Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux

https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-brings-linux-certification-to-thinkpad-and-thinkstation-workstation-portfolio-easing-deployment-for-developers-data-scientists/

by tpush • 6 years ago

379 200 6 years ago

news.lenovo.com

simplecto• 6 years ago

This is great news. Honestly I've never had a problem with Ubuntu on machines that are just a 1-year or older. There are so many i7 laptops in the secondary market that work perfectly.

danielscrubs2• 6 years ago

Graphics drivers and WiFi drivers never worked without significant pampering for me in Ubuntu, and I've been using Linux for 15 years. Just last week I updated my working Nvidia drivers for my RTX 2070 card via Ubuntus GUI and lo and behold after restart the screen is just black. It's at a point where I just want it to get a working system and never update it, security and performance be damned.

I know how to fix it because this has happened with pretty much all graphic cards I've had, I'll have to go into and mess with the grub config, make it run in safe mode, restart, try another grub config, restart, find out it doesn't work, run safe mode and reinstall the old drivers, cross my finger and wonder where my Saturday went.

Gentoo was the most reliant by a long shot (maybe for the simple reason it always asked if it should replace my config), but that is a time sink in whole other league.

Have heard good things about Fedora lately, but I dread throwing away the Debian knowledge I amassed.

Lio• 6 years ago

I guess it’s all about choice of hardware now. If you use components designed to support Linux life will be pretty smooth. I’m sure someone will point out the nvidia has a reputation for being linux hostile which does limit your choice a bit.

Currently running Fedora on an XPS13 Dev edition laptop.

Wayland, Gnome and Firefox are working together very nicely.

Mixed HiDPI with standard seems to be solved now. I’ve seen the odd glitch where an app gets confused as you move from one screen to another but overall very good.

Trackpad latency is improving but still not quite perfect. The fact that it’s close and constantly improving though makes me very positive about using Linux in place of my MBP full time.

I actually miss the Gnome window management shortcuts when I move back to my Mac.

mssdvd• 6 years ago

Nowadays systemd distros like Fedora and Debian are quite similar.

vetinari9• 6 years ago

Graphics drivers and WiFi drivers never worked without significant pampering
my RTX 2070

I still do not understand, why you folks with Nvidia hardware expect it to work out of the box in Linux, when there have been two decades of experience that Nvidia doesn't care about that and won't allow anyone to do anything with that.

So no, your RTX won't work as nice OOTB as Intel and AMD GPUs do. It will continue to be the case while you continue to give them money for them ignoring you.

panpanna2• 6 years ago

Ubuntu has been plug and play for me the last 4-5 years.

It even supports devices no longer working on Macs and windows without any user interaction.

Of course, high-end nvidia boards seem to have all kind of problem. Stay away from Nvidia if you are a Linux user.

rkangel• 6 years ago

My approach to Linux laptops:

* Buy Lenovo

* Have integrated graphics (i.e. Intel)

* Run Fedora

This combination has, for a few years now, given me excellent reliability 'out of the box'. I don't have to do anything and everything from the fingerprint scanner to the wifi Just Works. There's still a bit of a battery life penalty compared to Windows, but it's not enormous.

fungi2• 6 years ago

Thanks Nvidia. There is little Linux can do with out sacrificing a lot (principles and technical).

It's a pita, _hopefully_ one day AMD and ROCm will be a viable alternative.

simion314• 6 years ago

About your driver upgrade? Did you installed a driver PPA and installed some driver that was not guaranteed to work or it was a Ubuntu bug, you did your regular updates (no PPA) and it broke your system?

I also had this issues because I wanted to try newer drivers, it is expected if the new driver does not work I go in terminal and install the previous working version. I personally prefer how easy is to test different driver version in Linux while in Windows I needed to make an account to upgrade my NVIDIA drivers(maybe you can avoid creating an account I am not 100% sure but at that time I was dual booting to play some game and I did not had a weekend to spend o how to upgrade my drivers without an account ... in the end I could not solve the issue where Oblivion had a black screen and I played it with Wine in Linux)

gerdesj2• 6 years ago

"Gentoo was the most reliant by a long shot (maybe for the simple reason it always asked if it should replace my config), but that is a time sink in whole other league."

I think I can see Arch showing off a bit of ankle at you. Think of Arch as a bit like Gentoo without the burning lap.

thdrdt3• 6 years ago

Some days ago I installed Ubuntu on a system with a RTX 2070 super. There were no problems at all with the Nvidia driver.

But it was a kind of miracle it worked out of the box. Because before that I had to manually fix the Wi-Fi driver.

Hardware changes sometimes turn into a hell on Linux (Ubuntu). But I still won't go to Windows or MacOS. I just like the freedom of Linux. And when things are working, most of the time they keep working. On an other pc I have over 6 years of Ubuntu upgrades and it is still running fine.

maxwellito• 6 years ago

Fantastic news! I hope a lot of other manufacturers will follow!

dempseye2• 6 years ago

Is Nvidia Optimus going to work or will it still require a dirty hack?

Will you have to choose between decent battery life and the ability to use an external monitor?

I bought an X1 Extreme and even with Pop!_OS it is incredibly annoying.

paines5• 6 years ago

Dirty hack, like bumblebee? Well since driver 440.44 this kind of thing is incooperated into the nvidia driver itself. You can use it on demand. It idles at around 1w and is used for some physics and other decoding capabilities if i recall correctly. If you want to run a game or an app using nvidia you prepend it with an environment variable, otherwise intel gfx is used. It's not dirty, and works quite well imho... To make it more convenient:there are even extensions for gnome to say use nvidia with this and that app... Sure, to have the nvidia card kick in triggered by the OS somehow when really needed would be the non-plus ultra, but come on, this is science fiction :D

mpfundstein• 6 years ago

when was 440.44 released? i tried 1 month ago to get this running with ubuntu20 and failed hard :-(

nnq• 6 years ago

to have the nvidia card kick in triggered by the OS somehow when really needed would be the non-plus ultra, but come on, this is science fiction

Can't smth simple & obvious like the macbook pro GPUs work fine, eg. Intel graphics for everything when on battery, dedicated graphics for everything when the power cable is plugged in?

This covers like, everyones uses cases, right?! I mean, you almost never plug into an external monitor without having the power cable plugged in to... and who tf games on battery?

robin_reala2• 6 years ago

(ne plus ultra: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ne%20plus%20ultra)

nymiro• 6 years ago

I would be interested to know which gnome extension in particular are you referring to :)

panpanna2• 6 years ago

Didn't Ubuntu/redhat certify some thinkpads in the past?

dathinab• 6 years ago

Yes a view thinkpads here and there had been somewhat verified. Through I don't remember if it was fully certified. Like I think the fingerprint reader was always excluded from certification.

viraptor2• 6 years ago

Does anyone know what's up with the fingerprint readers? They always seem to need reverse engineering. And once some model is well established, they suddenly switch to a new one...

It's happened so many times it just can't be accidental. There are no secrets in the glorified grayscale scanner - why are the drivers never opensourced?

LaSombra• 6 years ago

I'm very happy that now we have a choice between Ubuntu and something else.

Jonnax2• 6 years ago

Got a ThinkPad T450 in my cupboard running Ubuntu as a home server.

Everything works perfectly.

I'd argue that thinkpads aren't stylish, but they're bricks that work well.

dghf• 6 years ago

L430 here. It's not pretty, but it's solid and reliable.

And Lenovo's online specs and manuals are excellent.

nodefourtytwo• 6 years ago

I, for one, find Thinkpads gorgeous.

linker3000• 6 years ago

I have a T420 as my non-work laptop. It's running Mint and has been no trouble whatsoever, including close-the-lid sleep and graphics.

bluedino• 6 years ago

Are you using the touchpad, wifi, fingerprint scanner, bluetooth, graphics in your cupboard?

Jonnax2• 6 years ago

Lol, you don't need to be so combative.

It used to be my daily driver laptop.

And yes.

The touchpad, wifi, bluetooth and the GPU (intel) works perfectly.

And the laptop doesn't have fingerprint sensor.

prennert• 6 years ago

After IBM acquired Red Hat I was once asked what I am hoping to come out of this acquisition.

My answer was that for me personally the hope was to have more Linux ready machines and laptops available in the end consumer market (i.e. non server, non cloud market). Although the Thinkpads are long not anymore IBM products, somehow I was still hoping for the closer connection between hardware and OS know how in the form of the IBM-Red Hat relationship would trickle through.

Seeing Red Hat next to Ubuntu as supported Linux OS makes me think that Red Hat made actually some contributions to making this announcement possible.

It's great to see that it's not just one model but all models in all configurations will be supported. This is great news to businesses who need computers only as a gateway to cloud apps. Why would you pay windows licenses (particularly professional), if you can get a decent OS that can be managed better by IT for free? This is will weigh in particularly with cheap machines that are used by office workers in the throughout of the service economy.

Edit: maybe this will be the start of the height of the current trend to push all applications into the cloud, which is the SUN workstation 2.0 model. I wonder if the cyclical nature of this trend makes a comeback in the form of bringing cloud compute back to edge devices in 10 years. I would wonder what could drive such a comeback for the average Joe?

als0• 6 years ago

Although the Thinkpads are long not anymore IBM products, somehow I was still hoping for the closer connection between hardware and OS know how in the form of the IBM-Red Hat relationship would trickle through.

Red Hat isn't missing any "know how". They, like any other developer, are missing publicly available data sheets to make everything work out of the box. There's nothing IBM can do to change that since they no longer manufacture PCs.

amachefe• 6 years ago

Just thinking about it, If IBM didnt sell the PC to Lenovo, packaging Fedora/RH with the PC would have been awesome... #justathought

mkj• 6 years ago

This only says they'll certify ThinkPad P series, which are mobile workstations not the more comfortable laptop ranges. Reading the title you'd think it might be workstations, and all ThinkPads.

throwaway-9320• 6 years ago

I must point out that this does NOT cover ThinkPad T and X series. From the press release:

Our entire portfolio of ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series workstations will now be certified via both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu LTS – a long-term, enterprise-stability variant of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution.

xkr47• 6 years ago

The press release also said "Lenovo is moving to certify the full workstation portfolio for top Linux distributions from Ubuntu® and Red Hat® – every model, every configuration." so I guess the question is: Are only ThinkPad P series laptops considered workstations OR is the plan to bring it to other ThinkPads as well in the long run?

miahi• 6 years ago

Yes, the P series are considered mobile workstations[1].

T series = business X series = ultraportable

[1] https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/c/LAPTOPS#view-all

chinathrow2• 6 years ago

This makes sense.

The amount of fine tuning I had to do for my X1 7th generation with Ubuntu 19.10 was almost unbearable. Sound still is not working properly, the internal mic is still not working at all.

jjuel• 6 years ago

My T480s had 0 issues with Debian 10. It doesn't have a fingerprint reader which I hear is a main bug a boo with Thinkpads.

JoachimSchipper2• 6 years ago

Yes, but note that the P1 workstations are pretty much the same as the X1 Extreme series (but with Nvidia's Quadro "workstation" GPUs rather than Nvidia's "customer" GPUs.)

jopsen• 6 years ago

All the X1's I've seen come with Intel Integrated Graphics.

nvidia have always been a hassle to use.

tsp• 6 years ago

Great news! I hope more laptop models will follow.

ckastner• 6 years ago

This is good news, but Lenovo should be lauded even for their current Linux support, which already extends to a great deal of their systems, see [1].

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd031426

By chance, I interacted with one of their devs through the Debian community, and came away very positively surprised. They really seem committed to this.

tannhaeuser2• 6 years ago

ThinkPads, at least the mainstream models, certainly have always worked very well with Linux thanks to the great ThinkPad community who is really passionate about this. I've picked up a cheaper Ryzen E495 in retail a couple months ago because I needed a new notebook asap, and it works flawlessly with Ubuntu 19/20. Better first-party support (like Dell has had for many years now) had been promised for quite a while, so lets see if Lenovo keeps delivering; I'm all for having options. But tbh the Dell I had was hands down a better notebook experience (incomparably better display and trackpad, subjectively better keyboard even though keyboards are considered one of the strong points of ThinkPads). To match a Dell XPS, you have to go for a really premium Carbon X1 which is quite a bit more expensive. Downside with my Dell XPS was that the battery seems to have been broken OOTB and never lived up to Dell's projections, then began to swell so had to be replaced out of warranty.

foo2020• 6 years ago

Can you tell me the model of the Thinkpad that you are using. I am looking to buy one.

tannhaeuser2• 6 years ago

Thinkpad E495 with Ryzen/Vega 3500. Not sure it's still available because it should've been superseeded by the newer Ryzen/Vega 4000 chipset by now? Be sure to put in a 2nd memory stick to not slow it down (see the review on notebookcheck why), and also to have at least 16GB RAM.

Edit: I picked mine because it was on stock for take-away (there isn't usually a choice of "pro" notebooks with matte screens in retail); for the same kind of money, you could get better value I think; I had hoped for a little more performance for sure (but it's still a solid workhorse)

ledvd• 6 years ago

I was currently shopping around for a new Laptop, and I really like the T series ones. Unfortunately, it seems they suffer from the throttling issue, which can be mitigated by a fix from the community [1]. I think Lenovo also released a fix for some models. All in all, it's a bit hard to know which models are impacted or not, and I don't want to end up buying one and having to resort to these kind of fixes to have it working correctly. [1]: https://github.com/erpalma/throttled

bArray2• 6 years ago

I had a small laugh when I saw that guy in the example image doing the most minimal of work on what is otherwise quite a capable machine [1]. But still, it's cool to see Linux being taken more seriously by vendors.

[1] https://news.lenovo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ThinkPad-...

HeadlessChild• 6 years ago

Running Ubuntu 16.10 it looks like (which was released almost 4 years ago).

bArray2• 6 years ago

Hah! I missed that!

tobltobs• 6 years ago

Instead of this marketing theater, they could help to improve battery life under Linux which still sucks.

exceptione2• 6 years ago

From a quick pass I don't see any mention about the docking stations. I would rather have them start working on the docking station capabilities. Right now my dock doesn't understand how to provide display port capabilities to linux. It is a very expensive USB-hub at this moment when I boot linux.

Legogris2• 6 years ago

I had this same issue - if it's the same thing, it turned out that there are firmware issues and that the up-to-date firmware was only available for Windows (this may have changed, it was ~3-4 months ago). Lenovo's officially putting their updates on LVFS, but in practice it seems neglected. I spent a day or two stubbornly trying to extract the updates from the Windows binaries, eventually resorted to booting into Windows and updating firwmares on both laptop and dock that way. No issues since.

If it still doesn't work you can fall back on displaylink drivers in a pinch.

exceptione2• 6 years ago

Updating the firmware changed nothing. On the product page I don't see linux compatibility even mentioned.

leommoore• 6 years ago

Delighted to see Lenovo get behind Linux. I have been a fan of the Dell XPS 13 for the last few years and certainly next time we are upgrading I will have a good look at the Lenovo range.

husam212• 6 years ago

Now, I’m excited to share Lenovo is moving to certify the full workstation portfolio for top Linux distributions from Ubuntu® and Red Hat® – every model, every configuration.
Our entire portfolio of ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series workstations will now be certified via both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu LTS

Are they certifying all models or just ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series?

detaro• 6 years ago

ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series is what Lenovo calls "workstations", so probably just those.

fluffything11• 6 years ago

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga that claims to be certified by both Lenovo and Canonical for Ubuntu.

Finger print sensor doesn't work, the fans are super loud all the time, audio doesn't work (requires a newer Linux kernel than the one shipped in the latest Ubuntu), EFI problems, sleep, hibernate, fast-boot, restore from hibernate problems, battery life on Linux is horrible...

So at least the certification for Ubuntu is completely worthless. Reading the first comments in the Ubuntu forums from a year ago and the evolution of the Arch Wiki for my laptop, I have a hard time believing that somebody actually tested it before releasing the laptop. At best, somebody looked at the spec sheet and said "we have supported similar hardware before, this is good to go".

1 year later, the laptop is almost in a barely usable state. Canonical broke Audio support (soundcard not detected anymore) with 19.04 and did not fixed it before 20.04, essentially telling users to wait till the next Ubuntu release due to in 6 months. The only officially supported version is a 4 year old custom 16.04 that I never got the chance of trying, but this should tell you a lot about "long term" support of Canonical and Lenovo for these machines.

The only ones that should be getting any praise are the dozens of volunteers that have been screwed by both Lenovo and Canonical into buying one of these and have made their work and support time available to others for free.

If you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague. They have absolutely zero quality assurance for Linux.

EDIT: link to certification: https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201906-27127

what a worthless bag of bytes.

lallysingh• 6 years ago

I have an older X1 yoga. I haven't tried to make the fingerprint sensor work, but the rest works quite well. Especially after I updated the firmware with fwupd.

It's not my first Thinkpad running Linux, and the prior two ran quite well.

fluffything11• 6 years ago

I run Arch Linux on mine, with the latest kernel, and custom tools (think fan), and some things disabled (fast boot), and it becomes "usable".

That's ok for any Laptop that isn't advertised as "Ubuntu certified".

But I literally had to uninstall Ubuntu and install Arch to get audio and microphone back to work after the 19.04 update broke it, and some dev mentioning on the bug report that the fix wouldn't land on 20.04 which it didn't.

Imagine Microsoft or Apple telling their users that they have to live without a soundcard for 6 months during COVID-19 because "tough luck". Well that's pretty much how Canonical and Lenovo treat their customers.

jandrese2• 6 years ago

Most fingerprint sensors I've run into on laptops use the Broadcom Security Processor, which Broadcom has emphatically stated they will never support Linux for. Just a straight up no on the driver front, and the thing is purposely designed to be a black box so reverse engineering is a huge effort.

For what its worth however they didn't work all that great in Windows either. The sensor was pretty picky about your thumb being absolutely dry and spotless and getting the swipe speed just right. I found it less convenient than just typing in a password. When I switched the laptops to Linux and discovered that the driver situation was hopeless I wasn't too broken up.

nabla9• 6 years ago

Did you use install first Ubuntu yourself and did you use standard images for first Ubuntu install?

dahfizz4• 6 years ago

I have a new X1 Carbon 7th gen, and it was definitely a lot of work to get it set up. But after tinkering and some kernel updates (Fedora >> Ubuntu for new hardware) I couldn't be happier. Incredible performance, all day battery life, etc. I have a friend who got their finger print sensor working but I never bothered to try.

I also have had great experience with fwup. I've gotten tons of bios, firmware, microcode etc updates from Lenovo and they all apply seamlessly.

I think Linux support of new hardware is always going to be shaky unless we can get vendors to care and support it themselves. Otherwise, we have to wait and let the open source devs make drivers after the hardware is released.

jhoechtl• 6 years ago

I have a Lenovo Yoga 720-13ikb. Firmware updates are distributed as Windows Executables only. It's the first time that I have heard of fwup. Will fwup help me to install Firmware (Bios/UEFI) Updates? It's the only reason I have not yet wiped Windows. All hardware worked except the fingerprint reader I do not care for anyway.

Delk3• 6 years ago

I've also got the impression that even just slightly older hardware might be easier to get working than the very latest generation. This may be even more true for distros that don't ship new kernels in a rolling release style. (Fedora continuously updates to new minor/patch versions of the kernel as they're released; I'm not sure what Ubuntu does nowadays but I think they used to only patch the kernel version that was shipped at the time of the release.)

I think the idea of $random_component_vendor maintaining an up-to-date Linux driver themselves may be unrealistic, and laptop vendors probably won't be doing that for all of their components either. At least on Linux that tends to involve being a competent kernel developer, too, at least if you want to be the maintainer of the driver in kernel upstream.

If the OEMs that are interested in Linux support collaborated with distros and/or kernel/driver developers before the new hardware hits the shelves, even if they didn't plan on writing and supporting the drivers themselves, that might work. Otherwise there's always catching up to do, as you said.

For years now, I've also had nothing that didn't work on my now fairly old X240. Everything's pretty dandy. At some point the clickpad didn't work after resuming from suspend, though, and that was a major issue that really shouldn't happen on a laptop series that's supposed to have great Linux support.

Other than that (and the fingerprint reader initially not working even though it was supposed to be supported, but that wasn't a big deal), there's really been nothing that didn't work.

fluffything11• 6 years ago

Maybe the X1 Carbon 7th gen has a bit better support than the Yoga I have, but that gives me hopes that everything will work one day (although some user below has your exact same Laptop and they complain below that Audio does not work for them, which is the same problem I used to have with Ubuntu, so maybe this is a Debian/Ubuntu issue that others distros do not have).

FWIW, I've also used fwup and it has worked perfectly, so that's something that Lenovo did get right.

I think Linux support of new hardware is always going to be shaky unless we can get vendors to care and support it themselves.

This is what I actually expect from a Ubuntu-certified laptop. That the manufacturer makes sure that the Laptop actually works with Ubuntu.

That's the same bar I have for Apple and windows laptops.

Otherwise they should just call them "Linux tinkerer friendly" or similar.

thisgoodlife• 6 years ago

Interesting. Fingerprint sensor works perfectly on my T450s + Ubuntu 20.04.

Delk3• 6 years ago

Things tend to work better with slightly older hardware. The compatibility issues have already surfaced and there's been time to fix them.

There's been plenty of time to get things working since the T450s was released.

stevewodil2• 6 years ago

In the certification it states testing was done on kernel version 5.0.0-1015-oem-osp1.

Are you using that kernel version? If not, use Ukuu or some other method and install it

Delk3• 6 years ago

To be fair, if hardware really only worked with a specific version of the Linux kernel, that wouldn't exactly scream quality either. You'd be stuck without being able to update for security or for any new hardware support.

As a troubleshooting step, trying with the specific kernel version that was used for the certification might of course work.

arkj• 6 years ago

>If you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague. They have absolutely zero quality assurance for Linux.

Isn't this a bit too harsh on them? We've had good experiences on T and L series.

I am using L470 with fedora 27 for the last 2 years and I have not had any issues so far. I have gone till 78 days without a shutdown. It's been more stable than windows on suspend to ram cycles.

I did have issues with fonts out of the box but fixing was easy. One of the advantages of using Linux is it forces you to fix the broken parts and personally it has been a very rewarding experience.

corty5• 6 years ago

I've had mixed experiences in this regard.

Thinkpads from the T and X series (don't know about Yoga, P or L) are really great, usually work out of the box and if there is broken hardware you are visited tomorrow by a nice guy from IBM (yes, really!) who fixes things without complaining about the weird OS you are running (of course you should be able to test that the new component works somehow).

Non-Thinkpad laptops from Lenovo are worse at running with Linux and the hardware support seems to be far worse, send it in, wait a few weeks, no solution.

Note that other vendors are very similar: there is a big difference between the "for professional business use" and "for home use" lines, in prices as well as support for software and support if broken.

berdario• 6 years ago

No, it's not too harsh.

I have a T440s, bought with the wrong (rtl8192ee) wifi chipset, and their support has been practically nonexistent.

If you're a big company, you can test the hardware before letting all your employees adopt it (and I know that my colleagues are quite happy with their X1 Carbon), but if you're a consumer and you find out that the hardware doesn't have (good/reliable) Linux drivers, you need to be prepared to return it... or to find a replacement FRU yourself (good luck with that!)

thayne• 6 years ago

I've had mostly good experience with P5x laptops. I haven't gotten the fingerprint reader to work, and have had some minor issues with multiple monitors with the proprietary nvidia drivers. But other than that they've worked pretty well.

mark_l_watson• 6 years ago

Perhaps the Yoga isn't as popular as other Lenovo models for running Linux. Still, the situation you describe sounds bad.

I bought a Linux laptop from System76 almost to years ago, and it have been a painless experience. They even manage CUDA updates fairly much hassle free. Anyway, I was tired of 25 years of futzing around with configuring Linux, so I decided on an easier path.

corty5• 6 years ago

Generally, certification is useless except for "compliance" and "get support for something".

If you are running a supported combination of hardware and software, the hardware vendor can't officially close your case just because "you are running unsupported software and we are sure your OpenBSD damaged your mouse" or similar BS. However, as long as there is a hardware problem you are able to clearly identify, support is usually not a problem even with non-certified software with most (but not all) vendors. Problems that might be either hardware or software are always a problem, because you are almost always dealing with 2 vendors blaming each other. The certification leads to a slightly lower overhead for convincing the support to take the case and a slightly higher number of solved cases. But nothing dramatic. And also take care that the supported software is usually a specially adapted version of something, e.g. the exact installation of Windows your laptop came with. If you reinstall your companies default Windows image you are out of luck. If you upgrade to another service pack or major version, you are out of luck.

Also "certfied" is necessary for stuff like "our processes for adding numbers are certified ISO12345 and demand supported hard- and software". There is no real benefit besides complying with some obscure checklist some useless PHB came up with. But in some industries, you cannot do business without that, no matter how pointless, expensive, unsafe, insecure or counterproductive it might be.

In sum "certified" means "the bureaucracy won't be able to complain", not "it works".

fluffything11• 6 years ago

I've only used Apple laptops for the past 15 years. So when I buy a Laptop for OS Z, I actually expect Z to work.

Maybe its my fault for having unreasonable expectations. No idea what the story is on Windows.

waheoo• 6 years ago

And ive got three thinkpads that all run arch and dont have any of the issues you have mentioned.

My macs have far more problems.

Dont even get me started on my windows machines.

momokoko• 6 years ago

I’m curious which one you have as I’ve been a happy yoga user for many years(2 different models) and never has any issue with quality or Linux support.

I am a long time Linux user so that may be the difference. The fact that you prefer Ubuntu is probably a bit telling about you experience and skill level with Linux on the desktop.

m463• 6 years ago

I can't help but wonder if this means they will add "linux support" to their install.

People may have forgotten on the windows side they added software to the bios that would install itself even on a clean windows install

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Lenovo_Service_Engine

hmm, "Customer Feedback Program" or "Lenovo Accelerator" look similar.

RMPR5• 6 years ago

For new hardware Ubuntu isn't exactly the distribution I would recommend. You may have a better chance trying a distro like Fedora or Arch. Speaking from my personal experience I have a X1 Yoga 1st gen and installed then updated Fedora from 29 to 31 it's a pretty much hassle-free process (apart from the fingerprint, which never worked in the first place and I don't use it anyway), I postpone the update from 31 to 32 mainly because I have some serious work ongoing, but I'm sure it will be smooth. You already shared you thought about "certifications", but I think the fact that Lenovo is starting Fedora Laptops[0] is telling in this regard.

0: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2020/05/08/lenov...

Lendal• 6 years ago

This is my experience. I don't get the fascination with Ubuntu. Whenever I hear about something that doesn't work it's always Ubuntu. That could be confirmation bias though. From my perspective it's old & busted vs Fedora's hot & sexy, using more up to date software revs everywhere you look. It's low maintenance (unlike Manjaro/Arch) yet still fresh. You have a choice of desktops, or no desktop at all. There is Fedora Server available. Everything feels more modern and advanced. There is clearly a huge amount of work put into producing Fedora yet it has less users. I don't get the Ubuntu craze. Is it just peer pressure? Am I antisocial if I prefer Fedora to Ubuntu? What am I missing here?

blacksmith_tb2• 6 years ago

Hmm, given the popularity of Ubuntu, isn't also possible there are more bug reports just because more people use it? I installed 20.04 onto a new Asus laptop a couple of months ago, everything worked out of the box.

linuxhansl4• 6 years ago

If you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague. They have absolutely zero quality assurance for Linux.

I had the exact opposite experience. Perhaps it's a Unbuntu thing, hard to know, I use Fedora, or perhaps it's the Yoga...

In 2004 I got a T42, installed Fedora on it, it just worked.

In 2013 I got a T440p, installed Fedora, just worked. That Laptop is still in use, btw.

This year I got a X1 Extreme Gen2 (stupid name), installed the Fedora KDE spin, just works.

Sleep, etc, works, battery is life is really, the graphics card (internal and dedicated with the Nvidia drivers) work, etc, etc. So I am truly surprised by your experience.

I did a lot of research before, and these are the best Linux laptops that I could find (besides the "open" laptops like System76, etc).

The again, I am an engineer, so perhaps what I do in terms of setup comes easy to me without me noticing the complexity.

yolomcsuperswag2• 6 years ago

"X1 Extreme Gen2 (...) just works"

Literally? I can't even beat the installer because of the GPU. (Vanilla Fedora)

pbrb• 6 years ago

I'm with you. I have a 2017 X1 Carbon, and I've had zero issues with Ubuntu. The only thing I had to do was update a few config settings to properly sleep, and I run kde desktop so I don't have to fiddle with scaling on laptop monitor vs. my external displays. It's been an excellent laptop.

thefunnyman• 6 years ago

Does your microphone work? I generally love Thinkpads and have continued to buy them but even running Ubuntu 20.04 I still cannot use my fingerprint reader or microphone on my X1 Yoga and the pen doesn’t show up in Wacom settings at all so I can’t customize the buttons.

discourses• 6 years ago

I had some issues with Ubuntu too. Fedora 32 -- zero issues.

fovc• 6 years ago

I've had a couple of X1s and T series throughout the years, and ran Ubuntu and Arch wonderfully. Save for the fingerprint sensor (where I think the issue is not drivers but rather that fingerprints don't have enough entropy for a keyring), they actually ran way better than my current Windows X1 which BSODs every 3 days.

I think the yoga subbrand is a lower end model, so maybe they're sloppier there?

FunnyLookinHat• 6 years ago

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience... I've had great success with the T430, T480p and X1 Extreme.

uoaei• 6 years ago

I don't think an anecdotal experience with the Yoga line is compatible with the claim that "if you want to buy a Linux laptop, avoid Lenovo like the plague."

I've had great experiences with my Thinkpads (t410s and t530) running Linux. Granted, I was just running Ubuntu, but I never had an issue. I will note that I disabled the fingerprint sensor, camera, and microphone at the BIOS level so didn't have experience dealing with those drivers. I expect most others will have a fine experience with the non-touchscreen Thinkpads, and probably some of the newer models as well.

PaulAJ• 6 years ago

Will you still have to pay the Windows Tax on these products?

blaser-waffle3• 6 years ago

Probably. "Certified" does not mean "ships with".

Dell offers that option -- "ships with" Ubuntu -- but only for a handful of laptops.

mr_custard• 6 years ago

Came here to ask the same thing.

Infuriating as hell that we are forced to pay for something that not only we don't wish to use or support, but it also inflates the Windows sales figures and percieved install base vs Linux installed base. Grr.

sp0ck• 6 years ago

Oh boy. I want to see fingerprint readers support. Without working fingerprint reader calling a product supported is a joke and selective support. And what about windows hello IR cameras ? Currently it's still a mess.

viraptor2• 6 years ago

The annoying thing there is that even with hardware support, login managers or pam specifically still don't get the idea of "you can use either the password or the fingerprint now". You get a choice of their using empty password then the finger, or exhausting fingerprint attempts before using password. Neither is great. I'm not even sure that's possible to solve with the way pam works.

anogrebattle• 6 years ago

Really happy to see that Lenovo is improving Linux support.

I picked up my first ThinkPad, an X1 Carbon with a i7-10710U and touchscreen, on sale last year and installed Manjaro Linux (with a vanilla Gnome DE). It's not a perfect hardware/software integration - the fingerprint reader doesn't work and neither does the onboard mic with the 5.4 kernel - but otherwise this is one of the best laptops I've ever used.

I don't think of it as a workstation. It's a portable premium keyboard with a decent screen attached. It's been great for light web dev and long form typing on the ~go~ couch. It barely weighs anything in my bag. Battery life on Linux is comparable to what I was getting on Windows, which is ~8 hours for light use.

Speaking of batteries, I had some issues with my battery not being recognized recently (it started by randomly reporting 0% charge before the machine started refusing to charge it altogether). The Lenovo support experience was surprisingly fast. I dropped off the machine at FedEx on a Tuesday morning and it was back in my hands by that Friday afternoon.

If you're thinking about going down the same path, my advice is that the Arch wiki is your friend.

rb808• 6 years ago

Is there a good site to different list models and rate compatibility? The anecdote about fans being super loud are scary. Not just Lenovo if possible

sovietmudkipz• 6 years ago

I would love first class hardware for Linux, specifically Ubuntu. This may just be a feeling, but too often do I feel like there is additional configuration that has to occur to get Ubuntu working on a repurposed laptop. There also seems to be a trade off of battery life — the same hardware platform lasts 4-6 hours running Ubuntu and 10-12 running windows. I know I can further configure the OS to get similar performance but therein lies the desire.

I get a great consumer experience when I purchase a MacBook or (some) windows laptops and I don’t have to worry about that configuration step.

It’s about time Ubuntu and other Linux distos are able to offer that same “ready to use” experience that I’m describing.

P.S. That said, it is worth pointing out that executing that configuration step is highly educational and, sometimes, pretty fun.

mlang23• 6 years ago

I have a ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen7. In general, I have never been happier with the performance and haptics of a laptop. However, I haven't managed to get the fingerprint sensor to work, which is mostly because the relevant driver hasn't been merged into fprint. I was actually suprised when I discovered fprintd doesn't work on the X1. From the reputation ThinkPads have amonst Linuxers, I was sort of naively assuming it wouldn't be an issue.

RMPR5• 6 years ago

And that's why I always check the ArchWiki before buying a computer

mxuribe• 6 years ago

This is wonderful, and welcomed news! The more that lenovo continues their sincere support of linux - and linux distros - the more likely i will be to purchase more and more of their hardware.

manishsharan• 6 years ago

Quick aside : I have been a buyer of their T 4xx series-- from 440 to 480. I am curious as to what will come after T495.

354896547981565• 6 years ago

T14

enriquto• 6 years ago

If they don't sell the actual laptops with all features working on a vanilla debian install, this amounts to nothing.

Besides, most linux-related announcements by Lenovo are false. They have announced several times in the last years, with much fanfare, that they were going to sell laptops with linux pre-installed. This has not been the case.

mkesper• 6 years ago

Post of linux technical lead at Lenovo for the PC team at the Debian mailing list: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2020/06/msg00004.htm... :

    I would really like to have this conversation with the wider community as to what Lenovo and Debian can do to work better together.

As an important example - the X1 Carbon 7 (which is a popular machine) still doesn't work well with any version of Debian (including experimental or testing) as the audio is broken. Debian users have to jump through a few hoops to get it to work. I've let the maintainer know a number of times what is involved to fix that but it's obviously not a priority (as a heads up - Debian on most Lenovo 2020 platforms is going to suck because of this too). I'm not meaning to point fingers - but just explain why it feels as if Debian and the latest hardware is an awkward fit.

fierarul• 6 years ago

I find the Ubuntu hardware certification a bit dubious specifically since they list all the hardware details. See, eg. https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201906-27127 (copied from another thread, as a reference)

Now, as a consumer, I don't have access to that level of details while trying to buy a laptop!

So, the certification both makes you believe your laptop will be compatible but then when it isn't they can come back and claim your specific controller or bluetooth card is not in the list.

This is, of course, the manufacturer's fault since they use the same product name for a large variety of component bags. In a way Dell XPS Linux Edition is good since it tells you upfront there's no tricks.

That being said, this news is encouraging but I want to know when can I buy laptops from this lot of certified devices?

pyrophane2• 6 years ago

My experience running Fedora Linux on a Thinkpad P1 Gen 2:

It's mostly very good!

- I'm running Fedora 32 and using Gnome. I love it. Gnome continues to improve a lot with each release, and overall the operating system feels very stable. I can't think of the last time I saw any error.

- This machine doesn't have great battery life regardless of what OS you are running, but after properly configuring the GPU, battery life on linux is on par with Windows if not a bit better. I've also undervolted the cpu, which is easy to do and provides even better batter life.

- I was able to install all the software I needed using a combination of the Fedora rpm repositories, rpmfusion, and flathub. I actually have come to prefer flatpaks over other installation methods for software like bitwarden, spotify, riot, slack, etc. I don't notice the same performance issues I have seen with snaps on Ubuntu. I install Steam from rpmfusion, and am surprised at how nice the linux gaming experience is these days.

There are a few things that are less than stellar, though.

- It takes a little work to get decent battery life because of the nvidia gpu, and the setup isn't perfect. External displays must be run of the discrete gpu, so you can't get them to work if you are just running off the integrated intel chip, which provides the best battery life. In fact, external displays don't work when using "prime offloading" either. You need to set the nvidia gpu as the primary gpu to get external displays to work. What this all adds up to is that I need to change a config value and log out/back in depending on whether I am plugged in to an external display or not. I have a script that does this so it isn't that bad.

Interestingly, with the latest kernel release the nouveau driver is working for my nvidia card and, at least according to powertop, is able to dynamically switch from power-saving to primary mode when an external display is connected. I am also hopeful nvidia will resolve this in the next release.

- Docker is still a pain to set up on 32. There's no docker-ce repo, but you can install from the Fedora 31 repos, and to get it to work some system and firewall configuration is required. This is all pretty well documented in a github issue now, but it took a lot of troubleshooting at first.

That's my experience, and it has improved a lot since the machine first came out and I was running Fedora 30. There were initially several serious firmware bugs which took a long time to get resolved, and the OS/driver support was not nearly as good as it is now. Overall, I would recommend this combo if you need a powerful machine.

RMPR5• 6 years ago

This machine doesn't have great battery life regardless of what OS you are running, but after properly configuring the GPU, battery life on linux is on par with Windows if not a bit better. I've also undervolted the cpu, which is easy to do and provides even better batter life.

You can gain a couple of minutes using a WM instead of a full fledged DE

Docker is still a pain to set up on 32. There's no docker-ce repo, but you can install from the Fedora 31 repos, and to get it to work some system and firewall configuration is required. This is all pretty well documented in a github issue now, but it took a lot of troubleshooting at first.

My solution to this was to use podman[0] instead.

0: https://podman.io/whatis.html

pyrophane2• 6 years ago

I'd love to use podman but have some use cases it doesn't yet support

tsar9x• 6 years ago

You can install "moby-engine" (docker-ce 19.03.8) from Fedora repos instead, I think docker doesn't care about repo for fedora as they lag few months every release.

linuxhansl4• 6 years ago

Super big fan.

I had Lenovo's with Linux for the past 20 years.

My 7yo T440p is still working very well and my son is using that one now.

The brand new X1E Gen2 works flawlessly on Linux.

Granted, I'm using Fedora, not Ubuntu. Fedora tends to be bleeding edge, even for the X1E Gen2 all I had to do is install Fedora from the LiveCD (I'm using the KDE spin) and it just works. (this laptop still came with Windows only, so I deleted that and install Fedora)

danans• 6 years ago

I think what's cool is that there now at least 3 different supported ways to run Linux on laptops today:

1. Directly run your traditional Linux distro (i.e. on these Lenovos, System76 laptops, etc).

2. Run WSL using Windows on a Windows laptop.

3. Run Crostini Linux VM on a Chromebook.

In the past, the Linux laptop options were largely limited to those who wanted to install it unsupported on devices (remember the campaigns to get refunds for the default Windows installations on laptops?).

And sure, the above listed supported commercial solutions don't embody the hacker ethos of the old Linux-on-laptop communities, but they do represent the growth of Linux as a broadly usable software development environment.

nominated12• 6 years ago

When looking at Linux support I start with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service [1]. If the model I’m looking at isn’t supported then it’s off my list. You’ll notice that not all Thinkpads are supported [2].

The E, L and Yoga series are not supported but the T, P and X series are.

[1] https://fwupd.org/

[2] https://fwupd.org/lvfs/search?&value=thinkpad

_-david-_• 6 years ago

Some Thinkpads that are not supported provide bootable isos that you can use to update your bios. It is my understanding that it also updates the firmware (but it doesn't explicitly say).

Here is an E model that has a bootable iso: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netb...

nominated12• 6 years ago

Yes, many vendors for many models do the same. Even if they don’t you could install it via Windows.

“Support” is more than just the ability to install an update. It’s to do with whether an issue affecting Linux is being addressed. In the case of the E and L series Thinkpads there are many shared components with the T series so your chances are much better.

everybodyknows• 6 years ago

My L560 is seemingly supported through fwup -- provided the existing firmware is not too old:

fwupdmgr commands fail with:

  Not compatible with firmware version 0.1.22, requires >= 0.1.42

And indeed history on fwupd.org goes back only to 0.1.43:

https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/com.lenovo.ThinkPadN1HET.firm...

Leaving a bootable ISO as apparently the only option. The snag being that the documentation refers only to Windows, and describes various Windows-UEFI interactions.

https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/n1hur35w.txt

So, the $1500 question is, could there be some hidden risk of bricking the laptop, at least for Linux installations?

tomxor• 6 years ago

It's really good to see official support for Linux broadening.

Whether you love or hate Lenovo products/service etc (they are far from perfect) this decision will spur on competition and provide more choice and better support for all in the future.

luord• 6 years ago

"What’s more, Lenovo will also upstream device drivers directly to the Linux kernel, to help maintain stability and compatibility throughout the life of the workstation."

Particularly liked this bit.

dzonga• 6 years ago

now the OS's need to improve. thinkpad's have had stellar support for linux. own a t490 and have run several distros from manjaro, redhat etc now on ubuntu 20.04. the distros need to work on hdpi support, consolidate desktop environments. kde is nice for some things n gnome is too. like for me on kde, the brightness setting was wonky. gnome no support for media controls. then finally linux can takover. I don't know the story about wayland - but it seems most apps don't support it

wilsonfiifi2• 6 years ago

What’s dual (or multiple) monitor Support like with Linux these days? Thinking of getting the dell xps developer edition because it seems to be the one that offers the best compatibility but I would personally prefer a Lenovo.

Joeri• 6 years ago

Multiple monitors are not a problem, but mixed DPI is. It supposedly works fine in wayland, but I tried and failed to switch over to wayland. In X apps always appear the wrong size on one display or the other.

wilsonfiifi2• 6 years ago

Oh boy! Well I'll just stay in the expensive "Mac-land"...

Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux

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