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For all the devs wondering how to replace their MacBook Pros: I highly recommend running Linux on a Lenovo X1 Carbon. I've also heard good things about System76

For all the devs wondering how to replace their MacBook Pros: I highly recommend running Linux on a Lenovo X1 Carbon. I've also heard good things about System76.

rayiner 7y ago
Contrary view: https://medium.com/@hkdb/ubuntu-18-04-on-lenovo-x1-carbon-6g-d99d5667d4d5 https://medium.com/@hkdb/ubuntu-18-04-on-lenovo-x1-carbon-6g...
- loudmax 7y ago
  That's not a contrary view, that's someone who seems quite pleased with his laptop. Yes it's a lot of tweaking to get the system to work optimally, but that is the nature of open source: you trade convenience for power. I'm pretty happy with the battery life on my X1 Carbon, but I might try some some of the settings from that article.
- v4ult 7y ago
  The writer would of had an easier time if he read the Ubuntu docs. 16.04 works flawlessly on the 6th gen X1 Carbon. I've been using it for work for the past 4 months without issue. https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201712-26045/ https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201712-26045/
- adrianratnapala 7y ago
  How is that a contrary view. That guy seems very happy with the Ubuntu and X1 combo. Though he does spend a long time obsessing about the battery, after his initial take was "yup, it's good enough for me".
  - rayiner 7y ago
    The guy initially declares “everything works out of box.” But then he spends a long time “obsessing about the battery” because without good battery life, a laptop is useless as a laptop. As Apple understands, alleviating battery anxiety is key to selling laptops.
tbrock 7y ago
I'm a hard +1 on this. Currently running Linux on an X1 carbon 6th gen and it is fantastic.
- kahlonel 7y ago
  Did Lenovo fix the suspend issue yet, or did you apply the BIOS patch manually?
  - tbrock 7y ago
    It’s fixed since about 7 months ago. It fully supports S3 sleep state.
nfoz 7y ago
My current recommendations are a bit lesser known: - Purism https://puri.sm/products/ https://puri.sm/products/ - Vaio https://us.vaio.com/vaio-sx14/ https://us.vaio.com/vaio-sx14/ - Dell Latitude 7390/7490 (not the "New 7300/7400" which look to be a downgrade, sadly) And if you're in Japan and have money and are really stylish: - Panasonic Let's Note https://panasonic.jp/cns/pc/products/lv8k/ https://panasonic.jp/cns/pc/products/lv8k/
- brandonfro 7y ago
  “...and are really stylish...” classic! That thing is hideous in my humble opinion
  - nfoz 7y ago
    Fair enough. I'm in love, which perhaps blinds me. Their Premium site gives a better gallery: https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/premium/ https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/premium/ And their colour/aesthetic customizations exceed anything I can find in the west: https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/sp/customize_letsnote/ https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/sp/customize_letsnote/ Panasonic has even had partnerships with e.g. Star Wars to have unique laptop-backing options, which is a bit wild for a business-series laptop. But sadly they seem to have discontinued their best-looking and most interesting option: the MX. It was a 12.5" laptop with a rectangular touchpad (that had real buttons). It was a Yoga-style touchscreen (with stylus), and had all the ports you could want (e.g. vga, ethernet, SDcard). Just ~3lbs but also certified as semi-tough, and with good keyboard travel. But then the killer feature: two batteries. One internal, but another one removable (yet still fits flush on the bottom when connected). When you remove that battery, you can charge it from the wall / by USB. That means you can hotswap your batteries and keep charging them -- infinite battery life!! It's just so interesting to me. Such a creative engineering marvel, not even mentioning the circular touchpads they have on their other models. We don't see anything close to this in the west -- instead we are constantly complaining that our laptops keep losing features that we want. Why!?
    - sireat 7y ago
codeisawesome 7y ago
My concerns with switching to a Lenovo X1 Carbon: 1. I won't use Windows. Will my battery life and WiFi performance be as good on Ubuntu? How much worse will it be? 2. Lenovo injected malware into the BIOS before. It was a different laptop division but it's still the same company. I am just finding it impossible to trust ever again.
- jasonhansel 7y ago
  I find the WiFi and battery fine (though I'm on a slightly older model). You can always mess with cpupower & other settings to improve battery life--Linux gives you a lot more power than Windows. I don't know about the BIOS though. (PS. Don't use wayland. It seems to have issues with HiDPI apps, at least on my laptop.)
bengalister 7y ago
Yes for devs switching to Linux is a good option. My home laptop is a Dell XPS 13 9380 running Linux (arch). I use it for browsing, doing some light development and occasionally video/photo editing. So far I am very happy with it except some few annoying software related issues but I can live with them: * pulse audio does not always auto-switch to the latest connected bluetooth audio device or it does but not use the right A2DP sink. I have to switch manually. * fractional scaling of the display under Wayland and Gnome. * battery life is still not as good as on Windows but it is not that far. * the fingerprint reader is not supported. The keyboard is excellent, it is lightweight 1.2 kg. I opted for a 16Gb of Ram, 512 Gb SSD, i7 8556u, FHD model. The one with the QHD screen was 200 Euros more expensive but still 700Euros less expensive than an equivalent Macbook pro. So far I don't see why I would change to a Macbook. Linux/Gnome are good enough for me.

For all the devs wondering how to replace their MacBook Pros: I highly recommend running Linux on a Lenovo X1 Carbon. I've also heard good things about System76.

rayiner 7y ago

Contrary view: https://medium.com/@hkdb/ubuntu-18-04-on-lenovo-x1-carbon-6g-d99d5667d4d5 https://medium.com/@hkdb/ubuntu-18-04-on-lenovo-x1-carbon-6g...

loudmax 7y ago
That's not a contrary view, that's someone who seems quite pleased with his laptop. Yes it's a lot of tweaking to get the system to work optimally, but that is the nature of open source: you trade convenience for power. I'm pretty happy with the battery life on my X1 Carbon, but I might try some some of the settings from that article.
v4ult 7y ago
The writer would of had an easier time if he read the Ubuntu docs. 16.04 works flawlessly on the 6th gen X1 Carbon. I've been using it for work for the past 4 months without issue. https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201712-26045/ https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201712-26045/
adrianratnapala 7y ago
How is that a contrary view. That guy seems very happy with the Ubuntu and X1 combo. Though he does spend a long time obsessing about the battery, after his initial take was "yup, it's good enough for me".
- rayiner 7y ago
  The guy initially declares “everything works out of box.” But then he spends a long time “obsessing about the battery” because without good battery life, a laptop is useless as a laptop. As Apple understands, alleviating battery anxiety is key to selling laptops.

tbrock 7y ago

I'm a hard +1 on this. Currently running Linux on an X1 carbon 6th gen and it is fantastic.

kahlonel 7y ago
Did Lenovo fix the suspend issue yet, or did you apply the BIOS patch manually?
- tbrock 7y ago
  It’s fixed since about 7 months ago. It fully supports S3 sleep state.

nfoz 7y ago

My current recommendations are a bit lesser known: - Purism https://puri.sm/products/ https://puri.sm/products/ - Vaio https://us.vaio.com/vaio-sx14/ https://us.vaio.com/vaio-sx14/ - Dell Latitude 7390/7490 (not the "New 7300/7400" which look to be a downgrade, sadly) And if you're in Japan and have money and are really stylish: - Panasonic Let's Note https://panasonic.jp/cns/pc/products/lv8k/ https://panasonic.jp/cns/pc/products/lv8k/

brandonfro 7y ago
“...and are really stylish...” classic! That thing is hideous in my humble opinion
- nfoz 7y ago
  Fair enough. I'm in love, which perhaps blinds me. Their Premium site gives a better gallery: https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/premium/ https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/premium/ And their colour/aesthetic customizations exceed anything I can find in the west: https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/sp/customize_letsnote/ https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/sp/customize_letsnote/ Panasonic has even had partnerships with e.g. Star Wars to have unique laptop-backing options, which is a bit wild for a business-series laptop. But sadly they seem to have discontinued their best-looking and most interesting option: the MX. It was a 12.5" laptop with a rectangular touchpad (that had real buttons). It was a Yoga-style touchscreen (with stylus), and had all the ports you could want (e.g. vga, ethernet, SDcard). Just ~3lbs but also certified as semi-tough, and with good keyboard travel. But then the killer feature: two batteries. One internal, but another one removable (yet still fits flush on the bottom when connected). When you remove that battery, you can charge it from the wall / by USB. That means you can hotswap your batteries and keep charging them -- infinite battery life!! It's just so interesting to me. Such a creative engineering marvel, not even mentioning the circular touchpads they have on their other models. We don't see anything close to this in the west -- instead we are constantly complaining that our laptops keep losing features that we want. Why!?
  - sireat 7y ago

codeisawesome 7y ago

My concerns with switching to a Lenovo X1 Carbon: 1. I won't use Windows. Will my battery life and WiFi performance be as good on Ubuntu? How much worse will it be? 2. Lenovo injected malware into the BIOS before. It was a different laptop division but it's still the same company. I am just finding it impossible to trust ever again.

jasonhansel 7y ago
I find the WiFi and battery fine (though I'm on a slightly older model). You can always mess with cpupower & other settings to improve battery life--Linux gives you a lot more power than Windows. I don't know about the BIOS though. (PS. Don't use wayland. It seems to have issues with HiDPI apps, at least on my laptop.)

bengalister 7y ago

Yes for devs switching to Linux is a good option. My home laptop is a Dell XPS 13 9380 running Linux (arch). I use it for browsing, doing some light development and occasionally video/photo editing. So far I am very happy with it except some few annoying software related issues but I can live with them: * pulse audio does not always auto-switch to the latest connected bluetooth audio device or it does but not use the right A2DP sink. I have to switch manually. * fractional scaling of the display under Wayland and Gnome. * battery life is still not as good as on Windows but it is not that far. * the fingerprint reader is not supported. The keyboard is excellent, it is lightweight 1.2 kg. I opted for a 16Gb of Ram, 512 Gb SSD, i7 8556u, FHD model. The one with the QHD screen was 200 Euros more expensive but still 700Euros less expensive than an equivalent Macbook pro. So far I don't see why I would change to a Macbook. Linux/Gnome are good enough for me.