4 ms·

Thinkpads work great.

tekacs 12y ago
... unfortunately the state of Linux on laptops makes the all-too-common case of _repurposing_ a laptop incredibly painful. :/ ... unless you think ahead and only buy (and recommend) Thinkpads.
- mattkrea 12y ago
  Very specific Chromebooks fit the bill as well. One that works particularly well is the Acer C720. Edit: wanted to clarify that this C720 is my current personal portable. My other is a custom built desktop also running Ubuntu.
  - aaron-lebo 12y ago
    What distro are you running on the c720? Getting arch to run required loading up modified kernels, none of which ever worked and I just gave up.
  - mattkrea 12y ago
    Since I can't reply to 'aaron-lebo" in the app I'm using: I'm running Ubuntu and a set of kernel modules I can link later but they are the very same that were then altered for Arch ( which I also tried but had some problems with ). These have carried me from 13.04-14.04 and I'm hoping the 3.17 kernel will be included soon because these components are built right into that kernel version AFAIK.
  - pervycreeper 12y ago
    No (non-chrome) distro currently works out of the box on the c720 (at least among the x64 variants). The most convenient solution at the moment involves recompiling the kernel after every security upgrade, which is hardly ideal.
    - mattkrea 12y ago
      While technically you're right the worst I have to do is pay attention when a kernel upgrade is part of apt-get dist-upgrade and then run a single script then reboot.
      - pervycreeper 12y ago
        >the worst I have to do is pay attention Well, that does kinda destroy the convenience of apt.
ggreer 12y ago
Did you not see my links to where a ThinkPad, certified by Ubuntu, has broken screen brightness? I own an X140e and it has been a nightmare. I've had it for a year and I still can't get bluetooth to work[1]. I've also tried a Carbon X1 and it leaves much to be desired. Like I said, it's a gamble. Sometimes the hardware and drivers and phase of the moon is right and everything works. Sometimes no amount of kernel flags and customized modules will fix it. I (along with many others) am willing to pay to not have to worry about potential problems. 1. I ranted a little about it near the end of a recent blog post: http://geoff.greer.fm/2015/01/03/ten-years-of-progress-in-laptops/ http://geoff.greer.fm/2015/01/03/ten-years-of-progress-in-la...
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  I haven't seen you mention it anywhere, so did you try a BIOS / firmware update? I've had similar bugs on multiple Thinkpads before and they were universally cured by an update.
  - ggreer 12y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion, but I've updated the BIOS multiple times. It didn't fix anything.
    - iwince 12y ago
      What version of Ubuntu? If it's 12 then you might need to do what I did for my new PC a year ago to get the latest drivers: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack That fixed the only issue I had which was with the 1 Gig ethernet. Now I'm on stock 14 and of course it has all the newer drivers already.
      - ggreer 12y ago
        I've tried 12.04LTS, 13.10, 14.04LTS, and now 14.10. Sometimes upgrading, sometimes from a clean install. The current issues with my ThinkPad are due to bugs in the latest drivers.

... unfortunately the state of Linux on laptops makes the all-too-common case of _repurposing_ a laptop incredibly painful. :/ ... unless you think ahead and only buy (and recommend) Thinkpads.

mattkrea 12y ago
Very specific Chromebooks fit the bill as well. One that works particularly well is the Acer C720. Edit: wanted to clarify that this C720 is my current personal portable. My other is a custom built desktop also running Ubuntu.
- aaron-lebo 12y ago
  What distro are you running on the c720? Getting arch to run required loading up modified kernels, none of which ever worked and I just gave up.
- mattkrea 12y ago
  Since I can't reply to 'aaron-lebo" in the app I'm using: I'm running Ubuntu and a set of kernel modules I can link later but they are the very same that were then altered for Arch ( which I also tried but had some problems with ). These have carried me from 13.04-14.04 and I'm hoping the 3.17 kernel will be included soon because these components are built right into that kernel version AFAIK.
- pervycreeper 12y ago
  No (non-chrome) distro currently works out of the box on the c720 (at least among the x64 variants). The most convenient solution at the moment involves recompiling the kernel after every security upgrade, which is hardly ideal.
  - mattkrea 12y ago
    While technically you're right the worst I have to do is pay attention when a kernel upgrade is part of apt-get dist-upgrade and then run a single script then reboot.
    - pervycreeper 12y ago
      >the worst I have to do is pay attention Well, that does kinda destroy the convenience of apt.

ggreer 12y ago

Did you not see my links to where a ThinkPad, certified by Ubuntu, has broken screen brightness? I own an X140e and it has been a nightmare. I've had it for a year and I still can't get bluetooth to work[1]. I've also tried a Carbon X1 and it leaves much to be desired. Like I said, it's a gamble. Sometimes the hardware and drivers and phase of the moon is right and everything works. Sometimes no amount of kernel flags and customized modules will fix it. I (along with many others) am willing to pay to not have to worry about potential problems. 1. I ranted a little about it near the end of a recent blog post: http://geoff.greer.fm/2015/01/03/ten-years-of-progress-in-laptops/ http://geoff.greer.fm/2015/01/03/ten-years-of-progress-in-la...

TD-Linux 12y ago
I haven't seen you mention it anywhere, so did you try a BIOS / firmware update? I've had similar bugs on multiple Thinkpads before and they were universally cured by an update.
- ggreer 12y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion, but I've updated the BIOS multiple times. It didn't fix anything.
  - iwince 12y ago
    What version of Ubuntu? If it's 12 then you might need to do what I did for my new PC a year ago to get the latest drivers: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack That fixed the only issue I had which was with the 1 Gig ethernet. Now I'm on stock 14 and of course it has all the newer drivers already.
    - ggreer 12y ago
      I've tried 12.04LTS, 13.10, 14.04LTS, and now 14.10. Sometimes upgrading, sometimes from a clean install. The current issues with my ThinkPad are due to bugs in the latest drivers.