9 ms·

I'm currently on my fifth ThinkPad, so you could say I'm a fan. But I'd like to warn everyone that uses Linux to be careful about buying one. I bought a T540 3

by kauffj 9y ago

I'm currently on my fifth ThinkPad, so you could say I'm a fan. But I'd like to warn everyone that uses Linux to be careful about buying one. I bought a T540 3 years ago that shipped with a Bay Trail processor. This processor was absolutely unusable on Linux due to this bug (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109051 https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109051). Even setting max cstate to 1 resulted in regular freezes. Not only would Lenovo not accept a return of the laptop, I could not even get them to update their Linux compatibility page to warn other users! To this day: - The cstate bug is not fixed, and running Linux on a Bay Trail processor will cause lockups - Lenovo continues to recommend laptop versions that are flat out broken on Linux (https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd031426 https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd031426) So be careful!

make3 9y ago
If it doesn't run Linux well, I don't see why I would ever buy a Lenovo/ThinkPad over a MacBook
- dijit 9y ago
  I think GP is right to warn people. Historically "Thinkpad" has been the brand that was most likely to run Linux flawlessly, times are changing since Thinkpad is no longer IBM owned and has been on a gradual decline ever since Lenovo bought the rights to the product line.
  - Crontab 9y ago
    I've seen them recommended by quite a few OpenBSD developers as well. Sad to see this.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > Thinkpad is no longer IBM owned Pretty much nothing to do with that. It's been years since IBM does not own Thinkpad anymore but Lenovo was perfectly able to provide proper Linux support up until recently.
    - bri3d 9y ago
      I actually agree with blaming Lenovo here, to a degree. While OP is incorrect about the ThinkPad workstation series, which can't have had the c-state bug as it never shipped with an Atom-based processor, Lenovo have extended the ThinkPad brand to a lot of computers (Edge, ThinkPad 8/10 "business tablets" / convertibles, etc.) that are not only not very Linux compatible but are also bad computers overall.
      - esarbe 9y ago
        The Edge Series was not SO bad. I've owned a Edge 13 for years and it is quite solid with good Linux support.
    - newnewpdro 9y ago
      It took quite some time for the laptops Lenovo was selling to actually be entirely new designs. For years they were selling incrementally improved classic thinkpads. Around the time when they switched from the thin walled barrel power connector to the USB looking thing is where the designs substantially changed and everything really took a turn for the worse in general.
      - pimeys 9y ago
        The T-series has been VERY good, still is. If you pick up a T4(6-8)0 and max it out, I can't really think a better programmer's laptop.
- jhasse 9y ago
  Because of the other differences?
ajdlinux 9y ago
As a counterpoint - there are plenty of ThinkPads that run Linux quite well. My team at work is almost 100% ThinkPad X1s or T450s, with a variety of distros (Debian, Fedora, Arch) and we don't have too many problems. It's a shame Lenovo's documentation is inaccurate though!
acct1771 9y ago
Related: what older models are known to work well with Linux/are preferred by users here? Do any options have open boot/something close?
- keldaris 9y ago
  I literally hoard good condition X220s, dreading the day when they're no longer fast enough for my needs (hopefully a long way off still). It's the last (going by manufacture date) laptop I enjoy using. The keyboards are superb, the build quality is excellent, perfect compatibility with modern Linux distributions and the battery lasts 4-7h of real world use (6 and 9 cell versions, respectively). You can get models in perfect condition for 300-400 euros on eBay, and they still make new keyboards, batteries, etc. for them. It's the perfect laptop for those of us who dislike chiclet keyboards, the thin > all design fad and all the other maladies of modern laptop design. With Sandy Bridge i7s and 16gb RAM, they're powerful enough for my needs and thankfully let me write and debug AVX-capable code (with the usual profiling caveats associated with the SB architecture). As for open boot, I understand the X220 supports both coreboot and libreboot, but I don't use either, so I can't comment on it in detail.
  - carbolite103 9y ago
    I bought my X220 from a friend for a hundred bucks thinking it'd be a fun toy to install Linux on, but it has become my daily driver. My only gripe is the flimsyness of the plastic just above the ExpressCard slot.
    - philippnagel 9y ago
      It's much better with a card inserted. Infact the ExpressCard-slot made me choose an X220 over the X230. It can be used to connect an external GPU!
  - anthony_barker 9y ago
    .. this I have bought a couple of newer Thinkpads but they end up reverting to my x220. x230 is almost as good but doesn't have the old school keyboard. On reddit.com/r/thinkpad there is huge following for moding them.. My only recommendation is to ensure it you have an SSD and load up on RAM.
petecox 9y ago
It appears bay trail was a particularly bad release. Not to defend Intel but that was 3 generations ago; I would certainly consider a Gemini Lake for my next nettop - where media-pc quiet is more important to me than performance. (provided no showstopper bugs exist!)
chx 9y ago
> I bought a T540 3 years ago that shipped with a Bay Trail processor. You didn't. Bay Trail is an Atom and there has never been a ThinkPad T with an Atom chip. Not to mention that the 40 generation didn't have a T540. It had a T540p with various Haswell CPUs from cheap i3 up to i7 4700MQ. ThinkPads always ran wonderfully with Linux. It is the only with a p, all other T5x0 machines from the T500 to T580 didn't have a p (performance) postfix. I do not think there was any ThinkPad ever for that matter with an Atom chip but here I might forget some bad apples. But certainly not in the T and X2... series, these are flagship business class machines. Maybe some Ideapad? Yoga? Flex? whatever 2-in-1 -- but who cares about those.
- kristianp 9y ago
  Actually, there were also Bay Trail Pentiums and Celerons: https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/55844/Bay-Trail https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/55844/Bay-Trail
  - chx 9y ago
    I meant the Atom architecture in general, trade names nonwithstanding. Bonnell, Saltwell, Silvermont, Airmont, Goldmont, Goldmont Plus. ThinkPads, on the other hand, in roughly the same time frame have used Merom, Penryn, Arrandale, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake and Kaby Lake R CPUs. Does that more satisfy you my hair splitting, persnickety friend?
    - kristianp 9y ago
      Yes, you're right. I thought there might have been a Celeron T540, but the T series never has a Celeron processor option.
    - to3m 9y ago
      I'm sorry you're having a bad day.
- bri3d 9y ago
  Or one of the ill-advised "ThinkPad" branded "business tablets" like the ThinkPad 8 or 10. You're right that Lenovo have never shipped a workstation class ThinkPad laptop with Bay Trail, but their attempts to extend the ThinkPad brand have definitely led them to ship some Atom-based duds. I'm going to extend OP the benefit of the doubt on the model name here and say this: it sucks that Lenovo have diluted the "ThinkPad" brand and it sucks that they didn't remove the bad models from their Linux compatiblity list. On the flip side, I think ThinkPad workstation laptops (T-series and above) are still safe for Linux. Just avoid the convertibles and tablets as well as the budget-range Edge series, which are frankly bad computers overall.
bflesch 9y ago
Oh, this seems to be the bug I've been experiencing!
snuxoll 9y ago
My W540 is absolute shit running Linux too, the thing randomly locks up and just running VMWare workstation causes the damned thing to heat up. The ThinkPad was once venerable brand, but I've lost all respect for it - at this point I'm probably just going to buy a MacBook Pro and send the W540 back to the office because I'm tired of playing the Linux compatibility game on modern notebooks.
- hiram112 9y ago
  Uhh. This is depressing. I picked up Slackware and FreeBSD a long time ago and had so much fun plus found a career. I finally through in the towel with Linux as my main machine a long time ago and went back to Windows as 7 was pretty good. With Win10, I've tried to deal with both VMs and WSL, but once I got a MBP there was no turning back. I simply don't have the time or patience to deal with the issues Linux now has. Don't know what the solution is. Perhaps dump Systemd and the rest of RedHat's decision. Or maybe Redhat, Suse, or whover could just get one disto working perfectly on two or three hardware models a la Apple. But not happy with how things have turned our with Linux on the desktop.
  - sedachv 9y ago
    https://system76.com/ https://system76.com/ and https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ both sell laptops specifically for the Linux market. Recent Dell XPS laptops are also supposed to be great.
    - scns 9y ago
      In europe you can order similar machines tuxedocomputers.com Disclaimer: Just a customer
- sjellis 9y ago
  "at this point I'm probably just going to buy a MacBook Pro and send the W540 back to the office because I'm tired of playing the Linux compatibility game on modern notebooks." Former ThinkPad fan, current MacBook user: I am likely to buy a Dell for my next laptop. Dell expanded the range of machines that they will preload with (Ubuntu) Linux last year, and were the first big vendor to sign on to the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, so that supported computers can get easily get firmware upgrades.
Abishek_Muthian 9y ago
Interesting. Couple of chromebooks use Bay Trail chipset, though a audio firmware related issue on linux is quite known (https://github.com/GalliumOS/galliumos-distro/issues/180 https://github.com/GalliumOS/galliumos-distro/issues/180) I didn't know about the cstate bug. I wonder how ChromeOS avoids(fixes?) both the above said audio issue and the cstate issue mentioned by you.

by kauffj 9y ago

make3 9y ago

If it doesn't run Linux well, I don't see why I would ever buy a Lenovo/ThinkPad over a MacBook

dijit 9y ago
I think GP is right to warn people. Historically "Thinkpad" has been the brand that was most likely to run Linux flawlessly, times are changing since Thinkpad is no longer IBM owned and has been on a gradual decline ever since Lenovo bought the rights to the product line.
- Crontab 9y ago
  I've seen them recommended by quite a few OpenBSD developers as well. Sad to see this.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > Thinkpad is no longer IBM owned Pretty much nothing to do with that. It's been years since IBM does not own Thinkpad anymore but Lenovo was perfectly able to provide proper Linux support up until recently.
  - bri3d 9y ago
    I actually agree with blaming Lenovo here, to a degree. While OP is incorrect about the ThinkPad workstation series, which can't have had the c-state bug as it never shipped with an Atom-based processor, Lenovo have extended the ThinkPad brand to a lot of computers (Edge, ThinkPad 8/10 "business tablets" / convertibles, etc.) that are not only not very Linux compatible but are also bad computers overall.
    - esarbe 9y ago
      The Edge Series was not SO bad. I've owned a Edge 13 for years and it is quite solid with good Linux support.
  - newnewpdro 9y ago
    It took quite some time for the laptops Lenovo was selling to actually be entirely new designs. For years they were selling incrementally improved classic thinkpads. Around the time when they switched from the thin walled barrel power connector to the USB looking thing is where the designs substantially changed and everything really took a turn for the worse in general.
    - pimeys 9y ago
      The T-series has been VERY good, still is. If you pick up a T4(6-8)0 and max it out, I can't really think a better programmer's laptop.
jhasse 9y ago
Because of the other differences?

ajdlinux 9y ago

As a counterpoint - there are plenty of ThinkPads that run Linux quite well. My team at work is almost 100% ThinkPad X1s or T450s, with a variety of distros (Debian, Fedora, Arch) and we don't have too many problems. It's a shame Lenovo's documentation is inaccurate though!

acct1771 9y ago

Related: what older models are known to work well with Linux/are preferred by users here? Do any options have open boot/something close?

keldaris 9y ago
I literally hoard good condition X220s, dreading the day when they're no longer fast enough for my needs (hopefully a long way off still). It's the last (going by manufacture date) laptop I enjoy using. The keyboards are superb, the build quality is excellent, perfect compatibility with modern Linux distributions and the battery lasts 4-7h of real world use (6 and 9 cell versions, respectively). You can get models in perfect condition for 300-400 euros on eBay, and they still make new keyboards, batteries, etc. for them. It's the perfect laptop for those of us who dislike chiclet keyboards, the thin > all design fad and all the other maladies of modern laptop design. With Sandy Bridge i7s and 16gb RAM, they're powerful enough for my needs and thankfully let me write and debug AVX-capable code (with the usual profiling caveats associated with the SB architecture). As for open boot, I understand the X220 supports both coreboot and libreboot, but I don't use either, so I can't comment on it in detail.
- carbolite103 9y ago
  I bought my X220 from a friend for a hundred bucks thinking it'd be a fun toy to install Linux on, but it has become my daily driver. My only gripe is the flimsyness of the plastic just above the ExpressCard slot.
  - philippnagel 9y ago
    It's much better with a card inserted. Infact the ExpressCard-slot made me choose an X220 over the X230. It can be used to connect an external GPU!
- anthony_barker 9y ago
  .. this I have bought a couple of newer Thinkpads but they end up reverting to my x220. x230 is almost as good but doesn't have the old school keyboard. On reddit.com/r/thinkpad there is huge following for moding them.. My only recommendation is to ensure it you have an SSD and load up on RAM.

petecox 9y ago

It appears bay trail was a particularly bad release. Not to defend Intel but that was 3 generations ago; I would certainly consider a Gemini Lake for my next nettop - where media-pc quiet is more important to me than performance. (provided no showstopper bugs exist!)

chx 9y ago

> I bought a T540 3 years ago that shipped with a Bay Trail processor. You didn't. Bay Trail is an Atom and there has never been a ThinkPad T with an Atom chip. Not to mention that the 40 generation didn't have a T540. It had a T540p with various Haswell CPUs from cheap i3 up to i7 4700MQ. ThinkPads always ran wonderfully with Linux. It is the only with a p, all other T5x0 machines from the T500 to T580 didn't have a p (performance) postfix. I do not think there was any ThinkPad ever for that matter with an Atom chip but here I might forget some bad apples. But certainly not in the T and X2... series, these are flagship business class machines. Maybe some Ideapad? Yoga? Flex? whatever 2-in-1 -- but who cares about those.

kristianp 9y ago
Actually, there were also Bay Trail Pentiums and Celerons: https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/55844/Bay-Trail https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/55844/Bay-Trail
- chx 9y ago
  I meant the Atom architecture in general, trade names nonwithstanding. Bonnell, Saltwell, Silvermont, Airmont, Goldmont, Goldmont Plus. ThinkPads, on the other hand, in roughly the same time frame have used Merom, Penryn, Arrandale, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake and Kaby Lake R CPUs. Does that more satisfy you my hair splitting, persnickety friend?
  - kristianp 9y ago
    Yes, you're right. I thought there might have been a Celeron T540, but the T series never has a Celeron processor option.
  - to3m 9y ago
    I'm sorry you're having a bad day.
bri3d 9y ago
Or one of the ill-advised "ThinkPad" branded "business tablets" like the ThinkPad 8 or 10. You're right that Lenovo have never shipped a workstation class ThinkPad laptop with Bay Trail, but their attempts to extend the ThinkPad brand have definitely led them to ship some Atom-based duds. I'm going to extend OP the benefit of the doubt on the model name here and say this: it sucks that Lenovo have diluted the "ThinkPad" brand and it sucks that they didn't remove the bad models from their Linux compatiblity list. On the flip side, I think ThinkPad workstation laptops (T-series and above) are still safe for Linux. Just avoid the convertibles and tablets as well as the budget-range Edge series, which are frankly bad computers overall.

bflesch 9y ago

Oh, this seems to be the bug I've been experiencing!

snuxoll 9y ago

My W540 is absolute shit running Linux too, the thing randomly locks up and just running VMWare workstation causes the damned thing to heat up. The ThinkPad was once venerable brand, but I've lost all respect for it - at this point I'm probably just going to buy a MacBook Pro and send the W540 back to the office because I'm tired of playing the Linux compatibility game on modern notebooks.

hiram112 9y ago
Uhh. This is depressing. I picked up Slackware and FreeBSD a long time ago and had so much fun plus found a career. I finally through in the towel with Linux as my main machine a long time ago and went back to Windows as 7 was pretty good. With Win10, I've tried to deal with both VMs and WSL, but once I got a MBP there was no turning back. I simply don't have the time or patience to deal with the issues Linux now has. Don't know what the solution is. Perhaps dump Systemd and the rest of RedHat's decision. Or maybe Redhat, Suse, or whover could just get one disto working perfectly on two or three hardware models a la Apple. But not happy with how things have turned our with Linux on the desktop.
- sedachv 9y ago
  https://system76.com/ https://system76.com/ and https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ both sell laptops specifically for the Linux market. Recent Dell XPS laptops are also supposed to be great.
  - scns 9y ago
    In europe you can order similar machines tuxedocomputers.com Disclaimer: Just a customer
sjellis 9y ago
"at this point I'm probably just going to buy a MacBook Pro and send the W540 back to the office because I'm tired of playing the Linux compatibility game on modern notebooks." Former ThinkPad fan, current MacBook user: I am likely to buy a Dell for my next laptop. Dell expanded the range of machines that they will preload with (Ubuntu) Linux last year, and were the first big vendor to sign on to the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, so that supported computers can get easily get firmware upgrades.

Abishek_Muthian 9y ago

Interesting. Couple of chromebooks use Bay Trail chipset, though a audio firmware related issue on linux is quite known (https://github.com/GalliumOS/galliumos-distro/issues/180 https://github.com/GalliumOS/galliumos-distro/issues/180) I didn't know about the cstate bug. I wonder how ChromeOS avoids(fixes?) both the above said audio issue and the cstate issue mentioned by you.