On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 09:18:18AM -0500, Jason Shaw wrote:

I have a first gen X1 Carbon and love it. It does have the usual downsides of most ultrabooks; soldered on ram and non-standard drive, but has been rock solid. It has a chiclet style keyboard, trackpoint, 3 physical mouse buttons, 1400x900 resolution on a 14" screen, on a machine that's basically the size of a MacBook Air 13". Linux just works out of the box.

The major issue is that the current generation has the worst keyboard layout I've ever seen. The Function keys are now a "smart screen" that dynamically change to "useful" keys based on what tasks you are doing. Even worse though is the physical keyboard layout. I'll let the picture speak for itself: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/thinkpad-x1-carbon-key...

Home and end where caps lock was? Delete next to backspace? What were they thinking? ~ and ` between alt and control? -- Len Sorensen

Oops, sorry, you did mention that. My bad. On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 11:48 AM, Jason Shaw <grazer@gmail.com> wrote:

Look at the tilde location and you'll see that this was clearly not designed with *nix users in mind.

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 10:53 AM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

...

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 09:18:18AM -0500, Jason Shaw wrote:

...

I have a first gen X1 Carbon and love it. It does have the usual downsides of most ultrabooks; soldered on ram and non-standard drive, but has been rock solid. It has a chiclet style keyboard, trackpoint, 3 physical mouse buttons, 1400x900 resolution on a 14" screen, on a machine that's basically the size of a MacBook Air 13". Linux just works out of the box.

The major issue is that the current generation has the worst keyboard layout I've ever seen. The Function keys are now a "smart screen" that dynamically change to "useful" keys based on what tasks you are doing. Even worse though is the physical keyboard layout. I'll let the picture speak for itself:

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/thinkpad-x1-carbon-key...

Home and end where caps lock was? Delete next to backspace? What were they thinking? ~ and ` between alt and control?

-- Len Sorensen

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Ill poke around in my bios ; thanks. On Nov 13, 2014 8:09 PM, "Lennart Sorensen" <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 12:05:50PM -0500, David Thornton wrote:

...

I had a T510 which was great ( heavy but great) , I liked the keyboard , and the graphics card was good enough to play games. Optical drive , good wireless, limited by power ( only got like 2 hours at best) . Linux support was also good. Performance was good. I had a dual scren dock , and the device could drive both via DVI.

Then I lost the 5 key and IT issued me a X240.. Lighter, newer, small screen, nice and snappy, no optical drive, much better battery life. I feel cramped on the screen. There are screen options. 1366 X 768 , 1366 X 768 touchscreen, and a larger one 1920 x 1080 all 12.5 inches. I have the 1366X768 non touchscreen and I feel cramped.

I have a dock for this x240.. but the laptop can't drive both screens with DVI.. One has to be VGA. I dunno if that's a limitation of the particular dock that I got, or if that's a limitation of the video card, but after going Digital I can't stand VGA. Too fuzzy.

If you have a Pro dock (Which has DVI, DP and VGA), you can only use DVI _or_ DP on the dock. The Ultra dock has a second pair of ports which allow DP _or_ HDMI (but not at the same time), so with that dock you can do any combo of two DP, DP + HDMI, or DP + DVI. If you want two DVI you need a DP to DVI adapter for the second DP port. With the Pro dock, you can still do that using a DP to DVI adapter connected to the DP on the x240 itself, and the second display connected to DP or DVI on the dock. Essentially the pro dock only has one digital connection from the laptop to the dock, so only one of the digital ports can be used at a time. The VGA on the dock is a copy of the one on the laptop and the one on the laptop does not work when docked. The DP port is seperate though.

...

So the keyboard. I have had some trouble getting my head/hands around this new keyboard. For one f1 f2 f3 function keys don't "work" out of the box . They all do their "special purpose" like volume , display changing , mute etc. I had to tell it : by default when I press the F1 key .. it send an F1! Also I can't get "end" to work without also pressing "Fn" . ... Which I now call the "effin" key if you know what I mean.

Don't then have an Fn lock option to make it always do that instead? Often there are bios options on thinkpads to pick the settings you like (such as swapping control and fn if you prefer the other order).

-- Len Sorensen

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So I have it toggled, but I STILL dont' get the "end" key to be the end key, I HAVE to effin press it (if you know what I mean). David On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 9:09 PM, Lennart Sorensen < lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 08:02:03PM -0500, David Thornton wrote:

...

Ill poke around in my bios ; thanks.

Apparently there is no option in the bios for it, but on the other hand lenovo claims that with the latest bios it remembers the Fn lock (Fn+ESC) across reboots and suspend, so you should almost never need to toggle it if you simply set it once.

-- Len Sorensen

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Scott, my x120e started to overheat about a year ago (3.5 years old). I went to Canada Computers to try the keyboard on something new in the $500 range (E series?) and walked out with a floor model 2010 SL410 for $200. I replaced the 2G RAM with the maximum 8 and the only thing it lacks is the newer keyboard. It doesn't see much strenuous activity other than running virtual machines in Boxes (my 2005 G41 doesn't have hardware virtualization, and also overheats) and occasionally building the GNOME stack, and it's been terrific. Mike

On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Scott Sullivan <scott@ss.org> wrote:

Yes, a friend of mine (on this list) and myself both ran into that. It's apparently a known issue where the thermal compound they used dried out over time. We both ended up redoing the paste.

Thanks, Scott. Good to know.

The thing that is eating me about this, the 5th gen of core processors are looking to bring major improvements for laptops.

Last fall I was excitedly awaiting the Haswell laptop improvements, but as it turned out $200 was just as good as $800.

Ultimately I've decided to order an x140e.

Nice, I'll take a look. Mike

Sorry for encrypted email, apparently I can't use Enigmail. I don't think buying an used laptop is a good idea, because unlike desktops, specifications is not the only thing you can get in a laptop, but also how they were used -- after several trips in my bicycle pannier, my T420 has a couple of cracks on plastic frame near screen, utterly broken cd-rom and several non-essential plastic parts missing. I second T430, they can still be found brand new, and even though they bulky and Lenovo already started messing with the keyboard at the time, it still was usable for *nix crowd. Also get a model with t-suffix, as in T430s(lenovo really likes letter 't'), they used to be a few hundred dollars more expensive but they supposed to be marginally more lightweight and rugged, and more importantly, on those models instead of useless cd-rom drive you can install additional 6-cell battery. Sourcing that battery, however is a bit of a challenge. Alex. On 13/11/14 01:59 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:

| From: Scott Sullivan <scott@ss.org>

| After 4 years my Lenovo x120e has final succumbed to the rough and | tumble I put it through. The screen cracked and is unusable. This leaves | me looking for a replacement.

Screens can be replaced. There's a chance that it is worth the bother. But a E-350 always seemed weak to me.

I still like my ancient ThinkPad x61t with the high resolution screen and ancient aspect ratio. This x60 on Kijiji is $100. Unlike most x60's it has a Core 2 Duo CPU. It won't do videos well since it has a weak video controller. Its screen resolution is not high-res: 1024x768: <http://www.kijiji.ca/v-laptops/city-of-toronto/ibm-lenovo-thinkpad-x60-core-2-duo-laptop-notebook/1032397097?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true> Here's one with the high-res (1400x1050) screen but only a Core Duo CPU for $150): <http://www.kijiji.ca/v-laptops/city-of-toronto/fs:-lenovo-thinkpad-x60t-1400x1050-150/1031698460?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true>

(At the previous IETF, I talked with Linus Nordberg (of TOR, among other things). He uses modified x60s because they are the last model that he knows how to replace the BIOS with coreboot -- he wants to have confidence in the firmware not being bugged.)

| I'm going to constrain this question to Lenovo options. I don't think I | can overcome my track-point addiction.

I have an HP Elitebook with a "pointstick". But it is an old model. I don't know if they still have them. Here's a table of things with trackpoints but I suspect that it is out of date: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick#Naming_and_brands>

| Anyone purchased Thinkpad hardware in the last while? I know with some | of the recent models Lenovo has started messing around with the keyboard | design. What are peoples opinions? -- Scott Sullivan

If you are willing to carry around a tank, there's a chance you can find T[45]30 unused models around. Other than that, consider buying used.

<http://www.ncix.com/detail/lenovo-thinkpad-t530-23595ju-intel-0c-85521-1671.htm> <http://www.hookbag.ca/product/H3C0E40ZU/?p=0545> (Doesn't seem like a great price to me.)

We all value different things. Current notebooks have gotten way better in some areas that I care about: battery life, weight, screen resolution. I don't like touchpads, touchscreens, or trackpoints but some versions are way better than others.

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| From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> | On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 01:59:56PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote: | > I don't like touchpads, touchscreens, or trackpoints but | > some versions are way better than others. | | OK, what option do you like if you don't like those 3? Please don't | say trackballs, because no one is allowed to like those evil things. :) Mostly touchpads, but there are a lot of differences that matter between touchpads. [The following long discussion might only interest me.] The answer depends on the way I'm using the device. Oh, and what I think I will do (when selecting a device) doesn't always match what I actually do. That's why I've experimented with so many things. All trackpointers are the same to me (usable but not great). Touchscreens are of no use to me with a normal Linux desktop. Trackpads very wildly in usability. I like mice best, but the logistics are annoying with laptops. Still, if my session is longer than, say, a minute, it is probably worth deploying. For web surfing on an Adroid or iOS tablet, I quite like touchscreens. Except while entering text. But I've never found that touchscreens on notebooks useful: - partly due to the crappy support in Linux desktops - partly because what I'm doing often involves typing - partly because horizontally reaching for a touchscreen is very tiring ("gorilla arm") - perhaps because Linux tasks require precision that is beyond capacitive digitizers. I rarely remember that I'm even on a touchscreen when I'm using one with Linux. (My main notebook, a Yoga 2 Pro, has a touchscreen. So does our kitchen computer.) Trackpointers are simple in concept but I've not really gotten used to them because I don't have one on my desktop where I do most of my typing. (Or on the typewriter or keypunch where my muscles learned to type.) My main notebook for five years (x61t) has one and no trackpad, but I carried a mouse. The trackpad should be good for touch-typists (it's in the home row). But on my high-resolutions screens, it takes a long time to move a significant portion of the screen. I've always found it a bit, well, creepy that the cursor often drifts when I let go. Touchpads on notebooks have a variety of designs with a variety of good and bad points. - I hate it when touchpads decide that I'm talking to them when I don't think I am. The cursor will zing off somewhere while I'm typing or thinking about typing. It may be my fault, but it happens much more frequently on some systems than others. There's a simple fix some systems have: ignore touchpad events while the user is typing. I suspect that isn't enough. - I am annoyed at the way touchpad use seems to require two hands sometimes: moving a finger on the surface while clicking or holding a button (or two!), perhaps even while holding a modifier key. - having the left button being the whole pad seems like a step forward but on my samples, it is designed as a lever with the fulcrum at the top so (a) the pressure varies, and (b) is theoretically infinite at the top. - I like the new gestures that have come in. But haven't seen a manual. So I'm not really confident that I know them. The most useful seems to be two-finger sliding for scrolling (but there seem to be two opposite conventions about the direction). - the middle mouse button is useful in X and Firefox. It is rare in trackpads (except thinkpads). Simulating by using left+right click isn't as reliable. - new trackpads seem to have soft buttons. My fingers cannot "feel" where they are. So I have to look down from the screen. On the other hand, if I put some effort in I could configure a middle button, I think. I don't seem to use a stylus. My x61t tablet/notebook has a stylus but cannot sense my fingers. I thought that would be worth trying, but it hasn't been useful. If I were drawing things, it would be wonderful: precise (unlike capacitive sensing of fingers) and pressure sensitive. I am envious of Microsoft OneNote users, but in reality handwriting is probably too slow. I accepted a stylus in the Nokia tablets and the Sharp Zaurus. But the iPad was a real revelation: a fluid interface and not cramped (10" vs 4"). But I perform some tasks better on the earlier tablets (ssh). (I actually do some things in busybox on my Nexus 4, but only because I haven't bothered figured out how to create a GUI for these tasks. These same tasks are probably better on my Zaurus but it is usually on the shelf, uncharged.)

On 11/14/2014 07:02 AM, Walter Dnes wrote:

...

Touchscreens are of no use to me with a normal Linux desktop. Trackpads very wildly in usability.

I like mice best, but the logistics are annoying with laptops. Still, if my session is longer than, say, a minute, it is probably worth deploying. Try something like... http://www.thesource.ca/estore/product.aspx?product=8004308&language=en-CA&utm_source=pla&utm_medium=pla&utm_campaign=adchemix-pla&axclid=1_1_99955_5595760453137305823&gclid=CNaU_p2D-sECFQFgMgoduksAZw

...

- I hate it when touchpads decide that I'm talking to them when I don't think I am. The cursor will zing off somewhere while I'm typing or thinking about typing. It may be my fault, but it happens much more frequently on some systems than others. There's a simple fix some systems have: ignore touchpad events while the user is typing. I suspect that isn't enough. To disable the touchpad on a Thinkpad, try {Fn}{ScrlLk} i.e. hold down the {Fn} key and tap the {ScrlLk} key once. This is a "toggle" setting. Doing it again re-enables the mousepad. There are more hardware key settings that are OS-independant. My Google-searching has found...

{Fn}{PgUp} Turn the ThinkLight® on or off. {Fn}{Home} The computer display becomes brighter. {Fn}{End} The computer display becomes dimmer. {Fn}{Spacebar} Enable the FullScreen Magnifier function. {Fn}{PrtSc} Has the same function as the SysRq key. {Fn}{ScrLk} Enable or disable the numeric keypad. {Fn}{Pause} Has the same function as the Break key.

They may not work on all Thinkpad models.

You've listed {Fn}{ScrlLk} for both the touch pad and numeric keypad. Which is it?

On 11/14/2014 02:01 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:

All trackpointers are the same to me (usable but not great). Touchscreens are of no use to me with a normal Linux desktop. Trackpads very wildly in usability.

While a mouse is best, I much prefer a TrackPoint to a TouchPad. In fact I wish I could disable the TouchPad in the BIOS. I first endured one of those years ago on a Toshiba computer running Windows 95 and have hated them ever since. So, when I'm looking for a notebook, if there's no trackpoint, no sale.

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 04:14:06PM -0500, Steve Harvey wrote:

Back in 2007, I bought a new T60 for ~$1800. Four years later, I decided to buy another T60 ($400 used) as a spare instead of any of their latest offerings, all of which sported the trendy wide-screen aspect ratio which I dislike. It appears to me that laptop manufacturers seem to think that everyone prioritizes the watching of videos. Since then, I've needed to replace the screen on one of them and a motherboard on the other. There are a few repair shops around town that focus on this market. How long parts will remain available is yet to be seen.

Both of my T60s are at 1400x1050. There are 1600x1200 screens out there, but they are rare.

Considering today's ratio of high-end laptop prices to the average IT salary, I wonder if there might be enough latent world-wide demand for an upgraded Lenovo "Classic" to make it feasible. Maybe it could happen if enough people were to band together to have some "reverse marketing" clout.

I'd love it if I could have 16GB of RAM, an onboard SSD as well as a HDD, keep the DVD drive, get rid of the PCMCIA slot and modem and give me an HDMI port along with the VGA. Give me a 2048x1536 (or even 2800x2100) matte screen in a rugged 15" form factor with the traditional hardware UI and indicator lights. Add bluetooth and IR ports and hide a 9 pin parallel port on the back for people who want to do really low latency stuff. Keep it as thick and heavy as required to provide this functionality. I don't care about touch screen or trendy ultra- slimness or having to be cloud-dependent. Make sure that it runs well (addressing ACPI, UEFI/BIOS, and video issues especially) with Linux as well as Microsoft Windows.

One feature that I would like to be possible with this laptop is to be able to use it with active shutter 3D glasses for stereoscopic viewing of images such as landforms, simulated molecules, ... The hardware needs only to be capable of producing a correctly timed strobe signal over a suitable interface.

Well my laptop covers _most_ of those things. I have 1920x1080 screen (yes it is wide screen, but at least the vertical resolution is good) and it is matte. You are not going to ever get 4x3 aspect ever again as far as I can tell. I have 24GB ram (max is 32GB). I have a DVD drive. I have a 16GB SSD as well as the harddisk. Also fingerprint scanner and display color calibration. Bluetooth of course, but no IR (who ever would want that crap anymore? So unreliable, and besides I imagine a USB IR gismo exists for cheap). I have VGA and displayport outputs (for which cheap adapters to DVI and HDMI exist). I have proper LEDs for disk and network and such. You don't get parallel ports in 9 pin. They are 25 pin, and besides USB to parallel adapters are cheap if you really need that. The built in screen can't do 3D, but an external displayport connected screen can use nvidia's 3D stuff (or a dual link DVI if you use an active adapter which is not that cheap). Linux runs quite well, although there are a few features that I haven't bothered to figure out how to get working with linux yet. ACPI and UEFI seem to be done right. Linux is able to use the optimus intel to nvidia and back switching of graphics. PCMCIA and modem? No, but you do get expresscard and SD. So in this case, that's a thinkpad W530. Unfortunately the W540 is not the same at all. Hopefully the W550 will restore sanity, and perhaps even offer screens better than Full HD. -- Len Sorensen

| From: Scott Sullivan <scott@ss.org> | Looks like most of the current generation is a wash with that horrid | clickpad. Shame too since the x240 was looking rather like what I | wanted. Do actually try the clickpad. I've got one on my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro and it isn't clearly terrible. For your use, it would depend on whether you could turn off the touchpad functions while keeping the button functionality (I don't know whether you can). There's a fair bit of Synaptic touchpad hacking going on. I have been meaning to read up on it since there's a lot of room for improvement. This might be a place to start: <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics> | The x140e, still has the mouse buttons I want. But I'm tired of 1366x768. Agreed. I really like my 3200x1800 resolution in 1 13.3" screen. That's overkill for cramming text on the screen, but the text is nicer for that. 1920x1080 is probably enough from the text-cramming standpoint. For working, I like a physically bigger notebook. For carrying, I like a smaller one. 1366x768 seems nice on a 10", for example. Only you can make that trade-off. | The helix gen 2, although not on the Canadian market yet, does show a | return to the trackpad and buttons. Great feature set, but the Core M | processor leaves more to be desired in raw performance. It depends on what you do. I always feel better knowing I have a lot of power, but I don't think that I've actually needed much. Old Atoms were noticeably weak, but usable. The Brazos chips like you currently have are actually OK, not great -- they fixed the horrible video performance of the Intel chips. But all current Intel chips based on Haswell seem good enough, even the Celerons. Haswell beats earlier processors due to power management and efficiency. It has taken a great discount to coerce me to buy older chips (my T530 has an earlier chip). Core M is *probably* better still. I don't yet know enough. I really like battery life and I think that it wins there without giving up performance. Datapoint: I can leave my Haswell-based Yoga 2 Pro sleeping for a week without totally draining the battery (probably longer). My Ivy-bridge-based T530 lasts about a day. That really changes how I think about and use these machines. One thought is a cheap throw-away notebook as a placeholder until something good comes along. The Atom Bay Trail based notebooks might be OK. But that collection of notebooks is rather odd. Some are minimal and will only run Windows well (firmware only supports 32-bit UEFI and no main stream Linux distro supports UEFI32). I find this deal intriguing: <http://forums.redflagdeals.com/microsoft-store-asus-x205-11-bay-trail-12-hr-battery-laptop-179-a-1594669/> The battery life is great. I've not tried Fedlet (a Fedora port to the Asus Transformer T100 which is also 32-bit UEFI) but it might work. In the US, the Acer Aspire E11 is like the Asus x205 but better: 1G ethernet, USB 3, $200. Not available in Canada. This generation of dirt-cheap Windows notebooks use eMMC SSDs: small, slow, and soldered in. The M.2 SSDs used in the Acer C720 Chromebook we have is much better: faster and replaceable (but smaller still). And the C720 has a Haswell-based Celeron. I discovered yesterday that it can even drive my UHD TV set (3840 x 2160 @ 30Hz). | It's almost enough to consider a Surface Pro 3 paired with a compact | thinkpad usb or Bluetooth track-point keyboard. There are great tablets. For example, my aging Nexus 10 has an awesome screen (10" 2560x1200). I just haven't found something that adds a keyboard as well as the conventional laptop clamshell. The Surface's Kickstand seems quite inferior. The Surface Pro 3 looks good for what it does (Windows tablet + secondary keyboard). It's not what I want and its tabletty strengths are lost when running Linux. The Yoga 2 Pro seems pretty good to me. Better than the Surface 3. Sometimes there are really good deals on the Yoga 2 Pro since it is being replaced by the Yoga 3 Pro (Core M). There are a lot of other choices that seem better than the Surface 3 Pro. | It's a tough time. Thanks again for you feed back. Good luck and have fun!

On 14 November 2014 14:54, Daniel Wayne Armstrong <daniel@circuidipity.com> wrote:

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 2:15 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:

...

One thought is a cheap throw-away notebook as a placeholder until something good comes along.

[...]

...

This generation of dirt-cheap Windows notebooks use eMMC SSDs: small, slow, and soldered in. The M.2 SSDs used in the Acer C720 Chromebook we have is much better: faster and replaceable (but smaller still). And the C720 has a Haswell-based Celeron. I discovered yesterday that it can even drive my UHD TV set (3840 x 2160 @ 30Hz).

Second the C720 Chromebook as a cheap and cheerful Linux laptop. I replaced Chrome OS with Lubuntu 14.04. My install notes (with Synaptic config):

http://www.circuidipity.com/c720-lubuntubook.html

Bit hard to find on sale (at a reasonable price) in Canada... though Newegg and Tigerdirect had some refurbished units on sale a few weeks back for $170CDN.

I was going to second the C720 comment, but I'm reduced to third because Daniel beat me to it. I have the same Chromebook he does (I think mine has a bigger SSD than his, but they're otherwise identical), and its been lovely. My experience with the Atoms has been that my 2010 Atom-based netbook makes my 2005 Pentium-M laptop look like an absolute speed demon. I really, really don't like the Atom. -- Giles http://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 5:41 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:

| From: Giles Orr <gilesorr@gmail.com>

| On 14 November 2014 14:54, Daniel Wayne Armstrong | <daniel@circuidipity.com> wrote:

| > Second the C720 Chromebook as a cheap and cheerful Linux laptop. I replaced | > Chrome OS with Lubuntu 14.04. My install notes (with Synaptic config): | > | > http://www.circuidipity.com/c720-lubuntubook.html

Thanks! I'm about to embark on this.

Can I install with developer mode and then, when I'm happy, THEN do the write protect screw thing? Or would that require installing a second time?

Removing the write protect screw erases the SSD... so a second install would be required. That is the way I did it myself: experimented with developer mode the first time, then when I was satisfied I removed the screw and installed a second time. -- (o< .: Per curiositas ad astra .: http://www.circuidipity.com (/)_