As a nice win for open source, hardware vendor Lenovo are going to begin offering Fedora Linux on their ThinkPad line. This was announced today over on the Fedora Magazine by Red Hat's Matthew Miller.
You will be able to select Fedora Workstation as your operating system when customizing a Lenovo ThinkPad, as part of a pilot in Lenovo’s Linux Community Series. They're going to be starting with the ThinkPad P1 Gen2, ThinkPad P53, and ThinkPad X1 Gen8 laptops and if it's a success likely more. Sounds like it's been a good partnership too, as Miller said Lenovo has been "following our existing trademark guidelines and respects our open source principles" with it shipping exactly as the Fedora team want.
In the post they included this teaser video:
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As Mark Pearson, Sr. Linux Developer, from Lenovo said, "Lenovo is excited to become a part of the Fedora community. We want to ensure an optimal Linux experience on our products. We are committed to working with and learning from the open source community."
This is great, and it's really needed that we have more well-known hardware vendors put Linux as an option (and actually advertise it) for Linux adoption rates to increase. It's one of the biggest barriers.
More details about this will be coming soon closer to launch.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Maybe in the sense of "tech-literate people, too, are lazy".Our installer aims to make the complicated process of installing Fedora to replace another operating system as easy as possible, but it’s still a barrier even for tech-literate people
Wait what?
Just because I could deal with a complicated installation process, doesn't mean I want to.
2 Likes, Who?
Maybe in the sense of "tech-literate people, too, are lazy".Our installer aims to make the complicated process of installing Fedora to replace another operating system as easy as possible, but it’s still a barrier even for tech-literate people
Wait what?
Just because I could deal with a complicated installation process, doesn't mean I want to.
What I fail to see is, what is complicated about installing Fedora 32? It's about as easy as you can get.
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Maybe in the sense of "tech-literate people, too, are lazy".Our installer aims to make the complicated process of installing Fedora to replace another operating system as easy as possible, but it’s still a barrier even for tech-literate people
Wait what?
Just because I could deal with a complicated installation process, doesn't mean I want to.
What I fail to see is, what is complicated about installing Fedora 32? It's about as easy as you can get.
Another hypothesis: maybe they mean tech-literate people who have never installed an OS? Or Windows-users who would need to research what is swap and how many GiB you need and what file-system is best on SSD. Then again that just sounds like over-optimizing rather than not managing to do it.
1 Likes, Who?
It is just marketing speak, they are trained to sound good while not making much sense.Maybe in the sense of "tech-literate people, too, are lazy".Our installer aims to make the complicated process of installing Fedora to replace another operating system as easy as possible, but it’s still a barrier even for tech-literate people
Wait what?
Just because I could deal with a complicated installation process, doesn't mean I want to.
What I fail to see is, what is complicated about installing Fedora 32? It's about as easy as you can get.
Another hypothesis: maybe they mean tech-literate people who have never installed an OS? Or Windows-users who would need to research what is swap and how many GiB you need and what file-system is best on SSD. Then again that just sounds like over-optimizing rather than not managing to do it.
2 Likes, Who?
Arehandoro 25 Apr 2020
If they expand it to the T495 model before System76/Purism put Ryzen CPUs in their laptops it might be the perfect fit for my aging x250.
Also, the 3 physical buttons on ThinkPads, I use the middle one heavily, are way better than touchpads only.
Also, the 3 physical buttons on ThinkPads, I use the middle one heavily, are way better than touchpads only.
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Finally! Until now they even refused to refund the Windows tax. That's a refreshing change. Looking forward for them doing it for all Thinkpads. I'm only buying them with Ryzens these days.
It would be nice if all vendors offered all their ranges of laptops without windows if required.
Why Fedora, though?
I mean, nothing against Fedora, but wouldn't Ubuntu generally result in a better experience for users due to more widespread support of pretty much anything?
There's a ton of stuff readily available for Ubuntu (or rather, as .deb) which is not impossible to get on Fedora but you have to jump through some hoops.
Same could be said for Manjaro and the like.
But to get anything on Ubuntu you need to add a bunch of PPA's, which is less convenient than using RPM Fusion on Fedora.
Indeed, It's why I chose an Arch based distro tbh.
I've not tried Fedora in a long while, I'm originally a RPM guy myself. Stemming from the Mandrake era back in the day :O
I feel old ......
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Pretty cool. Alas my T530 that I bought AGES ago still works like a charm. I remember I had to install Debian testing back in the day to get it working at all.
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ProfessorKaos64 25 Apr 2020
I have a feeling I made the right choice with the Lemur Pro I got a few weeks ago. I like the System 76 approach/support and hardware/OS pairing. However, I recognize may be a good thing for Fedora fans. But Lenovo...
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Why Fedora, though?Installing apps and libraries on Fedora is as easy as any other disto. Enabling RPMFusion is like enabling "Universe" on Ubuntu or the AUR on Arch, which isn't complicated at all. It's just a repo. I use it for Nvidia drivers and Steam.
I mean, nothing against Fedora, but wouldn't Ubuntu generally result in a better experience for users due to more widespread support of pretty much anything?
There's a ton of stuff readily available for Ubuntu (or rather, as .deb) which is not impossible to get on Fedora but you have to jump through some hoops.
A better user experience is highly subjective. That's why so many distros are represented here. For me, Fedora is a great distro because it's close to upstream so I get a more vanilla experience that lets me customize my desktop how I like. Packages are up to date and fresh, but the system is stable. I use my desktop for work and gaming so it needs to be stable and rock solid that gets out of my way. Since Thinkpads are targeted at power users, Fedora is a good fit for that.
The important point, to me, is that another Linux distribution is being offered as an OS choice by major hardware manufacturers.
3 Likes, Who?
Fedora is a great distro, but the fact that it need to be updated in every release (6 months iirc) it can be a headache for a simple user. Fedora needs a LTS or even a rolling version.
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walther von stolzing 25 Apr 2020
Since 2016 or so, freetype comes with subpixel rendering on by default. It might seem like a minor point, but it's made a huge difference in the freshly installed default appearance of many distros -- before that, a font rendering experience that was pleasant out-of-the-box was a privilege that Ubuntu enjoyed alone. I mean, I wouldn't want to turn on my shiny new laptop, only to start bleeding from my eyes at the sight of fonts bathed in ugly artifacts.
So, yeah, the 'edge' that Ubuntu did have in the past with respect to the desktop has been dulled a little.
So, yeah, the 'edge' that Ubuntu did have in the past with respect to the desktop has been dulled a little.
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Is there not an obvious reason for Lenovo choosing Fedora? There is a relationship between Lenovo and Fedora, namely IBM. With IBM owning Red Hat and Lenovo being the successor to IBM's PC business, I would not be surprised if there are not still strong informal ties at various technical and management levels between the two companies.
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... cut ...Also, Ubuntu is not the most popular distro these days anymore. So I can ask the same question, why Ubuntu?Eh...
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam?platform=linux
Ubuntu makes up 30% (+7% if you count Linux Mint as it is Ubuntu-based). The next-big one is Arch (11% Manjaro + "pure" 10% Arch).
Wait, don't we have such a statistic on gamingonlinux itself? Can't find it right now...
Yep it's at https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics - Top menu / Sections / Statistics, and while Ubuntu-based is closely (ehm 4%) followed by Arch, it still is the top anyway.
And, it's still/atm the one mostly supported by SW/Games authors/providers starting with for ex. eh well Valve. So I myself, while on Fedora now and looking at Arch lately, would understand that for the 'so users have it easy' choice being Ubuntu then.
Like - if they can deal with rpmfusion and such, i bet they could install it then too (...ish).
But there are other benefits besides this (if it's ok for fedora it makes it most likely to be ok for ubuntu too at same time), as also other stuff at play (longer term involvement etc), for me it's good that there is new choice available for any customer.
Last edited by queria on 25 Apr 2020 at 11:04 pm UTC
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slaapliedje 25 Apr 2020
Been running Fedora 31 on my P52 and with the RAID0 NVMe, it freaking flies! Also have a Windows 10 VM in Boxes that I use for copying files to my Apple IIGS Compact Flash card, as Ciderpress only works in Windows, and I swear Windows runs faster in a VM under this config than bare metal...
Only thing that is having a problem, was a bug in F31 with the firmware updater, something was causing it to timeout (known bug not related to Lenovo). Not sure if they fixed that upstream yet, as I have had it removed for a while.
Also haven't figured out how to get the fingerprint reader to work, even though F31 said they had worked on that...
This is exciting though, love my P52, it is a beast!
Only thing that is having a problem, was a bug in F31 with the firmware updater, something was causing it to timeout (known bug not related to Lenovo). Not sure if they fixed that upstream yet, as I have had it removed for a while.
Also haven't figured out how to get the fingerprint reader to work, even though F31 said they had worked on that...
This is exciting though, love my P52, it is a beast!
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Considering they are using stock Fedora, and some of the laptops listed have Nvidia graphics, I could see that being a problem given the lack of vendor supported FOSS kernel drivers.
I made sure my brother got a ThinkPad with an Intel IGP for that exact reason.
I made sure my brother got a ThinkPad with an Intel IGP for that exact reason.
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I made sure my brother got a ThinkPad with an Intel IGP for that exact reason.
Today there are Thinkpads with Ryzen+Vega APUs, and they work very well with upstream kernel. Zen 2 based ones are coming out soon.
Last edited by Shmerl on 26 Apr 2020 at 4:40 pm UTC
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Fedora is a great distro, but the fact that it need to be updated in every release (6 months iirc) it can be a headache for a simple user. Fedora needs a LTS or even a rolling version.There is a release every 6 months, but each one is supported for ~13 months. So you can upgrade just once per year.
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I was overjoyed until I saw the price for those specific Thinkpads. And the fact that they only come with 15.6' display killed my joy even more. For me a 14' low-middle price Thinkpad is what I would wish for.
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slaapliedje 2 May 2020
I made sure my brother got a ThinkPad with an Intel IGP for that exact reason.
Today there are Thinkpads with Ryzen+Vega APUs, and they work very well with upstream kernel. Zen 2 based ones are coming out soon.
I have Thinkpad P52. Comes with hybrid graphics, Quadro P3200 and Intel whatever. It worked fine in Fedora, you just have to install the repo for the nvidia drivers.
On the other hand, last night I installed Pop_Os! 20.04 and it works great! Two improvements need to be made to it though (and any Ubuntu flavor). For the love of god, they need to add RAID/LVM abilities to the installer... second, they should have the tweaked .desktop file for firefox, so touch screen works out of the box, like it does on Fedora.
Only thing that does not work on my Thinkpad is the fingerprint reader, which apparently needs a kernel driver for. But it at least is being worked on.
Pop_OS also has a neat little thing they added under Power near the gnome settings so you can actually set your GPU setup right there (requires a reboot) setting to either Intel, Hybrid, nvidia.
Last edited by slaapliedje on 2 May 2020 at 7:27 am UTC
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