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Lenovo Releases First Fedora Linux ThinkPad Laptop (zdnet.com) 80
Today, Lenovo has released a ThinkPad with Red Hat's community Linux, Fedora. ZDNet reports: First in this new Linux-friendly lineup is the X1 Carbon Gen 8. It will be followed by forthcoming versions of the ThinkPad P1 Gen2 and ThinkPad P53. While ThinkPads are usually meant for business users, Lenovo will be happy to sell the Fedora-powered X1 Carbon to home users as well. The new X1 Carbon runs Fedora Workstation 32. This cutting-edge Linux distribution uses the Linux Kernel 5.6. It includes WireGuard virtual private network (VPN) support and USB4 support. This Fedora version uses the new GNOME 3.36 for its default desktop.
The system itself comes standard with a 10th Generation Intel Core 1.6Ghz i5-10210U CPU, with up to 4.20 GHz with Turbo Boost. This processor boasts 4 Cores, 8 Threads, and a 6 MB cache. It also comes with 8MBs of LPDDR3 RAM. Unfortunately, its memory is soldered in. While that reduces the manufacturing costs, Linux users tend to like to optimize their hardware and this restricts their ability to add RAM. You can upgrade it to 16MBs, of course, when you buy it for an additional $149. For storage, the X1 defaults to a 256GB SSD. You can push it up to a 1TB SSD. That upgrade will cost you $536.
The X1 Carbon Gen 8 has a 14.0" Full High Definition (FHD) (1920 x 1080) screen. For practical purposes, this is as high-a-resolution as you want on a laptop. I've used laptops with Ultra High Definition (UHD), aka 4K, with 3840x2160 resolution, and I've found the text to be painfully small. This display is powered by an integrated Intel HD Graphics chipset. For networking, the X1 uses an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 802.11AX with vPro (2 x 2) & Bluetooth 5.0 chipset. I've used other laptops with this wireless networking hardware and it tends to work extremely well. The entire default package has a base price of $2,145. For now, it's available for $1,287. If you want to order one, be ready for a wait. You can expect to wait three weeks before Lenovo ships it to you.
The system itself comes standard with a 10th Generation Intel Core 1.6Ghz i5-10210U CPU, with up to 4.20 GHz with Turbo Boost. This processor boasts 4 Cores, 8 Threads, and a 6 MB cache. It also comes with 8MBs of LPDDR3 RAM. Unfortunately, its memory is soldered in. While that reduces the manufacturing costs, Linux users tend to like to optimize their hardware and this restricts their ability to add RAM. You can upgrade it to 16MBs, of course, when you buy it for an additional $149. For storage, the X1 defaults to a 256GB SSD. You can push it up to a 1TB SSD. That upgrade will cost you $536.
The X1 Carbon Gen 8 has a 14.0" Full High Definition (FHD) (1920 x 1080) screen. For practical purposes, this is as high-a-resolution as you want on a laptop. I've used laptops with Ultra High Definition (UHD), aka 4K, with 3840x2160 resolution, and I've found the text to be painfully small. This display is powered by an integrated Intel HD Graphics chipset. For networking, the X1 uses an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 802.11AX with vPro (2 x 2) & Bluetooth 5.0 chipset. I've used other laptops with this wireless networking hardware and it tends to work extremely well. The entire default package has a base price of $2,145. For now, it's available for $1,287. If you want to order one, be ready for a wait. You can expect to wait three weeks before Lenovo ships it to you.
Text too small? (Score:3)
From the summary
>The X1 Carbon Gen 8 has a 14.0" Full High Definition (FHD) (1920 x 1080) screen. For practical purposes, this is as high-a-resolution as you want on a laptop. I've used laptops with Ultra High Definition (UHD), aka 4K, with 3840x2160 resolution, and I've found the text to be painfully small.
Then they're doing it wrong. High res display is to make the text smoother (and thus easier to read), not to make it smaller. Doesn't the included DE properly support high res displays?
Re:Text too small? (Score:5, Insightful)
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But as they pre-install the system, they can configure default font size when doing so.
And if Gnome is this un-themeable, then they can upgrade to a better window manager.
Re:Text too small? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: Text too small? (Score:2)
Re: Text too small? (Score:2)
Re:Text too small? (Score:4, Interesting)
When the people who design your GUI are stubborn and refuse to design scaleable interface elements. That's why it often does not looks right at high resolution on a small display. My 30" 2560x1440 display reports 96x96 dpi. A 1920x1080 14" should report something around 157 dpi. A 10 point font should by physically the same size on both displays (a . should be 10/72nds of an inch).
There is a per display DPI attribute in X11 that is autodetected correctly in 99% of cases (from the display's EDID) . GTK, QT, Freetype [sourceforge.net], etc can see and use the DPI setting just fine. Why toolkits hack it to undo the DPI settings is probably not done for any good reason, and I say hack because Freetype (and Pango and Cairo) can see DPI and therefor the problems must be intentionally introduced at higher layers of software.
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There is a per display DPI attribute in X11 that is autodetected correctly in 99% of cases (from the display's EDID) . GTK, QT, Freetype, etc can see and use the DPI setting just fine. Why toolkits hack it to undo the DPI settings is probably not done for any good reason, and I say hack because Freetype (and Pango and Cairo) can see DPI and therefor the problems must be intentionally introduced at higher layers of software.
95% of X not being able to do something is actually toolkits being crap.
Re: Text too small? (Score:1)
I found 123 DPI to be the ideal DPI for my eyes at my normal sitting distance. My price comparison site (geizhals.de, highly recommended) allows filtering by DPI. So I picked the biggest full-SRGB IPS display I could find in my price range, and got 2560x1440 too, back then.
So... at 96x96 DPI ... are you running a 30.6" screen perchance?
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I have the exact laptop, running Fedora 32, except in 4k (and obviously it came with Windows).
You can literally switch between 1920x1080 at 100% and 3840x2160 at 200% and the only thing that changes is the blurriness. Every application I have tried just works, no change in size of anything -- except some Wine applications need to be relaunched after the switch.
More Expensive than Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fedora is also an odd choice for picking a Linux operating system, as you only get 1 year of OS update support for it.
They would probably be better off choosing RHEL8 or the latest Ubuntu LTS release.
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If they're going the Fedora/RHEL route I think they would be better off using CentOS. It may be slightly behind when it comes to updates but it will be the most stable and doesn't cost like RHEL. Going with CentOS (or Ubuntu LTS as you suggest) would prevent novice users from running into hairy problems.
. . .written on a Fedora device. If I ever do a fresh install on this laptop it will become a CentOS device, though.
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If your lapto
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Fedora does in-place upgrades through two releases. Good luck getting that with RHEL or LTS.
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Re:More Expensive than Windows (Score:4, Interesting)
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I tried CentOS 8 on my laptop, I welcomed not having to upgrade to ~ 10 years. I reverted to Fedora within a month.
The experience made me fully understand why they went with Fedora. Lots of packages a laptop/desktop user would want are not available for CentOS 8 even a year after release repo's are seriously lacking.
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CentOS is absolutely not a desktop operating system, at least for me.
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Re:More Expensive than Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
It actually *does* have a lot to do with Lenovo's input. They came to Red Hat's desktop team and said that they're getting demand they want to fill. They're working with their hardware suppliers for components to make sure all of those components work with Linux and get firmware updates via LVFS. They also very much wanted to make sure that the systems work with out-of-the-box Fedora Workstation with no custom kernel or special modifications.
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It's likely because they expect support cost to be higher, particularly among users who buy it preconfigured that way. If you're willing and able to reinstall yourself, the support cost will not be as high.
Of course, their secret licensing deal with Microsoft probably also has some anti-competitive rules like you pay us for every unit produced regardless of windows installs.
Re:More Expensive than Windows (Score:5, Informative)
The base price for the Linux system is cheaper. Looks like there is a specific Windows preconfigured model which is on deeper discount right now. I don't think you can get a 16GB Windows model cheaper than the Fedora model (at least not normally -- again, a specific model may have a sale price in te future at some point).
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Re: More Expensive than Windows (Score:1)
You'd be supporting Microsoft that way. ;)
It's the same morale conoundrum as buying local or buying from China at a lower price, knowing what you're doing with that.
(OK, for hardware, you're also buying from China in any case.
Only 8MB of RAM?!?!? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Only 8MB of RAM?!?!? (Score:2)
640k is enough for anyone
16 is an option; more models coming soon (Score:2)
The base model has only 8MB, which I agree is less than I'd want, but presents a budget option. You can upgrade to 16 (soldered). The P1 Gen 2 and P53 are on the way, and those allow higher memory configurations (and are user-upgradeable).
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Oh, ha! That's what I get for posting in the middle of the night. I even noticed the typo in the original article. My only excuse is that I also think that 8GB is quite low.
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I'm working on a 16GB mac book pro right now - and I'd like 32GB. 16GB is enough for most of the day, but you try opening a few browser tabs onto "web apps" and then things go wrong quite quickly. Not all my memory is browser, but once you've got email, slack and maybe a bit of docker going, you need a bit more ram (definitely if you want to use a VM or two).
It's nice to see this happening, and I'll bet it's a nice machine to use. I'll wait until a 32GB-capable version comes out though :-(
Keyboard Layout = Dead on Arrival (Score:3)
Dell and Lenovo have decided to move the Home and End keys to the top row. WTF are they thinking?
Since these 2 laptop resellers started doing this about the same I suspect they buy components from the same Chinese manufacturer.
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On all the Lenovo machines we purchased, the Esc key is in the top left corner on all of them.
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the keyboard layout must have something to do with the Lenovo slogan that I always hated: "Styled for premium performance"
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As long as the Function key is still on the outside
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They've been doing that for something like 8 years now? They really need to go back to the keyboard they were using back about 15 years ago, like on the R60/T60. Better layout, better keys, better feel. And while not a problem for the X1, also ditch the numpad on the machines that have it, or make it optional. I guess to their credit they at least don't change the layout every year like some laptop manufacturers.
not for dev (Score:3)
In todays world, it would need a lot more memory to handle a serious Java api/app with some infrastructure behind it, even if all containerized.
(Yes I do realize swapping to SSD is pretty fast, but that is substandard to me personally)
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Re: not for dev (Score:2)
Then don't pick a laptop type optimized for minimum size and weight. This is an ultra portable, if you want more than 16 GB of ram and a faster processor you don't want an ultraportable.
But something seems off if 16GB of ram won't cut it. You should be able to turn your setup to use far less.
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Re: not for dev (Score:2)
What the hell kind of crap are you running?
On what planet is coding not the work that needs the lowest specs of all tasks that are not pure text writing?
But why do I ask... "java" and "containerized" already tells it all. Generation "brutally clueless hacks".
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I usually run virtualized (recently, mostly containerized), scaled down but complete infrastructure in my dev environment. I run it via same automation that manages {qa,staging,prod}, just much smaller than say prod, with minimal backing dataset
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It's plenty powerful enough to remote into a much better machine to do the actual development work on.
"...its memory is soldered in" (Score:5, Informative)
"Nothing to see here, move along..."
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It also has an Intel processor and Intel graphics.
Linux users want AMD processors and AMD graphics now.
They fucked this up completely.
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That may be so, certain SOME Linux users want to avoid Intel. But I haven't found a decent laptop that does so. Even mid-high boxes are limited.
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I'm surprisingly happy with my $300 wally world special Ryzen 3. I mean, the graphics are awfully slow, but they work well with Mint. And they even hold up to vintage gaming. I've been playing Freelancer using an install script from the Forum and it's been good for that for example. So basically anything I remember enjoying from about the Win95 days through XP or so is worth trying.
As for doing real work, it's decent enough to compile typical software, and it has plenty of CPU for DTP, basic graphics, etc.
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Both my machines are Intel/Nvidia. I'm not a purist in that regard. (And to give credit where due, dealing with Nvidia's tech support has been a very positive experience the 3-4 times I've filed a ticket with them regarding issues I've had using their stuff under Linux.)
But keeping me from upgrading the RAM and/or disk so they can try to force me to buy a more expensive model at a price increase that's 2-3 times what those components would cost me at Best Buy is one of the reasons I won't use Apple kit.
Laptops with Intel CPU Security Flaws Inside (Score:3)
Lenovo, why not an AMD Ryzen 4xxx mobile with Linux?
The AMD Ryzen 4xxx mobile chips seem nice, and other vendors have them listed. With socketed SO-DIMMs, and non-Windows, (HP's ProBook for example).
Plus, you can get a Ryzen 7 mobile with 8 cores and 16 threads.
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Oh they do, the Ryzen E14/E15 and T14/T14s support Linux very nicely.
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Oh they do, the Ryzen E14/E15 and T14/T14s support Linux very nicely.
Ah, the Ryzen E14 & E15 come with the MS-Windows tax. (Meaning you have to pay for MS-Windows even if you throw it away after installing Linux.) And the T14/T14s are Intel processors, (with the MS-Windows tax too).
But your point is taken.
As a bit of trivia, one of my former employers used either Mac books or Lenovo laptops as our work computers. I had a Lenovo running the official RHEL and it worked fine, (supported by IT department).
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Had to run a later kernel when I first installed my Ryzen 2400G mini-desktop last year. Now I can run the long term release kernels that Gentoo Linux puts out. Today, quite stable and rarely have to touch the kernel. (Except of course when I leave something out, like SquashFS. Had to fix that just last night...)
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Lenovo is exploring whether an AMD offering is worth their time and effort. If you're a sincere potential customer, let them know.
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I just got my son a Ryzen Thinkpad for school. Integrated mobile Vega, running Buster with the latest 'unsigned' kernel from -backports. $430 from NewEgg on a special they were running. Business-level BIOS and everything so you can burn the CompuTrace fuse, disable the clitmouse, and swap Fn and Ctrl.
Everything works - probably should have bought two.
Mint/Cinnamon Would Have Made Sense (Score:2)
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Re: Mint/Cinnamon Would Have Made Sense (Score:1)
I don't know a single person who uses fedora.
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I can't argue with your experience, but that does kind of make me sad. Try it out, maybe?
For what it's worth, this whole thing came about because Lenovo came to us saying they have customer demand.
terribly overpriced (Score:3)
8GB of ram soldered in and over $1200. why are companies so greedy and selling RAM configurations from 10 years ago?
Moving on from Lenovo (Score:3)
I was an IBM/Lenovo fanboy until three things happened:
1. My X1 Carbon Gen4 was not as good as usually expected. Also some important parts were not up to spec in comparison to similar products from competitors (e.g. CPU was lower spec).
2. Eventually support was needed, and it stank. I had paid for premium support, yet it took about a month to get a keyboard fixed. This fix was also not good enough. (New parts noticeably lower quality than the original.)
3. I was given a reasonably modern Dell when I started a new job. It is amazing. Up to spec. Light. Resilient. Decent keyboard. Now the sticker price is very high, but when the Lenovo finally keels over I will consider a high priced Dell.
1TB SSD.$536 what a rip at least X2 the price (Score:2)
1TB SSD.$536 what a rip at least X2 the price and that is not counting the cost of the base 256GB
Finally, the year of Linux desktop (Score:2)
ESR predicted this 20 years ago.
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Yeah, so.... I remember reading Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols articles in Byte Magazine and others back in the 1990s, when 8MB would have been amazing. He definitely knows the difference.
Who (Score:3)
... is buying quad cores with 8GB memory for $1300?
That wasn't a good price in 2016 and it's doubly not a good price now.
8MB of RAM (Score:2)
With 8MB of RAM, that you can upgrade to 16MB.
I remember those days...