Lenovo Continues Improving Their Linux Support Down To The Hardware Sensors

[Vistaus]

The thing is that all these Linux-first manufacturers are actually assembling semi-generic designs from Clevo. They aren't building their own laptop shells. In my opinion they are quite chunky and dated.

Whereas Lenovo actually design and make the whole thing. Even their Ideapads these days are sleek all-metal designs approaching the quality of a Macbook unibody.

uid313 did not say anything about laptops or desktops. And in that case, System76 is back on the table 'cause the Thelio is truly their own.

[Vistaus]

Elephant in the room is that neither Lenovo, nor any of its competitors, have an answer to the amazing M1 "Apple Silicon" even in an outright comparison, and when you factor in price it's even worse for x86. I was going to buy a Thinkpad this year but I cannot ignore the Macbooks' simply generation-ahead hardware advantage. Really tough call because I want to stay on LInux.

However, it won't take long anymore since Qualcomm is working on an M1 competitor: https://www.gizmochina.com/2021/03/1...pple-m1-rival/

Even if Apple officially supported Linux, I would never buy that M1 MacBook with its flat keys. I want real keys to type on. Mechanical would probably be nice, but those laptops are very niche, so ThinkPad keyboards are close enough for me.

[Vistaus]

As for System76 and Tuxedo being "only" Clevo resellers, at last they sell you hardware that were tested on Linux before you buy. Dell, HP and Lenovo that weren't on a list of homologated hardware, are a gamble buy. It may work, it may not, and no one on their support lines will care for you. While on the Linux-first your complain had a real chance to reach ears that will listen.

And if you have real disgust for Clevo hardware, have some dignity and at least buy enterprise grade from the big 3. Otherwise you are just trading Clevo for something Clevo-like and that is not a smart move. If it is too rich for your blood, go after a used one. They tend to be built much better than their crap consumer lines.

The System76 Thelio is designed and built by themselves, so they're not "only" Clevo resellers anymore.

[M@GOid]

The System76 Thelio is designed and built by themselves, so they're not "only" Clevo resellers anymore.

Well, they do the case (albeit a looks- before-function ones). They don't do their own motherboard/bios yet, AFAIK.

But to be honest, I don't care. The important to me is selling you something that passed homologation before selling you as Linux compatible. And at last to pretend that they will try to fix bugs in software, regarding hardware support.

[WorBlux]

However, it won't take long anymore since Qualcomm is working on an M1 competitor: https://www.gizmochina.com/2021/03/1...pple-m1-rival/

Even if Apple officially supported Linux, I would never buy that M1 MacBook with its flat keys. I want real keys to type on. Mechanical would probably be nice, but those laptops are very niche, so ThinkPad keyboards are close enough for me.

Claiming it as a competitor I think is fairly generous. Best case it that it's 4 A78's, and 4 A76's. Which in a race would barely keep in sight of the M1 much less try to keep pace. Not to mention the huge head start Apple has in integrating it's software and vendors with it's platform. Wheres Qualcomm on either Windows or linux has a lot of catching up to do in getting software to properly leverage the GPU, DSP, and NPU.

The good news for now is that it will be at least 2 or 3 years before linux developers get basic drivers up for the rest of the M1 functionality.

[vegabook]

If the new Apple M1 meets your needs with its OS, then by all means you should go get it.

It's not really an elephant that Lenovo has to deal with. They can source a CPU from almost anyone that isn't Apple and do a complete soup to nuts engineering, build out and distribute it globally. They are going to sell what sells.

In other words, they aren't in an arms race with Apple for CPU supremacy. They are in it for the sales. If CPU supremacy drives sales, then they will sell it.

Well the real issue here is that Apple's performance and power usage advantage on this device is because they've abandoned the "modular" approach and gone fully integrated. Multiple special purpose logic units on chip, fast GPU-shared RAM, (almost) on chip, and software ultra-optimised for their very specific hardware setup. It's difficult for x86 PCs in the "modular" tradition inspired by the original ISA bus, to compete, because building blocks will never be as performant as tightly integrated, holistically designed device, though this approach of course comes with a closed ecosystem which is difficult to upgrade.

Point is, Lenovo can't just "buy in" a CPU and build a computer using the old modus operandi. There's very significant R&D involved in getting up to Apple's level of hardware "teamwork", so to speak.

Also, Apple kinda has a lock on all of TSMCs leading edge nodes for the foreseeable future. They'll be 6-12 months ahead of everyone else, just on silicon process alone, at least until 3nm and probably beyond.

Not fanboying Apple btw, long time Thinkpad fan here, but I can't just ignore these new devices.

[Guest]

With realistic benchmarks, certainly not! You can get HiDPI screens everywhere, and Apples prices are just not competitive.

Their iPhone displays are actually just crap, they had 720p IPS displays for so long, while we had 1080p, 1440p and even 4K AMOLED displays. And good ones.

I admit their MacBook displays do look good, but there are many other good IPS displays too, like on my Thinkpad (which has a nice non-reflective matte display).

[Vistaus]

Well, they do the case (albeit a looks- before-function ones). They don't do their own motherboard/bios yet, AFAIK.

But still, it's mostly their own as they don't use a Clevo case

But it does raise the question: when *can* anyone claim something of their own? For example, iPhones have Samsung screens, so it's not 100% Apple hardware, yet no one would claim that they are a reseller… Same goes for laptop manufacturers using Asus motherboards, etc.

[wizard69]

I don't believe you.
Apple being cheaper than generic x86 ? And on top of this, on ARM which has known shortcomings ? Okay ARM is fun but it would have to be really really over the competition for me to invest in an ARM laptop.
Please prove me wrong.

You must be out of touch with what is happening in the Apple/ARM world, the M1 is truly amazing! As for known shortcomings I'm not sure what you are talkign about there, ARM has been running Linux/UNIX for years now.

Is M1 ally over the competition, well look at it this way, my M1 Air is passively cooled and performs far better than any laptop I've every owned. It is on the par with my AMD 3800 desktop system built at the beginning of last year. Literally desktop class performance out of the CPU's on a passively cooled machine. As for the HP laptop I had before the M1, it was a piece of crap running Windows or Linux though Linux actually matured faster on the machine. Frankly HP's support sucked and they killed any idea I might have of buying another HP product.

I really can't prove anything to you typing here, you pretty much need to see for yourself. The thing is this ARM based laptop is far better than I thought it would be and I had a pretty good idea where ARM was before Apple released these laptops. Frankly I'd have to say that the rest of the industry is at least two generations behind as I don't see Intel nor AMD, offering anything soon that can go into a passively cooled laptop and actually perform well.

[wizard69]

With realistic benchmarks, certainly not! You can get HiDPI screens everywhere, and Apples prices are just not competitive.

Yes with realistic benchmarks, Apples M1 is often a winner and more often than not by a substantial margin. Sure it will come in second in some bench marks but the machine often runs x86 in "emulation" faster than many existing x86 systems. I'm not one to call the M1 perfect like so many seem to think, the current systems do have their shortcomings but then again they are entry level machines that give industry leading performance.