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Why do people still recommend Thinkpads for Linux when there are Linux-oriented manufacturers now?

I’ve noticed in the Linux community whenever someone asks for a recommendation on a laptop that runs Linux the answer is always “Get a Thinkpad” yet Lenovo doesn’t seem to be a big Linux contributor or ally. There’s also at least six Linux/FOSS-oriented computer manufacturers now:

So what gives? Why the love for a primarily Windows-oriented laptop when there are better alternatives?

gerdesj ,

I tend to use other people’s cast-offs at work. Win 10 slow? JG gets an upgrade! I whip the SSD or M.2 or whatever I’m using out of the old one and pop it in the “new” one.

Mane25 ,

First of all I wouldn’t use a pre-installed OS (I would always wipe and install my own for security reasons).

Secondly: Thinkpads (at least when I bought mine, last year) let you buy them without an OS and don’t charge you for it.

Thirdly: the linked manufacturers above tend to be either US-centric and/or more expensive than Thinkpads.

Soleos ,

Same reason most people recommend gettinf a Honda/Toyota when asked for a general recommendation for a car. If you need to ask the question, then your needs are probably not that specialized. So something generally reliable, widely accessible, and good value would be appropriate. Lenovo still tends to fit that description.

ebits21 ,
@ebits21@lemmy.ca avatar

I love my Thinkpad.

Lots of Linux devs love their Thinkpads.

The result is that Thinkpads are very well supported. They’re also generally very well made so I hope to use it for a decade.

dudewitbow ,

Cause thinkpads are cheap and easy to come by

Source: i work in ewaste

WaterWaiver ,

Exactly this. Second hand thinkpads are stupidly cheap – I’m currently typing on my $180AUD laptop. I never buy new.

pastermil ,

Yes, exactly this. The alternatives would cost close to $1k as starter.

Decker108 ,

Out of curiosity, do you ever rescue laptops from your work and use or resell them?

dudewitbow ,

yes. Companies goal is to essentially take in e-waste and used stuff, sort through it and pull out decent laptops/desktops wipe(or destroy) hard drive based on instructions, and resell. The company that gives us the goods gets a cutback of what’s being sold. everything else that is junk is then sorted and recycled to their respective correct facilities. Gotta use the second R in the 3 R’s and the third for whatever is considered old. What’s considered old goods is still very desirable to another company, especially companies outside of the U.S where computers may be more expensive, especially when you’re trying to get them in bulk.

the work laptop I use is definitely used goods, in fact relevant to thread as it is a 8th gen Thinkpad T490.

miss_brainfart ,
@miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml avatar

With everything I hear about good stuff going to waste, I highly enjoyed reading that.

Keep doing what you do, your workplace is cool

library_napper ,
@library_napper@monyet.cc avatar

On what marketplace Are they sold? And can I buy a quantity of 1?

dudewitbow ,

very rarely sell in quantities of one, but usually some of the end clients are resellers. If you’re ever like on Amazon and find refurbished dell desktops, or any laptop in general (including apple products), there’s a decent chance it came from an e-waste organization first before being bought by a reseller in bulk. There are some companies who “bling” old desktops and resell them in the market place.

Fuckass ,

How much product do you move? I know there are enthusiasts buying old thinkpads, but I eidnt imagine it’s enough that a whole company can sell a bunch of them with ease

dudewitbow ,

i cant give specific numbers of course, but in the hundreds/low thousands typically per order.

BreakDecks ,

They are cheap and durable, and they work with most major Linux distros without much headache.

I have a spec’d out S76 Lemur, which is a great laptop for throwing in a backpack as a daily driver, and really packs a punch with a small footprint.

But I also have a couple ThinkPads that cost less than $100 to replace that I use for doing experiments in the field where a laptop is more likely to get damaged. No need to needlessly drag thousands of extra dollars in kit out into a mountain trail to do radio experiments. For that kind of work, these old systems have more than enough resources, and if I fall in a stream, or get caught in rain, the worst I have to do is replace the system for $80 refurbished on Amazon.

Of course, I’ve never actually had any issues requiring replacement, but ThinkPads are really hard to break. I’m not as convinced about the Lemur’s durability, and would rather take fewer risks with it.

qyron ,

The first machine I ever installed with a distro was an MSI Ultrabook and Linux, out of the box, visibly improved the overall performance of the machine, with no need for benchmarking. After tweaking and fine tunning, it only improved.

After that came a long series of Asus, a few HP, one or two Dell. Always flawless installs, out of the box. The only exception I can remember of was a very specific HP model where the modem had to be manually installed.

Having a hand full of companies designing and building for linux feels like being part of an exclusive, Apple-like club; the prices are high, the choice limited.

We should be pressing the industry to recognize the linux ecosystem for what it is: a stable OS, with an ever growing user base with money to spend that want quality support for the equipments they buy.

gravitas_deficiency ,

People will say many things. But at the end of the day, it’s the keyboard. I honestly cannot think of a company that does keyboards better than Lenovo (formerly IBM).

zhenyapav ,

Most of these are pretty expensive. I got a used Thinkpad for less than 200 bucks, and it works great for the price and my use case.

lckdscl ,
@lckdscl@whiskers.bim.boats avatar

Because of better accessibility. How so?

Because not everyone has the money to afford these new and expensive laptops designed for a niche market. They are still enthusiast-grade products, the prices speak for themselves.

Because not everyone comes from Europe / the US, so it’s not easy to find these with affordable shipping.

Because these laptops are only normally offered new, which, for responsible and personal ownership, is excessive. There are thousands of used hardware lying around, why not put some life back into them instead?

It comes down to price, availability and ethical concerns. Unless money doesn’t mean anything to you, why do you need a $1000 laptop when someone wants a device for higher education or personal casual use? The world doesn’t need more rampant marketing of niche, hyped-up tech. While a fully-FOSS system may be the ideal machine for every Linux enthusiast, we live in a material world with finite resources and chasing after some unicorn laptop is unsustainable.

marlowe221 ,

I buy all my hardware, laptop and desktop parts, for these reasons.

Linssiili ,

That’s good, stealing is wrong

library_napper ,
@library_napper@monyet.cc avatar

Used*?

marlowe221 ,

Hehe, yeah. Missed a word there!

BitSound ,

The X1 Carbon series is popular with Linux kernel devs, so it’s had a lot of TLC. It makes a big difference for some stuff like sleeping. My Thinkpads handled sleeping really well, and I could expect to leave it sitting for at least a week and come back to somewhat low battery. My Framework laptops, as nice as they are otherwise, will drain the battery during sleep in 24h, no matter what I’ve tried. The situation is apparently better on the newer-gen Framework laptops, and IMO Framework’s open nature will lead to a similar situation to Thinkpads, but it’s not quite there yet.

Apart from sleep, I’ve heard complaints about the manufacturing quality of some of the other options, but haven’t used them myself so can’t verify. Might be why some people recommend the Thinkpads, though. I do really like the quality of the Framework, and I’d recommend people take a look at them over Thinkpads now, unless they care about sleep battery usage.

To chime in with some of the other answers, price also makes a difference. Thinkpads have been around long enough that there’s a nice large used market. I got a rock-solid Thinkpad T480 for a few hundred dollars from some dude on Craigslist. My Framework is higher-specced and was paid for by my work, but it still starts out ~$800. I think it’ll just take time before other manufacturers have a similar situation.

tekeous ,
@tekeous@apollo.town avatar

The only good system on that list is the framework and it’s $2800 for my ideal version.

Last year’s Thinkpad P-series goes for around $400 on eBay.

iopq ,

You’re comparing ideal to “will get the job done” which is a big gap

The Thinkpad probably doesn’t have a high resolution high refresh screen, which is exactly why I’m shelling out $1400 for the Framework.

nyan ,

To many of us that doesn’t matter. My secondary machine is a laptop from 2008 (not a Thinkpad, though), with a standard-for-the-time 1280x800 17" screen, and I’m fine with that, because I’d rather have a coarse 16:10 17" screen than a high-res 16:9 14-15" one. Occasional window shopping suggests that a new laptop with a screen of the same physical size as my old one would cost more than I really want to pay at the moment.

You obviously have different priorities. That’s fine—plenty of machines of different sorts to go around—but please try not to project your priorities onto others.

iopq ,

If you’re happy with it, no reason to switch. I’m just saying you can’t compare different price range products

promitheas ,
@promitheas@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I think what hes trying to say (correct me if im wrong OP), is that not everyone needs that high end machine, so its not comparing apples to oranges as you seem to suggest. Its like comparing a Lamborghini to a regular albeit good sedan for the purpose of taking your kids to school, doing groceries, etc. If we ignore the obvious impracticalities of the Lambo for these jobs, sure its really cool, but if you can achieve the same task with the sedan (again ignoring that the Lambo might not allow you to conveniently achieve them and assuming practicality is equal so that the car analogy can fit in with the laptop question), why specifically go looking to get the Lambo?

Edit: meant to reply to [email protected]

iopq ,

Thinkpad won’t play AAA games, it just can’t run them at a playable frame rate

You get more when you pay more

ExLisper ,

Also Vant and Slimbook from Spain. I own a PC from Vant and I’m happy with it but I would think twice before buying a laptop for 1.5k when I can just get a used lenovo for half that price and use it for next 10 years.

Frederic ,

For me it’s Dell, when I bought my (used) Latitude E5470 there was even Ubuntu running officially on it IIRC at the time. I like the small Dell because there’s ton of them 3+ years old, parts available everywhere, they are pretty solid and made for corporate world, they are no toy like Asus. A $1500 model can be had for like $200-300 after a couple of years. I installed MX Linux on it, everything works perfectly without touching or configuring anything.

For instance now you can find a nice E7480 for 200-300$, with Core I7, 8GB or 16GB RAM, SSD, 1080p, NFC, fingerprint, USB-PD dock compatible, etc.

agent_flounder ,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.one avatar

I’ve had good luck with Dell Latitudes* from work and personal purchase from several years ago. I would probably tend to get one again when I update. I had zero issues installing Mint on one of the E6410s.

We switched to HP at work and mine have been reliable also and a nice minimalist look and decently thin form factor. I’d consider those too.

outbound ,

Refurbished ThinkPads are awesome!

  • Availability - ThinkPads are very popular in corporate environments and are generally replaced every 2-3 years. Although mostly Intel CPUs, there is a wide variety CPU+GPU available from lightweight to high performance.
  • Tough + well built + last forever
  • Easy to upgrade/repair. They’re very user-accessible and its simple to upgrade RAM or SSD/M.2 drives. Plus, because they are so popular in the corporate environment, replacement parts (from batteries to WiFi+Bluetooth chipsets to trckpads) are very available and cheap.
  • Well supported in most (if not all) linux distros. Graphics just work, trackpads just work, WiFi just works.
  • Cheap.

Sent from my ThinkPad T580 (with both an internal and removable battery, I get 10+ hours of battery life)

Franzia , (edited )

I’ve heard of potential security issues when buying them. How can I mitigate that - buying from a safe source, wiping them etc.?

Thanks it sounds like simply wiping the system is enough to get around security flaws.

rufus ,

We’re talking about Linux here. You’ll probably wipe it anyways. Chances are slim the company that used it before put Arch on it.

outbound ,

Always wipe and do a fresh install. If you’re installing Linux, its unlikely that the refurbisher will have installed your flavour of Linux anyway. If you want to dual-boot with Windows, most business ThinkPads come with a Windows Pro licence - just download the ISO and install it fresh, then install Linux.

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