What’s more, Lenovo will also upstream device drivers directly to the Linux kernel, to help maintain stability and compatibility throughout the life of the workstation.
Glad to hear that they’re focused on upstreaming their code. IMO if a laptop relies on non-mainline code then it doesn’t really have good Linux support.
Dell was really eating their lunch. Stuff like firmware upgrade work very very well on the Dell XPS 15. One of my colleagues regularly updates his bios from GNU/Linux with a single click.
Me and my colleagues do this with their Thinkpads as well. Lenovo provides a lot of firmwares to the Linux Vendor Firmware Service: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/
That would be nice. But where in the article do you see any evidence of a MS tax rebate? I think it’s more likely that they’d just pocket the difference. I’d actually be fine with that, if they spent it on open-source driver development.
Oh finally! I’ve been waiting for this ever since I’ve read about it on Fedora magazine! I was setting myself up for a while now for getting a new laptop, to replace both my old T420 and my desktop and when I saw that they will offer Fedora pre-installed, I couldn’t wait! I hope they ship those Fedora ThinkPads soon.
Linux support on Thinkpads have always been pretty good. I wonder if this announcement means that Lenovo is putting more resources into linux support for their Thinkpads or if this has been an ongoing process and they’ve just recently hit a threshold.
I just read the specs for that, and am still convinced that every new “modern” laptop now is a step backwards.
My x230 has 2x the memory (16GB) and it’s soldered down (lol) on the x390 so you’re stuck with that forever. Is the hard drive at least replaceable? I guess I value repairability more than most consumers now, because I’m sick of having to throw away electronics after ~2 years. The x390 looks just like another disposable laptop. (the “17.5hr” battery life is super impressive though, but probably inflated)
Ironically, I installed BIOS and Intel ME updates from Lenovo this morning using fwupdmgr update, something I’ve done many times before on my T480s.
Except this time around, it wiped everything except the preinstalled ‘Windows Boot Manager’ entry from my UEFI Boot Order List, which stopped me rebooting after the firmware update completed until I fished out a USB drive with an Arch ISO so I could re-run grub-install and restore the entry.
To me, this means they simply didn’t test the update with Linux/UEFI systems, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they did check BIOS boot, given it’s still more common.
I hope they sort out this sort of issue as a part of this ‘certification’ process!
I did the same thing on my T480s (also running Linux/UEFI) yesterday without issues, so it’s most likely a more complicated problem than “only Windows is supported”.
Glad to hear that they’re focused on upstreaming their code. IMO if a laptop relies on non-mainline code then it doesn’t really have good Linux support.
Dell was really eating their lunch. Stuff like firmware upgrade work very very well on the Dell XPS 15. One of my colleagues regularly updates his bios from GNU/Linux with a single click.
Me and my colleagues do this with their Thinkpads as well. Lenovo provides a lot of firmwares to the Linux Vendor Firmware Service: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/
This works fine on my thinkpad too.
I’m unreasonably happy about this. I’m always a bit angry I paid for a copy of Windows when I buy another ThinkPad and immediately wipe the drive.
You could ask a refund for that copy of Windows.
That would be nice. But where in the article do you see any evidence of a MS tax rebate? I think it’s more likely that they’d just pocket the difference. I’d actually be fine with that, if they spent it on open-source driver development.
I don’t believe a word of it. They said the same thing two years ago, and still nothing.
Oh finally! I’ve been waiting for this ever since I’ve read about it on Fedora magazine! I was setting myself up for a while now for getting a new laptop, to replace both my old T420 and my desktop and when I saw that they will offer Fedora pre-installed, I couldn’t wait! I hope they ship those Fedora ThinkPads soon.
Edit: apparently “early in Q3”, yay!
Linux support on Thinkpads have always been pretty good. I wonder if this announcement means that Lenovo is putting more resources into linux support for their Thinkpads or if this has been an ongoing process and they’ve just recently hit a threshold.
Now they just need to release the Ryzen 4000 models, and I may just be ready to move on from my x230…
I switched to an x390 and don’t regret it
I just read the specs for that, and am still convinced that every new “modern” laptop now is a step backwards.
My x230 has 2x the memory (16GB) and it’s soldered down (lol) on the x390 so you’re stuck with that forever. Is the hard drive at least replaceable? I guess I value repairability more than most consumers now, because I’m sick of having to throw away electronics after ~2 years. The x390 looks just like another disposable laptop. (the “17.5hr” battery life is super impressive though, but probably inflated)
The disk is just a user replaceable M.2 NVMe drive. You can get 16GB of RAM in an X390 as well if you choose the i7 CPU option.
from what I’ve seen, almost all SSDs are user replaceable (m.2) in modern laptops
a notable exception is Apple, who uses a proprietary type of drive (because of course they do)
Ironically, I installed BIOS and Intel ME updates from Lenovo this morning using
fwupdmgr update, something I’ve done many times before on my T480s.Except this time around, it wiped everything except the preinstalled ‘Windows Boot Manager’ entry from my UEFI Boot Order List, which stopped me rebooting after the firmware update completed until I fished out a USB drive with an Arch ISO so I could re-run
grub-installand restore the entry.To me, this means they simply didn’t test the update with Linux/UEFI systems, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they did check BIOS boot, given it’s still more common.
I hope they sort out this sort of issue as a part of this ‘certification’ process!
I did the same thing on my T480s (also running Linux/UEFI) yesterday without issues, so it’s most likely a more complicated problem than “only Windows is supported”.
Lenovo still hasn’t fixed the CPU throttle bug on my X1C6. At this point, I doubt that it will ever get fixed.