3 ms·

I recommend going for the thinkpad carbon x1, it's the same form factor of Mac air, looks better in my opinion and has one of the best keyboards on a laptop tha

by harel 10y ago

I recommend going for the thinkpad carbon x1, it's the same form factor of Mac air, looks better in my opinion and has one of the best keyboards on a laptop that size, not to mention it's developer friendly (has actual page up/down, home/end keys). I'm running Ubuntu on mine (3rd gen) without problems. The 4th gen ones can take 16gb ram as well.

wrong_variable 10y ago
Just a quick question ! How would you put ubuntu on it ? I have tried changing the boot partition to GRUB and somehow windows still ends up loading ! like how is that even possible ??
- rochak 10y ago
  I guess you need to do a boot repair. All you need is the same bootable flash drive and follow instructions online as to how to repair GRUB. This kind is think l thing happens a lot, happened with me too. If the problem persists, contact me, I'll mail the steps.
- afghanPower 10y ago
  Use your bootable Linux usb/disk and: (easy way) : install "boot-repair" and run it (harder way) : chroot into the linux partition and run "sudo update-grub"
berberous 10y ago
I have the X1 and its ok I guess, but it has an awful touchpad, short battery life, and I generally think macs are much nicer. But the Air is old at this point and has a terrible screen. If you can't afford a newer model, maybe the XPS is the way to go. I've never used it so I couldn't say.
superswordfish 10y ago
I am running Xubuntu on this thing and I hate it so much. Palm detection is so broken that even after tweaking Synaptics and trying libinput (customized it "perfectly" under Arch with no improvement already), I had to disable the trackpad. The pointer nub on new Thinkpads is terrible now that it's secondary, so I have to set low sensitivity. Colors are messed up with poor contrast. Windows looks much, much better. I messed around with exporting color profiles and importing other users' color profiles with no real improvement. So it's really only useful as a headless machine or in low light. Which leads to the next issue... External displays don't work properly with lid closed unless you boot with the lid closed. Even then if you suspend, you will wake up with no screen. If you set to "turn display off" on lid close, then when you close the lid the cursor becomes completely erratic and unusable. I'm sure this can somehow be fixed with some arandr and acpid scripting, but seriously fuck that noise. The keyboard is crap and the form factor hurts my hands. Even my old R500 education line Thinkpad is better in this regard. It sits on my shelf and collects dust. Every now and then I bust it out because I love programming on Linux, but always go back to the MBP for the reasons mentioned. I want to sell the Carbon X1 and regret spending $1500 on it so hard, but I'm wary of my ability to install Windows and get the right drivers on board (have done it, but also was getting terrible offers for it so decided not to sell at the time). And I'm holding out hope that these issues get fixed some day. Seriously, just get the Mac. It's sad that the state of Linux on the laptop is worse now than it was a decade ago, when you could get a T4* or T6* and everything worked like a dream. A big part of the problem is that non-Apple hardware is utter crap nowadays (not that Apple's stuff is universally amazing). Going Linux laptop shopping right now is the most depressing experience.

by harel 10y ago

wrong_variable 10y ago

Just a quick question ! How would you put ubuntu on it ? I have tried changing the boot partition to GRUB and somehow windows still ends up loading ! like how is that even possible ??

rochak 10y ago
I guess you need to do a boot repair. All you need is the same bootable flash drive and follow instructions online as to how to repair GRUB. This kind is think l thing happens a lot, happened with me too. If the problem persists, contact me, I'll mail the steps.
afghanPower 10y ago
Use your bootable Linux usb/disk and: (easy way) : install "boot-repair" and run it (harder way) : chroot into the linux partition and run "sudo update-grub"

berberous 10y ago

I have the X1 and its ok I guess, but it has an awful touchpad, short battery life, and I generally think macs are much nicer. But the Air is old at this point and has a terrible screen. If you can't afford a newer model, maybe the XPS is the way to go. I've never used it so I couldn't say.

superswordfish 10y ago

I am running Xubuntu on this thing and I hate it so much. Palm detection is so broken that even after tweaking Synaptics and trying libinput (customized it "perfectly" under Arch with no improvement already), I had to disable the trackpad. The pointer nub on new Thinkpads is terrible now that it's secondary, so I have to set low sensitivity. Colors are messed up with poor contrast. Windows looks much, much better. I messed around with exporting color profiles and importing other users' color profiles with no real improvement. So it's really only useful as a headless machine or in low light. Which leads to the next issue... External displays don't work properly with lid closed unless you boot with the lid closed. Even then if you suspend, you will wake up with no screen. If you set to "turn display off" on lid close, then when you close the lid the cursor becomes completely erratic and unusable. I'm sure this can somehow be fixed with some arandr and acpid scripting, but seriously fuck that noise. The keyboard is crap and the form factor hurts my hands. Even my old R500 education line Thinkpad is better in this regard. It sits on my shelf and collects dust. Every now and then I bust it out because I love programming on Linux, but always go back to the MBP for the reasons mentioned. I want to sell the Carbon X1 and regret spending $1500 on it so hard, but I'm wary of my ability to install Windows and get the right drivers on board (have done it, but also was getting terrible offers for it so decided not to sell at the time). And I'm holding out hope that these issues get fixed some day. Seriously, just get the Mac. It's sad that the state of Linux on the laptop is worse now than it was a decade ago, when you could get a T4* or T6* and everything worked like a dream. A big part of the problem is that non-Apple hardware is utter crap nowadays (not that Apple's stuff is universally amazing). Going Linux laptop shopping right now is the most depressing experience.