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Review: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Linux Edition)

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FOR MOST OF eternity, if you wanted to run Linux on your laptop you bought a Windows laptop, wiped Windows, and installed Linux. This was known as the "Windows tax," the extra money you paid for an operating system you didn't need.

About 15 years ago, pioneering companies like System76 began selling white-label hardware with Linux preinstalled, along with all the necessary drivers to ensure hardware compatibility. Linux worked out of the box. They were seldom what you'd call svelte laptops, but they were solid machines, and hey, no Windows tax. Today, System76 builds its own Linux-based desktop hardware at a factory in Colorado, and even big brands like Dell sell laptops with Linux.

Lenovo is the latest manufacturer to want in on the fun, releasing its first Linux laptop in the form of an eighth-generation ThinkPad X1 Carbon. There are some quirks, but it's one of the best laptops around for Linux.

[...]

It's worth asking then, what does the X1 Carbon bring to the table? The answer is support. The main advantage of preinstalled Linux is both hardware support and customer support from Lenovo. If you run into an issue, you can take to the forums or even call Lenovo support.

That hardware support shows immediately when you boot up the X1 Carbon—the fingerprint reader works out of the box. This is one thing I've never managed to get working when I installed Linux myself, so it's really nice to have it working immediately. Except, well, we'll get to the except.

I opted to test the Fedora-based version of the X1 Carbon. There's also an Ubuntu-based option. If you're unfamiliar, Fedora and Ubuntu are the names of two Linux "distributions." A Linux distribution, usually shortened to "distro," is a collection of software that contains everything you need to run Linux on your PC.

If this is confusing, think of it in terms of Windows or macOS. Apple and Microsoft combine all the little pieces of software that make up macOS and Windows and distribute the result as a single package. Fedora, Ubuntu, and hundreds of others do the same for Linux.

Read more

Linux on Old Laptops: The Lenovo Thinkpad T440p

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