Linux support on Lenovo personal systems

https://www.lenovo.com/linux

by ashitlerferad • 7 years ago

84 73 7 years ago

lenovo.com

ginko• 7 years ago

Will those also come preinstalled with Lenovo "productivity apps"?

number-sequence• 7 years ago

and spyware, don’t forget the spyware.

ecmascript• 7 years ago

I don't get it, when I try to configure a laptop I cannot select linux. Also, it's a lot of older versions?

I have installed Ubuntu on my Thinkpad t460 and it worked great out of the box.

mruts• 7 years ago

I think they just mean you get a blank laptop and save money on the windows license. And that they tested it with Linux.

ivl• 7 years ago

This page has existed for quite a long time, actually. I feel like I had used it more than two years ago for a quick reference on which distro had the highest chance of just working without much effort on my part.

I don't think there's anything here that suggests Lenovo is now shipping with Linux installed.

ashitlerferad• 7 years ago

https://youtu.be/yIflLxNyPBo

bitlax4• 7 years ago

What benefit am I getting here over doing a fresh install?

squarefoot2• 7 years ago

None, but probably it sends the message "all hardware is supported" to users who can't find the information for themselves and wouldn't buy otherwise.

dTal2• 7 years ago

All hardware is not supported. There is no working Linux driver for the latest generation of fingerprint readers, for instance.

All they promise is "most of the basic functions work".

https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/solutions/ht082374

ToddBonzalez3• 7 years ago

Buying a ThinkPad with an Ubuntu preload will probably save you 100 bucks (or whatever a Windows license costs these days)?

That's how it works with Dell anyway.

bitlax4• 7 years ago

I thought Windows was generally free for OEM buys, but I haven't looked in a while.

feluso• 7 years ago

I'm a little confused by the link, seems more like it is "they support linux" than "I can buy one with linux preinstalled"

dorfsmay2• 7 years ago

The advantage of computers that you can buy without a pre-installed OS or with a free OS (freedos! Linus, etc...), is that you don't pay the Windows tax.

teh_klev• 7 years ago

I don't think that's the point the parent poster was making.

dorfsmay2• 7 years ago

No. This link is about which distros and versions of Linux were tested on these models.

revicon• 7 years ago

Is there any benefit to ordering a thinkpad pre-installed with Linux vs re-imaging it myself after purchasing (besides cost)? I’d have a few one-off cases where it’d be nice to boot into a windows environment but would otherwise love a dedicated Linux laptop. I’m wondering if there is any special configurations that Lenovo adds to their Linux installs that I would be missing if I just reimaged a windows one.

api• 7 years ago

I can imagine two things. One is that if they're willing to ship with Linux it's an attestation to the fact that it definitely has good Linux support. Second is that you could examine the image they ship with it to solve any driver issues. Make a backup of it before reinstalling with your distro of choice.

farisjarrah• 7 years ago

This is exactly right. My company gave me a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 carbon for work that originally had windows on it, and the IT dept slapped Ubuntu on there. I have a fingerprint scanner on this device that I don't bother to fiddle with to get working, so basically its this really expensive laptop with a non functional part on it staring me in the face. If you buy the thing from lenovo with linux preinstalled, you know that the parts you are getting are going to work with that machine, and if they don't you can actually complain to someone and they are forced to deal with you.

kdmccormick• 7 years ago

I can see a benefit in companies that provide their employees with laptops. If a subset of their employees want to run Linux, I can imagine that they'd be more willing to provide them with a ThinkPad with Linux pre-installed than allow employees to re-image the company laptop.

Nullabillity7• 7 years ago

Presumably any company that cares about this would have standard corporate images that they apply anyway?

sgeisler• 7 years ago

Maybe that will give them a reason to publish an official linux driver for the fingerprint reader.

Currently there only seems to be a reverse engineered prototype: https://github.com/nmikhailov/Validity90

pessimizer• 7 years ago

Only incidentally, in that they would make sure that linux worked on them. I'd immediately blast whatever dist they shipped it with and put something else on anyway. I'd blast it and reinstall even if I were just going to replace it with the same dist.

isodude3• 7 years ago

We talked about reporting bugs to Lenovo just last week but didn't since it was running Ubuntu. This is a welcomed change!

monnad• 7 years ago

You should also add Suse Linux as lenovo laptops now come with pre installed RH, Ubuntu and Suse Linux.

m23khan• 7 years ago

after using linux (even those with GUIs) for over 13 years, I would personally still buy laptop with windows installed as primary OS.

The ease of day-to-day apps such as Microsoft Office, especially Word and Excel is unparalleled. If you are into DB and work in place that has MS SQL, MS SQL combined with SQL Studio is a very powerful feature. IDE selection is somewhat better because you have more options available -- things like Visual Studio (even for non Microsoft programming languages) are available.

If you go down Linux route and you need GUI, a portion of your time would be consumed by hunting for and finding analyzing options available for you on Linux -- for GUI stuff, Windows seem to be default.

In my opinion, if I am buying a non-Apple laptop, unless Microsoft rolls out a Linux distro with emphasis on GUI and which they will support and develop, I won't bother with Linux as my default OS on my machine.

reustle• 7 years ago

It seems like most of those are a non-issue if you aren't working on a Microsoft stack.

sl1ck7315• 7 years ago

Word and Excel are probably worth running Windows/Mac over Linux GUI alone if you have to spend any time in them, which I do in a non-Microsoft stack for business-related things. I'd imagine most people have to spend some non-negligible time in these.

O365/open source office products come nowhere close.

kenforthewin• 7 years ago

Especially with the recently released WSL2, Windows is becoming a viable general-purpose development platform.

cies4• 7 years ago

As a Linux on the desktop user for 15+ years (who has had some OSX boxes for some time and also has to run Windows from time to time), here's what I love about running Linux as my daily desktop driver:

* all software I need can be installed with some CLI commands

* similar to the server envs I tend to

* no hassle with anti-virus/malware/trojans/etc (I merely install clam-av for some compliance thingy, that's all)

* basic tools are top quality (I hate the default terminal apps on both OSX and windows)

* I can use decade old scripts to do all kinds of helpful tasks for me (backups, music mgmt, etc.)

* no need to look for some pirated software because I created some file with some software that I now do not have the license for at hand

* I know really well how to fix problems and that knowledge stays relevant (the OS is not moving stuff around all the time)

* Less resource hungry (apart from the browser)

There are some things I'm not too happy with as well:

* Having to read reviews before I can buy some hardware

* Touchpad not as good as Apple's

* Not sure if some USB-C docking station actually will work for me (no review from Linux users found at this point)

* The Hi-PDI screen story is far from perfect (yet slowly progressing)

Kipters3• 7 years ago

Here at my job we have some devs using Linux (mostly Ubuntu 18.04) on recent Dell XPS 15 (Kaby Lake and up) with Dell's Thunderbolt 3 docks

ubermonkey• 7 years ago

I say this as a long-term Mac user, but I do sometimes wonder how much more polished & supported desktop/laptop Linux would be if Apple hadn't shipped a BSD-based OS on fantastic hardware with access to Office & etc.

I'm sure I would've gone that route in 2001, when I needed a platform to support freelance LAMP work, if my Mac hadn't literally already had most everything installed already.

Even emacs. ;)

LouisContant• 7 years ago

For DB stuff, I'd suggest DBeaver which is great. For code stuff, I migrated over to the JetBrains suite of things. For the rest of the stuff like video games, I still stick with windows. I know about proton but it still not there yet for me because it turns out some of my most played games have denuvo.

zzzcpan• 7 years ago

What kind of GUI do you actually __need__ on Linux? Word's and Excel's ease of day-to-day use comes not from UX, but purely from purposely made compatibility issues, literally designed to make it harder for you to work with other people using Microsoft's Word and Excel. IDEs are just preference and MS SQL is available for Linux these days.

ubercow13• 7 years ago

If I was doing any development, I think I'd use Linux over Windows purely for the filesystem performance

haunter• 7 years ago

I live in Hungary, EU and most of the retail stores sells laptops with FreeDOS. Or you can choose that you want FeeDOS or Windows. But most people goes with FreeDOS obviously as you pay less and you get Windows on your "own way"

Why FreeDOS tho? Good question I never thought about it but I also never seen Linux on retail store laptops

narag• 7 years ago

If it's going to be uninstalled anyway, they don't bother to configure a Linux and take care of drivers, etc.

joecot• 7 years ago

Because FreeDOS is the easiest and lightest OS to put on, since it doesn't even have a graphical interface. It sounds like they literally put the most basic OS possible on so they can sell it and claim to Microsoft the person won't turn around and pirate Windows immediately.

If they actually wanted them to use an OS that's not Windows, they'd preinstall Linux on it. But that's not the point.

Linux support on Lenovo personal systems

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