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Get a ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th gen with Arch Linux or Fedora. Forget CentOS.
by tbrock 8y ago
Get a ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th gen with Arch Linux or Fedora. Forget CentOS.
- cygned 8y agoPlease elaborate. Why using Fedora when I could go with CentOS?
- tbrock 8y agoNewer drivers. They are the same basic OS but it’s not a server so you actually care about the newness of the drivers and other client software.
- cygned 8y agoI expected that. I run it in a VM and on the server and there this is obviously not that much of a challenge. Thanks for that input.
- lykr0n 8y agoCentOS is an option, but the hardware will perform better under Fedora due to a newer kernel build to support newer hardware. Feature wise, the only difference you really need to know is that Fedora ditched Yum and switched to DNF. Same command structure, and you can still install yum. fun fact. Fedora is what RedHat uses to test and flesh out all the fancy features coming in CentOS 8 & RHEL 8. I think Fedora 25 or 26 is what those OSs are being build from.
- cygned 8y ago> switched to DNF Oh I didn’t know that. Will look into that!
- whytaka 8y agoTime and time again, I cannot believe people recommend a company that installed spyware in their hardware. I will never ever buy a Lenovo. It doesn't matter that it didn't affect the ThinkPad line.
- knaik94 8y agoIt's the difference between recommending the consumer line and business line, they are not related technically. Lenovo's consumer line is Ideapad, their business line is Thinkpad. If they tried something similar on a business line, they would go bankrupt because they would never get another contract again. It would fall under Industrial Espionage which is illegal. That's why governments and large corporations still buy Thinkpad.
- perl4ever 8y agoYou sound awfully confident. This sort of distinction, where you declare something about the world to be certain as a consequence of a certain arbitrary categorization, I have an urge to call "nominative determinism" (although the phrase is generally used differently)
- agumonkey 8y agoIf you're tech saavy it's a bit less important. Scamming average consumers is sad, but ThinkPads to me are IBM, not Lenovo, so they have different boxes in my mind. The hardware is good, linux runs nice on it. Case closed.
- sofaofthedamned 8y agoGood for you. There was no spyware in the slightest on my X1.
- mediocrejoker 8y agoI think you either missed or ignored the point the parent comment made regarding their reasons for avoiding Lenovo as a company, rather than strictly wishing to avoid spyware in one's own laptop.
- sofaofthedamned 8y agoI didn't miss it. Don't have any care or skin in the game when it comes to Lenovo, but their Thinkpads have never had this crap in there. When they do, i'm out. HP have crap in their installs, so do Dell. Hell, even Microsoft put Candy Crush in there and telemetry I can't uninstall.
- anbotero 8y agoIt’s been a while since I even have a laptop (just a gaming desktop PC with Windows), but I’m glad people recommend Arch Linux. It certainly was the best I worked with until two years ago, for several years. Sure, it’s got its quirks, but they help you a lot to learn new stuff, and after that, it’s much easier to set it up again in case you needed (I only needed it once every two years or so).
- lykr0n 8y agoArch is great. If not the wiki, the AUR and Trizen. Almost every piece of software I would want a few commands away. It's also surprisingly stable.
- sofaofthedamned 8y agoI love Fedora but the Arch wiki is the best authoritative source of fixes ever.
- collyw 8y agoAgreed, and I have only ever installed Manjaro.
- sofaofthedamned 8y agoYup. Used to be that the Ubuntu forums were awesome, but there was something about the Arch forums that weeded all the crap out, i've no idea what. I need to add them to the OSS projects I contribute to this year.
- collyw 8y agoI guess as Linux got more popular, more people who didn't really know what they were doing joined in, usually on Ubuntu. The quality of answers dropped as a result. I think a higher bar to entry often keeps things better quality (coming from the dev world I am thinking about Django deployment versus PHP deployment). Arch was too much of a pain for me to install last time I checked, and its going to be way too much effort for anyone relatively new to Linux.
- wvh 8y agoMy advice as well – I'm running Arch Linux on a ThinkPad. Debian (unstable) or a recent Ubuntu version might work pretty well too. CentOS follows RedHat Enterprise Linux and has way too old software for modern desktop use (unless they have a branch hidden somewhere I'm not aware of). Running old Linux versions on new laptops is going to be a frustrating experience; ideally all the device drivers you need are mainlined into the kernel of your distribution so you won't have to mess with those yourself.
- freedomben 8y agoI very much agree that CentOS will not be a good laptop/desktop experience. I have tried it, will not again. If you like Red Hat stuff (which I do), install Fedora 28. It's on my Thinkpad right now, and works flawless.
- eropple 8y agoThe X1 is nice but the T480 is only a little bigger, handles heat a lot better, and has (mine does, at least) about 16 hours of battery life under Fedora. It's hard to really recommend the X1 (or T480s) as a developer machine, IMO.
- throwaway5752 8y agoThe current t480 is great, $2500 buys you an incredible rig.
- eropple 8y agoYeah. I paid $1600 and I'm thrilled with mine. Though, fair warning, dealing with Lenovo-the-company is a profound and terrible shitshow.
- sofaofthedamned 8y agoFedora is definitely better on my X1. Stock Fedora 28, rawhide kernel, TLP and iuvolt runs better than Windows 10. Best Dev machine I've ever had and the keyboard is superb.
- AsyncAwait 8y agoI'd get a Dell XPS instead, but agree with Arch Linux or Fedora.
- zouhair 8y agoFirst never a Lenovo ever again. Second that model doesn't have an Ethernet port, so that's another strike.
- satysin 8y agoI had an X1 Carbon and had so many issues I returned it for a refund after 2 months. I had two replacements and they both had quality control issues. Then the engineer who came to fix it broke the screen, twice! How you ask? Unfortunately with the X1 being so thin the display bezel is a piece of sticky plastic which is a nightmare to align on-site (really should be done in a factory with an alignment machine) and when the engineer tried to remove it to align it again he pulled the polarising film off the screen. Shocking. Thank god for strong EU consumer laws that I got my money back. Also the fact Lenovo refuse to offer an option to switch between S3 and S0i3 sleep in the BIOS is very frustrating on a business laptop. They only support S0i3 which doesn't even play well with Microsoft's own Modern Standby so is almost pointless for me. Almost daily I would open my bag up to a super hot laptop and almost zero battery as it didn't actually go to sleep like expected.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sophistication 8y agoWhich laptop will you consider next? A 2015 MacBook Pro?
- satysin 8y agoI bought a 2018 15" MBP which so far has been superb. I wish there was a Windows laptop which worked this well. IMHO it is unacceptable that Microsoft's own Surface Book 2 has so many issues. I have not tried a Surface Laptop, perhaps that is better as it is a "normal" laptop and not an over-engineered mess like the Surface Book. I will most likely pick up a Surface Laptop when they are updated to give it a try as I love the 3:2 screen (much how I love the 16:10 screen on the MBP). I am not a fan of the fabric keyboard though :/
- sophistication 8y agoThe most recent Dell Latitude 7490 looks nice too.
- Brakenshire 8y agoYes, I’m using an X1 Carbon with Fedora, no problems thus far. Hardware is solid, and drivers work without issue. Fedora does what you’d expect. Only issue is battery life, maybe 4-7 hours with VSCode, Slack etc, but maybe you can’t complain too much given these are electron apps.