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Disclaimer: I am a Red Hatter. We get Thinkpads/Lenovos since years, we install RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or Fedora on them. I started back a long time ag

Disclaimer: I am a Red Hatter. We get Thinkpads/Lenovos since years, we install RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or Fedora on them. I started back a long time ago with a X31, after that a X40, an X220, a X230, X1 2nd gen and am now on a X1 carbon 7th gen. They have been rock solid for me, except the x220 which loved to bork the hard drive for unknown reasons every 4-6 months. Lenovo has listened and acted on our requests in a very good way, the Linux support has become better and better over the years, IMHO and experience. So no, this rant does notbresonate with me and my 16 years experience at all. No offence. Just a different experience.

southerntofu 5y ago
Thanks for sharing your experience. As a distro maintainer, do you have access to the complete datasheets of the entire laptop in order to provide decent drivers? Maybe even the source code of the reference Windows drivers? If so, maybe you could "pressure" your contacts over at Lenovo to get them published once and for all so systems/distros can provide decent support?
- jwildeboer 5y ago
  Most drivers are upstreamed anyways, nowadays. We get some early access and work with that, but the resulting code is always upstreamed and open source, so feel free to use that code at any time.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    > the resulting code is always upstreamed and open source Are you saying there is 0 binary blobs involved in running a modern Thinkpad? I find that hard to believe (although i would love it). I'm guessing there's a few blobs in the kernel tree itself, and even more firmware blobs the kernel doesn't even know about. On the topic of how Linux deals very little with actual hardware on modern machines, i really enjoyed this talk called "It's time for operating systems to rediscover hardware" [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36myc8wQhLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36myc8wQhLo
    - jwildeboer 5y ago
      No. I specifically said drivers, not firmware blobs. As long as these blobs are freely redistributable, I personally have no problems with them. I understand some people do and that is understandable, but I don’t subscribe to that. This started at a time where non-volatile memory for firmware became a cost factor and companies decided to save a few bucks on the BoM and upload the blob as part of the initialisation/boot process. Which is fine with me.
    - kiwijamo 5y ago
      I think it is quite possible there is few if any binary blobs. I have a Lenovo X1 and everything pretty much works out of the box on base Arch Linux (and Debian before that). I think it also helps that my X1 has Intel graphics, Intel Wi-Fi, etc which has very good support which I know is not a given for others (e.g. Broadcom Wi-Fi, Nvidia graphics, et al). It is easily the best Linux experience I've ever had.
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        > I have a Lenovo X1 and everything pretty much works out of the box on base Arch Linux I'd be curious to know if it actually works well with linux-libre (Linux without the binary blobs). It's apparently not maintained as a distro package but is available on the AUR. Moreover, I'm still curious if all hardware functions without its own binary blobs. For example, is the networking firmware really free and replaceable, or is the proprietary firmware interoperable with a FLOSS driver? Likewise, is the entire system libreboot-able? Sorry for nitpicking, i'm just looking for precise answer to a topic that's not widely questioned/debated to my knowledge.
        rincebrain 5y ago
        I believe none of the major wireless NIC vendors these days ship cards that will do anything useful without a nonfree firmware blob, for example.
        maccolgan 5y ago
        If you wanted to use Linux-libre, wouldn't you just use Parabola?
  - jessikat 5y ago
    There's a difference between drivers being upstreamed to the Linux kernel, and a datasheet being available. The source code is not the datasheet, and if there are bugs in the driver, where is the datasheet to compare the implementation to? When it comes to hardware, source code availability is not sufficient. Other OS platforms can have different driver architectures, different kernel ABIs and other platform quirks in comparison to Linux, and having to reverse engineer a driver for another platform from a Linux kernel driver is not very open. And then there are licensing considerations to be taken into account as well. Linux is not the only opensource operating system in existence :-/ And for a project like Haiku, we don't have the people-power to reverse engineer Linux drivers, and again, the question of the GPL also applies when our kernel & drivers are MIT licensed.
    - jwildeboer 5y ago
      As a software maintainer/distributor, I don’t think we at Red Hat are the ones responsible to publish data sheets. That’s the job of the hardware manufacturer/vendor. When they decide to only offer it in non-public ways but allow us to help with getting the drivers upstream AND open source, it is a deal you might not like, but I, as a pragmatist can accept. We’re not the only Linux distributor working this way. Ubuntu/Canonical and SUSE don’t work that different from us on this. Again. You may not like it, and I understand that, but it has lead to making Linux a first class OS on Lenovo with an upstream first goal. I like it that way, even if it can become even better and more open.
      - jessikat 5y ago
        Of course not. It just gets more to the point of the original article. Whilst publishing and upstreaming driver source code for Linux is awesome, it's still only a half-measure in the overall picture of things being truly open, and we should try to demand more from hardware manufacturers. But we don't really have much sway in those regards, and it's disappointing as an OS-enthusiast, and a Haiku developer.
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        > As a software maintainer/distributor, I don’t think we at Red Hat are the ones responsible to publish data sheets. I don't think the parent commenter suggested you are responsible for publishing the material. However, it would be great to have vocal support from distro maintainers to encourage hardware manufacturers to publish them in order to provide better support across all systems. If only, to have more transparency about what parts of "supported hardware" are actually supported by the distro drivers, and what specific datasheet references could be requested through other venues (such as directly asking the manufacturer).
jwildeboer 5y ago
Oh, FTR, none of my laptops had nVidia graphics. Intel graphics has always been Good Enough(tm) for my use case (travelling evangelist who presents at conferences and wants enough oomph for some demos on the laptop itself with virtualisation and/or containers). Nvidia graphics causing problems on laptops is a known issue that only Nvidia can fix by opening up more.
kiryin 5y ago
This has largely been my experience as well, also using Fedora but I doubt that matters much. I rarely have issues, in comparison to the endless stream of ACPI and other hurdles other people seem to be going through with their laptops. Also LVFS is a godsend, I wish every vendor ever participated. I get updates even for my thunderbolt dock.
- nextos 5y ago
  Lenovo is very nice hardware to run Linux. As you say, they even care about updating firmware. However, there are a few things that IMHO are holding them back: * In EU, sales and support are outsourced (to Digital River Ireland Ltd). Support is a disgrace. Sales are also bad, as pricing is ridiculous compared to the US (often 1.5-2x more expensive than Apple) and most models are released late. Besides, they often sell open-box machines as brand new. If the want to compare to Apple, Lenovo should try to have unified global sales and guarantee. * They sell way too many Thinkpad variants, so they often release some that are unpolished. Lenovo should consolidate their lineup into fewer models. * They are lagging back with processor updates, compared to other PC manufacturers or non-Thinkpad Lenovos. Thinkpads are often sold with previous generation Intel CPUs. Models with AMD variants are seldomly available.
  - def_true_false 5y ago
    > In EU, sales and support are outsourced (to Digital River Ireland Ltd). AMD happens to use this company for orders on their own site as well. If anyone wants to see how bad an e-commerce experience can be, I suggest they try to order something from AMD.com It used to be even worse, but it seems they at least figured out that billing and shipping addresses can differ, and instead of ignoring most of the EU countries, they now ignore only about half of them. The AMD subreddit also had a few threads about this.
    - nextos 5y ago
      Yes, I don't understand why any brand would like to taint their reputation by using these middlemen.
Loic 5y ago
My first Thinkpad was a T41P, in between a series from the Xs, then back to T now that the Ts are so easy to carry. I never used Windows on them, first a mix of different distros, then when Ubuntu was released, Ubuntu. I never had any issues, only on the X220, the SD flash reader was borking my cards and I had to get an external flash reader. I cannot imagine using something different. So my experience is a bit like yours, this for 20+ years.
p_l 5y ago
Lenovo bought the x86 line, including all facilities and staff, from IBM, and produced last few generations of IBM branded devices. The Thinkpad design team is still operating from the same ex-IBM facilities in Japan, iirc, even keeping some place-related naming in the internal codenames (X220/X230 and related T420/T430 were "Nozomi", iirc based on my spelunking in firmware)
throwawayswede 5y ago
Same. I haven't tried that many different vendors, but Linux on Lenovo's is by far the most supported of all the Asus, HP, Sony, and random others I've tried. At least with onsite support the technical person understand and knows what they're working with.
peoplefromibiza 5y ago
my experience as well, as a Debian guy. Lenovo laptops gave me the best Linux experience out of the box, my only problems have been with the NVidia graphic card, but as others have said that's a known issue and is not Lenovo's fault, even though it got better with time and right now I'm running Plasma+Wayland on Debian testing and apart some hit and miss with copy/paste, it worked great so far.

southerntofu 5y ago

Thanks for sharing your experience. As a distro maintainer, do you have access to the complete datasheets of the entire laptop in order to provide decent drivers? Maybe even the source code of the reference Windows drivers? If so, maybe you could "pressure" your contacts over at Lenovo to get them published once and for all so systems/distros can provide decent support?

jwildeboer 5y ago
Most drivers are upstreamed anyways, nowadays. We get some early access and work with that, but the resulting code is always upstreamed and open source, so feel free to use that code at any time.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > the resulting code is always upstreamed and open source Are you saying there is 0 binary blobs involved in running a modern Thinkpad? I find that hard to believe (although i would love it). I'm guessing there's a few blobs in the kernel tree itself, and even more firmware blobs the kernel doesn't even know about. On the topic of how Linux deals very little with actual hardware on modern machines, i really enjoyed this talk called "It's time for operating systems to rediscover hardware" [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36myc8wQhLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36myc8wQhLo
  - jwildeboer 5y ago
    No. I specifically said drivers, not firmware blobs. As long as these blobs are freely redistributable, I personally have no problems with them. I understand some people do and that is understandable, but I don’t subscribe to that. This started at a time where non-volatile memory for firmware became a cost factor and companies decided to save a few bucks on the BoM and upload the blob as part of the initialisation/boot process. Which is fine with me.
  - kiwijamo 5y ago
    I think it is quite possible there is few if any binary blobs. I have a Lenovo X1 and everything pretty much works out of the box on base Arch Linux (and Debian before that). I think it also helps that my X1 has Intel graphics, Intel Wi-Fi, etc which has very good support which I know is not a given for others (e.g. Broadcom Wi-Fi, Nvidia graphics, et al). It is easily the best Linux experience I've ever had.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      > I have a Lenovo X1 and everything pretty much works out of the box on base Arch Linux I'd be curious to know if it actually works well with linux-libre (Linux without the binary blobs). It's apparently not maintained as a distro package but is available on the AUR. Moreover, I'm still curious if all hardware functions without its own binary blobs. For example, is the networking firmware really free and replaceable, or is the proprietary firmware interoperable with a FLOSS driver? Likewise, is the entire system libreboot-able? Sorry for nitpicking, i'm just looking for precise answer to a topic that's not widely questioned/debated to my knowledge.
      - rincebrain 5y ago
        I believe none of the major wireless NIC vendors these days ship cards that will do anything useful without a nonfree firmware blob, for example.
      - maccolgan 5y ago
        If you wanted to use Linux-libre, wouldn't you just use Parabola?
- jessikat 5y ago
  There's a difference between drivers being upstreamed to the Linux kernel, and a datasheet being available. The source code is not the datasheet, and if there are bugs in the driver, where is the datasheet to compare the implementation to? When it comes to hardware, source code availability is not sufficient. Other OS platforms can have different driver architectures, different kernel ABIs and other platform quirks in comparison to Linux, and having to reverse engineer a driver for another platform from a Linux kernel driver is not very open. And then there are licensing considerations to be taken into account as well. Linux is not the only opensource operating system in existence :-/ And for a project like Haiku, we don't have the people-power to reverse engineer Linux drivers, and again, the question of the GPL also applies when our kernel & drivers are MIT licensed.
  - jwildeboer 5y ago
    As a software maintainer/distributor, I don’t think we at Red Hat are the ones responsible to publish data sheets. That’s the job of the hardware manufacturer/vendor. When they decide to only offer it in non-public ways but allow us to help with getting the drivers upstream AND open source, it is a deal you might not like, but I, as a pragmatist can accept. We’re not the only Linux distributor working this way. Ubuntu/Canonical and SUSE don’t work that different from us on this. Again. You may not like it, and I understand that, but it has lead to making Linux a first class OS on Lenovo with an upstream first goal. I like it that way, even if it can become even better and more open.
    - jessikat 5y ago
      Of course not. It just gets more to the point of the original article. Whilst publishing and upstreaming driver source code for Linux is awesome, it's still only a half-measure in the overall picture of things being truly open, and we should try to demand more from hardware manufacturers. But we don't really have much sway in those regards, and it's disappointing as an OS-enthusiast, and a Haiku developer.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      > As a software maintainer/distributor, I don’t think we at Red Hat are the ones responsible to publish data sheets. I don't think the parent commenter suggested you are responsible for publishing the material. However, it would be great to have vocal support from distro maintainers to encourage hardware manufacturers to publish them in order to provide better support across all systems. If only, to have more transparency about what parts of "supported hardware" are actually supported by the distro drivers, and what specific datasheet references could be requested through other venues (such as directly asking the manufacturer).

jwildeboer 5y ago

Oh, FTR, none of my laptops had nVidia graphics. Intel graphics has always been Good Enough(tm) for my use case (travelling evangelist who presents at conferences and wants enough oomph for some demos on the laptop itself with virtualisation and/or containers). Nvidia graphics causing problems on laptops is a known issue that only Nvidia can fix by opening up more.

kiryin 5y ago

This has largely been my experience as well, also using Fedora but I doubt that matters much. I rarely have issues, in comparison to the endless stream of ACPI and other hurdles other people seem to be going through with their laptops. Also LVFS is a godsend, I wish every vendor ever participated. I get updates even for my thunderbolt dock.

nextos 5y ago
Lenovo is very nice hardware to run Linux. As you say, they even care about updating firmware. However, there are a few things that IMHO are holding them back: * In EU, sales and support are outsourced (to Digital River Ireland Ltd). Support is a disgrace. Sales are also bad, as pricing is ridiculous compared to the US (often 1.5-2x more expensive than Apple) and most models are released late. Besides, they often sell open-box machines as brand new. If the want to compare to Apple, Lenovo should try to have unified global sales and guarantee. * They sell way too many Thinkpad variants, so they often release some that are unpolished. Lenovo should consolidate their lineup into fewer models. * They are lagging back with processor updates, compared to other PC manufacturers or non-Thinkpad Lenovos. Thinkpads are often sold with previous generation Intel CPUs. Models with AMD variants are seldomly available.
- def_true_false 5y ago
  > In EU, sales and support are outsourced (to Digital River Ireland Ltd). AMD happens to use this company for orders on their own site as well. If anyone wants to see how bad an e-commerce experience can be, I suggest they try to order something from AMD.com It used to be even worse, but it seems they at least figured out that billing and shipping addresses can differ, and instead of ignoring most of the EU countries, they now ignore only about half of them. The AMD subreddit also had a few threads about this.
  - nextos 5y ago
    Yes, I don't understand why any brand would like to taint their reputation by using these middlemen.

Loic 5y ago

My first Thinkpad was a T41P, in between a series from the Xs, then back to T now that the Ts are so easy to carry. I never used Windows on them, first a mix of different distros, then when Ubuntu was released, Ubuntu. I never had any issues, only on the X220, the SD flash reader was borking my cards and I had to get an external flash reader. I cannot imagine using something different. So my experience is a bit like yours, this for 20+ years.

p_l 5y ago

Lenovo bought the x86 line, including all facilities and staff, from IBM, and produced last few generations of IBM branded devices. The Thinkpad design team is still operating from the same ex-IBM facilities in Japan, iirc, even keeping some place-related naming in the internal codenames (X220/X230 and related T420/T430 were "Nozomi", iirc based on my spelunking in firmware)

throwawayswede 5y ago

Same. I haven't tried that many different vendors, but Linux on Lenovo's is by far the most supported of all the Asus, HP, Sony, and random others I've tried. At least with onsite support the technical person understand and knows what they're working with.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago

my experience as well, as a Debian guy. Lenovo laptops gave me the best Linux experience out of the box, my only problems have been with the NVidia graphic card, but as others have said that's a known issue and is not Lenovo's fault, even though it got better with time and right now I'm running Plasma+Wayland on Debian testing and apart some hit and miss with copy/paste, it worked great so far.