[kwlug-disc] laptops with Linux preinstalled

[Ron Singh]

Wowe, you are patient.

Doug, not sure if you are aware of the Hardware Maintenance Manuals for
TPs, but here is the pdf for the T14:
https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/t14_gen1_p14s_gen1_hmm_en.pdf
It will become your close friend.

Also, a word of caution, have a care when plugging in and unplugging the AC
Adapter as it is USB-C and that connector has proven to be damage-prone. My
case is a herd of some 47 pcs of T14s/T14/T15 with a client -- I've had 3
returned sod far due to damaged USB-C charging ports(soldered on the mobo).
Mind you, the users were co-op kids working for a local design/build client
of mine. They just some 4 months new, so they were covered under warranty,
but a major hassle to pop out the user's SSD and stuff into another spare
TP and then return TP to Lenovo's repair joint in Thunder Bay. The
turnaround time these days is at least 3 weeks.

Congrats on your new T14. Love the fact that you can change out the
trackpad.

My most aggressive TP upgrade was a T420 with an i5, 4G, 320G HDD  and HD+
TN screen -- I changed out the CPU to an i7-2760QM(Quad-core), 16G RAM,
tossed the HDD and stuffed in a Sammy 500G SSD(850 EVO back then) and most
ambitious, rip/replace the LCD with a 1080P IPS(72%gamut) LCD panel with a
little daughter card inline to make the new LCD recognizable by this
ancient 2011 laptop.

That was my major hardware mod last spring:-) It all works a charm,
although, I had to use a fattie 135W AC adapter with the pump-up T420
thereafter which ain't no biggie as it used mostly to record and render my
son's YT content and just sits on a desk anyway.

Thanks,

Ron S.



On Fri, Feb 26, 2021 at 10:27 PM Doug Moen <doug at moens.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 23, 2020, at 11:45 AM, Ron Singh wrote:
>
> Doug, be heartened by the fact that almost always, that ETA is often
> incorrect in that the laptop will get to you much earlier.
> That has been my experience.
>
>
> My Thinkpad T14 arrived today! It has been a long wait, since I originally
> ordered in August. I didn't cancel, buy a used Thinkpad, buy a MacBook M1,
> or the other alternatives, because... the T14 with an AMD Ryzen 4750 still
> seems like the best fit for my needs. Note that I already have a T450, but
> this machine is going to be my daily driver, it's a premium machine
> intended to be a MacBook Pro replacement, except running Linux. The 8 core
> Ryzen with its beefy GPU will provide fast compile times for my open source
> project and be powerful enough to run my graphics code. The Thinkpad itself
> falls short of my goals in some ways, but it is super moddable and
> repairable.
>
> My first mod is to remove the 128GB SSD and replace it with a 1TB SSD, the
> fastest Samsung I could find compatible with my hardware. I bought it today
> on sale at Canada Computers for $200. Lenovo charges C$1055 extra for this
> option. I just spent an hour watching YouTube videos on how to upgrade a
> T14. I will also upgrade the memory to dual channel, since that speeds up
> the Ryzen, and obviously I didn't want to pay Lenovo prices for fully maxed
> memory.
>
> The keyboard is the wrong configuration (no backlight), and sales support
> agrees I got the wrong hardware, but after this long a wait, there is no
> way I am returning it and waiting for a replacement. Could be another 6
> months before I get another one. I will purchase a new keyboard and replace
> it myself.
>
> The trackpad is bad. It's actually worse than the trackpad in my T450,
> which I didn't think possible. This matters because I am transitioning from
> an old Macbook with a wonderful trackpad. Fortunately, lots of T14 owners
> on reddit have replaced their trackpad with a much better trackpad intended
> for the high end P1 and the X1 extreme. And the part is relatively cheap.
> I'll be running Wayland because there is a software project to create a
> MacBook quality trackpad driver, and their code hasn't been accepted into
> X11 yet. Nobody wants to work on X11, the project is highly resource
> constrained, so I understand the delay.
>
> I didn't expect to replace this much of the hardware right at the
> beginning, but the ability to mod the Thinkpad (and the size of the modding
> community, and the availability of parts) was part of my reason for buying
> one.
>
> I am initially planning to install Pop OS. This is based on the amazing
> sales pitch Jason gave a few years ago. Plus, the new easy-to-use tiling
> window manager sounds interesting. I am still interested to hear from Jason
> why he ditched Pop OS for Fedora.
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