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I'm typing this on a brand-new Lenovo (T14s gen 3 AMD), the first brand-new laptop I've bought myself in about a decade the wifi didn't work on the 5.15 LTS ke

I'm typing this on a brand-new Lenovo (T14s gen 3 AMD), the first brand-new laptop I've bought myself in about a decade the wifi didn't work on the 5.15 LTS kernel that NixOS defaults to, so I had to upgrade to 6.0. and there's some wonkiness with suspend, where the system will sometimes re-suspend itself a moment after opening the lid. a minor annoyance that I haven't taken the time to debug yet. my previous Lenovos, I've always bought used ~3 year old models from eBay and local refurbishers. these slightly outdated models would always work perfectly with LTS kernels, no fiddling needed. so if Linux compatibility is a higher priority than having the absolute newest hardware, I can definitely recommend looking at used Lenovos. in particular, I recommend buying a model with no SSD whenever possible, and ordering a brand-new SSD separately. this way you know you're not getting an elderly drive, or one that was used for Chia mining, or whatever.

colordrops 4y ago
I'm using NixOS 22.11 with a Thinkpad T490s and it's basically flawless. Everything works as expected, including the fingerprint reader. My best Linux laptop experience yet.
pantalaimon 4y ago
My T430s is still going strong. The good thing is that with Linux you don’t need the latest hardware to have a snappy system. The bad thing is that not having the latest hardware is required if you don’t want to tinker.
- sshine 4y ago
  > with Linux you don’t need the latest hardware If you work with compiled languages, having good hardware is a real quality of life improvement.
  - dima55 4y ago
    Depends strongly on the language and what you're compiling. C++ builds are glacial on any hardware. Plain C is usually just fine. I'm using a T430 and T61, and my life is great.
    - sshine 4y ago
      Rust and Haskell take time. I haven't tried C++. I have a 2021 M1 and a Linux laptop with a i7-11700 desktop CPU. And compiling takes shorter on my computers than a lot of other computers.
  - pantalaimon 4y ago
    I work mostly with C on embedded targets where build times are not really an issue. If I have to build a Linux kernel, that's a different story.
- nortonham 4y ago
  > My T430s is still going strong. Mine too! I would say it all depends on use case. If OP has certain tasks in mind they should maybe invest in something more powerful/newer. Having said that the t430s is a solid machine.
- boneitis 4y ago
  Not meant to be downer (as a very, very happy owner of a pocket T420s if its replacement T480s should fail me): To anyone considering going back this far in hardware gen, my T420s (i7, 16GB memory, LUKS-encrypted SSD needed for work) on Mint + MATE DE could flat-out _not_ handle work video calls unless it was the _only_ thing that was running with everything else closed down. Even then, it was watching slideshows. It was the sole reason I needed to buy a new (as in a secondhand T480s on eBay last year) machine.
  - notpushkin 4y ago
    Not sure about T420s, but my T420 handled Zoom calls with Codium and browser running in the background (and sometimes used too) just fine. One thing it couldn't handle however is recording the call (the recording was like 1 FPS and almost no sound). Ubuntu, Xfce, can't recall the specs right now but definitely not top of the line.
    - mjcohen 4y ago
      Even if the call was recorded in the cloud?
      - boneitis 4y ago
        I assume he means OBS or some such running locally.
        notpushkin 4y ago
        Yeah. Zoom's built in recording didn't work for some reason (and tbh I'm not sure that would be in cloud either).
  - bor3d4p3 4y ago
    That could have been a distro bug though. Ubuntu has an issue right now where some hardware configs will have a hard time with browser based video if a USB headset is plugged in; YouTube sits and spins for me on a dual Xeon Dell Workstation that’s 2 years old, with 32GB RAM and dual 2080s using any browser. As soon as I unplug the wireless headset from its USB charging cable, smooths right out. I’m not saying you hit the same bug I’m saying software is hard.
nextos 4y ago
IMHO ARM ThinkPads have a lot of potential due to their low-heat fanless design. The X13s is nearly there in terms of Linux support, better in some regards than the M1. Next generation will be hopefully closer to the M1 in terms of performance. However, pricing is weird in some markets. Here in EU/UK, the X13s is really expensive and makes no sense to purchase.
- schaefer 4y ago
  I had my eye on the x13s, but the lack of ports is a real bummer.
shmerl 4y ago
You could probably replace WiFi chip with Intel one and it would have avoided the issue. I did that with a few Lenovo laptops, but you should watch out for their WiFi chips whitelisting, which is a very annoying hidden blocker if you aren't aware of it. > and there's some wonkiness with suspend Check their UEFI, I think they started adding an option for Linux there specifically to handle suspend better. Set it to Linux instead of Windows.
Mic92 4y ago
The nixos-hardware module also upgrades your linux kernel for this model already: https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/blob/e2f9c6f7360f3e0f7b0bc2a3e7193a290c5d4c81/lenovo/thinkpad/t14s/amd/gen1/default.nix#L12 https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/blob/e2f9c6f7360f3e0...
herbst 4y ago
I only recently replaced my T420 with T460s as my daily driver. M girlfriend got a T570 or 80. There have been zero issues with Linux compatibility, just install and good to go. I only recommend and would buy thinkpads. Also because as you said you get them very affordable after they spend 2 years in a office.
11mariom 4y ago
I bought almost new x13 AMD 1gen and everything worked without any issues from day 1, on Debian. But it was like a year from first reviews. So maybe getting brand new on day 1 can give some issues or it's related to NixOS (I have no experience with it)
Zvez 4y ago
>where the system will sometimes re-suspend itself a moment after opening the lid. a minor annoyance that I haven't taken the time to debug yet heh, I have a similar issue on my T470 in xfce. And in my case it can sometimes even hang in this state: you see your desktop, but can't interact with it. So you have to go the terminal and kill screensaver service. The small issues like these are the reason why I still prefer to use macbook for work: its not perfect and might be too opinionated, but at least it is predictable.
deleted 4y ago
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colordrops 4y ago

I'm using NixOS 22.11 with a Thinkpad T490s and it's basically flawless. Everything works as expected, including the fingerprint reader. My best Linux laptop experience yet.

pantalaimon 4y ago

My T430s is still going strong. The good thing is that with Linux you don’t need the latest hardware to have a snappy system. The bad thing is that not having the latest hardware is required if you don’t want to tinker.

sshine 4y ago
> with Linux you don’t need the latest hardware If you work with compiled languages, having good hardware is a real quality of life improvement.
- dima55 4y ago
  Depends strongly on the language and what you're compiling. C++ builds are glacial on any hardware. Plain C is usually just fine. I'm using a T430 and T61, and my life is great.
  - sshine 4y ago
    Rust and Haskell take time. I haven't tried C++. I have a 2021 M1 and a Linux laptop with a i7-11700 desktop CPU. And compiling takes shorter on my computers than a lot of other computers.
- pantalaimon 4y ago
  I work mostly with C on embedded targets where build times are not really an issue. If I have to build a Linux kernel, that's a different story.
nortonham 4y ago
> My T430s is still going strong. Mine too! I would say it all depends on use case. If OP has certain tasks in mind they should maybe invest in something more powerful/newer. Having said that the t430s is a solid machine.
boneitis 4y ago
Not meant to be downer (as a very, very happy owner of a pocket T420s if its replacement T480s should fail me): To anyone considering going back this far in hardware gen, my T420s (i7, 16GB memory, LUKS-encrypted SSD needed for work) on Mint + MATE DE could flat-out _not_ handle work video calls unless it was the _only_ thing that was running with everything else closed down. Even then, it was watching slideshows. It was the sole reason I needed to buy a new (as in a secondhand T480s on eBay last year) machine.
- notpushkin 4y ago
  Not sure about T420s, but my T420 handled Zoom calls with Codium and browser running in the background (and sometimes used too) just fine. One thing it couldn't handle however is recording the call (the recording was like 1 FPS and almost no sound). Ubuntu, Xfce, can't recall the specs right now but definitely not top of the line.
  - mjcohen 4y ago
    Even if the call was recorded in the cloud?
    - boneitis 4y ago
      I assume he means OBS or some such running locally.
      - notpushkin 4y ago
        Yeah. Zoom's built in recording didn't work for some reason (and tbh I'm not sure that would be in cloud either).
- bor3d4p3 4y ago
  That could have been a distro bug though. Ubuntu has an issue right now where some hardware configs will have a hard time with browser based video if a USB headset is plugged in; YouTube sits and spins for me on a dual Xeon Dell Workstation that’s 2 years old, with 32GB RAM and dual 2080s using any browser. As soon as I unplug the wireless headset from its USB charging cable, smooths right out. I’m not saying you hit the same bug I’m saying software is hard.

nextos 4y ago

IMHO ARM ThinkPads have a lot of potential due to their low-heat fanless design. The X13s is nearly there in terms of Linux support, better in some regards than the M1. Next generation will be hopefully closer to the M1 in terms of performance. However, pricing is weird in some markets. Here in EU/UK, the X13s is really expensive and makes no sense to purchase.

schaefer 4y ago
I had my eye on the x13s, but the lack of ports is a real bummer.

shmerl 4y ago

You could probably replace WiFi chip with Intel one and it would have avoided the issue. I did that with a few Lenovo laptops, but you should watch out for their WiFi chips whitelisting, which is a very annoying hidden blocker if you aren't aware of it. > and there's some wonkiness with suspend Check their UEFI, I think they started adding an option for Linux there specifically to handle suspend better. Set it to Linux instead of Windows.

Mic92 4y ago

The nixos-hardware module also upgrades your linux kernel for this model already: https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/blob/e2f9c6f7360f3e0f7b0bc2a3e7193a290c5d4c81/lenovo/thinkpad/t14s/amd/gen1/default.nix#L12 https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/blob/e2f9c6f7360f3e0...

herbst 4y ago

I only recently replaced my T420 with T460s as my daily driver. M girlfriend got a T570 or 80. There have been zero issues with Linux compatibility, just install and good to go. I only recommend and would buy thinkpads. Also because as you said you get them very affordable after they spend 2 years in a office.

11mariom 4y ago

I bought almost new x13 AMD 1gen and everything worked without any issues from day 1, on Debian. But it was like a year from first reviews. So maybe getting brand new on day 1 can give some issues or it's related to NixOS (I have no experience with it)

Zvez 4y ago

>where the system will sometimes re-suspend itself a moment after opening the lid. a minor annoyance that I haven't taken the time to debug yet heh, I have a similar issue on my T470 in xfce. And in my case it can sometimes even hang in this state: you see your desktop, but can't interact with it. So you have to go the terminal and kill screensaver service. The small issues like these are the reason why I still prefer to use macbook for work: its not perfect and might be too opinionated, but at least it is predictable.

deleted 4y ago

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