IO benchmark, then it became permanently unresponsive.
My guess is that wear-leveling algorithm was designed specifically for the FS originally had (some version of FAT?), and different FS caused it to corrupt some internal data structure, so SSD's controller firmware went into panic on each boot.
Unfortunately, this added few minutes delay to boot as Linux tried to communicate with unresponsive SSD controller, but otherwise laptop worked fine...
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
But still, perhaps no, simply in solidarity.
Plus, the Post Office Scandal had a lot of input from the PO itself and the British legal system.
It was a very British failure overall.
I found kubuntu to match my expectations from a UI standpoint. The gnome desktop was too different and scattered by comparison.
``` "Twitter to Nitter": { "regex": "^https?:\\\/\\\/(www\\.|mobile\\.)?(twitter|x)\\.com\\\/(.)", "replacement": "https:\/\/farside.link\/nitter\/$3", "enabled": "true" }, "Twitter image to Nitter": { "regex": "^https?:\\\/\\\/(pic\\.twitter|pbs\\.twimg)\\.com\\\/(.)", "replacement": "https:\/\/farside.link\/nitter\/pic\/$1", "enabled": "true" }, ``` (I haven't updated my copy of the Twitter image regex for the rename because I haven't seen any X.com image links and upstream seems dead)
The most critical issue would be the fans still spinning to cool down the machine when it was sent to sleep. That creates the vicious cycle when bagged right after sleep, where the fan try to lower the temp, but their running in a closed environment warms the confined air, which pushes the fan to run faster yet.
That's the recipe for a hot and dead battery when you take it out of the bag.
I had that with MacBooks and Windows laptops alike.
Can't even drive an external display over the DP.
Linux support on Apple hardware is subpar compared to ARM Thinkpads.
Thinkpad X13s and T14s (both with Snapdragon) are the best closest alternative.
Surface Pro are 2880x1920, Asus’ pz13 series will be in the same ballpark. Getting Linux on them will be a bit more of a PITA, but you get the touchscreen and form factor to balance. Build quality will be basically on par with Apple, battery life should be taking a more serious hit (linux + smaller battery from the start)
I've even run local LLMs and have gotten 30 tok/sec with smaller Gemma models (had to install mesa vulkan drivers from debian-backports for GPU support in the VM).
If ChromeOS's Linux VM doesn't suit you, you can replace ChromeOS with Linux with a bit of work:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1506894/how-to-install-ubunt...
Another Chromebook with the same setup is the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514.
"Installing ubuntu on arm laptops is usually not easy, and the GPU drivers are unavailable in most cases (so, the performance is not great unless you use XFCE/LXDE/LxQt)"
I do like to use the GPU, though.
The way secure boot evolved is disgusting. Specially because, at the time it was becoming popular, people we're warned that was more a tool of control than for security. Having to install a proprietary OS to install another should be forbidden.
Linux boots fine using standard secure boot, so if it refused it's either NixOS using an unsigned bootloader (which is surprising to me) or secure boot just being bugged to hell.
Another option is that NixOS uses secure boot but uses a signature that's too recent: one of the secure boot CAs is expiring soon, and an old BIOS may not carry the new key if NixOS opts to sign their bootloader with the latest key. This issue doesn't just affect Linux, certain Windows images won't boot on older devices either if this mismatch happens.
My bet is on NVRAM getting into a weird state or a buggy BIOS. That's the most obvious thing that would get fixed by updating the BIOS.
The trivial way would be just going into the UEFI (it's not the BIOS for 15 years but anyway) config and just disable Secure Boot (and proceed to do the Evil Maid attack or whatever).
99% Secure Boot was forced to a locked state by the laptop firmware through some management utils to support the enterprise configuration.
It's just happens what someone with a full administrative access on the machine ie no boot password, no UEFI password, ability to run any (secure boot enabled) OS - can run firmware updates and one such update for whatever reason - reset the ability to change Secure Boot.
Or maybe author wasn't attentive enough and missed something, who knows.
Author breaks his lovely Mac Book, too poor to repair it or buy a replacement one, gets an almost 7 year old laptop because it's vendor is named in a 40 years old novel, shits on MS, praises what everything works (on a 7 year old laptop).
It's kind of hard to take this opinion seriously after that.
Gibson knew dick about computers in 1984, which makes his early cyberpunk works more interesting because so much of the technical stuff is pure imagination and guesswork. He peppered his 1980s prose with Japanese-sounding brand names because he assumed that the Japanese would dominate computing the way they dominated electronics for things people like William Gibson do—things like listening to music. And it didn't quite work out that way, because Japanese computer manufacturers tailored their output to peculiar Japanese needs (specifically, needing high resolution displays and lots of memory in order to draw kanji well and needing Japanese language support in the OS) rather than hewing to emerging industry standards. This kept prices of NEC, Epson, and Sharp gear high, and allowed American manufacturers like IBM, Dell, HP, and especially Apple to get a significant foothold in the emerging industry worldwide. Toshiba emerged as an early leader in laptops, but laptops wouldn't really find their market niche until the mid-90s or so. So these days, you go to like Den-Den Town in Osaka, and you will find Dells and HPs for sale, and of course all the pretty Japanese girls are all about their Apple gear, just like here. Even so, Japanese buyers tend to prefer Japanese brands, followed by other Asian brands, and Western brands (except for Apple) third. So I can totally see a Japanese executive rocking a Fujitsu laptop, but I haven't seen Westerners in possession of one.
The Samsung Galaxy Book 12 was a nice replacement (save for daylight viewability), but when it was time to replace it, wound up w/ a Book 3 Pro 360 convertible.
Windows 11 has annoyed me to the point that I am contemplating a Raspberry Pi 5 and a Wacom display, which feels like a much easier way to get a Linux laptop (modulo the need to make a shell and source a battery and wire everything together).
That said, I'm kicking myself for not getting the dual-screen Yogabook w/ e-ink display.
If Lenovo (or someone else) would make a version of the Yogabook 9i w/ Wacom EMR, I'd not be able to resist buying one.
Ouch
Nowadays where you can get a MacBook Air 16gb m2 for around 600€ this would be my pick if I’d have to find a new machine for travel and casual use.