Linux Hardware

Hello everyone. I've been looking for a new laptop recently, and I was wondering what your thoughts were. This is what I want in a new lapop:

• Decently powerful processor for virtualization, compilation, and BitTorrent
• Easily replaceable/upgradable battery
• Upgradable RAM
• Upgradable storage (preferably 1 TiB+ NVMe SSD)
• Webcam
• Microphone
• Hassle-free Wi-fi (I'm tired of fighting with proprietary blobs that need manual installation and want something plug-and-play)
• Hassle-free Bluetooth
• Ethernet port
• USB ports
• Hardy frame (nice but not required)

Important note: Ideally the laptop will be compatible with Linux Libre, as I want to run Guix System on it. But I'm not opposed to using the normal Linux kernel if necessary (and probably will anyways due to security protections like Spectre).

I've been eyeing the ThinkPad T480 (specs link) for some time. What do you think? It seems to tick all the boxes:

• Powerful processor: i7-8650U (a 2018 model I think)
• Upgradable battery: 24 Wh internal + 72 Wh discrete battery
• Upgradable RAM (up to 32 GB)
• Upgradable storage
• A webcam
• A microphone
• Wi-fi
• Bluetooth
• Lots of ports (3 USB Type-C, 1 HDMI, 1 Ethernet, 1 headphone)

I do have some concern about the additional storage though. A Reddit user said this:

Just note that the T480 has only 2 usable PCIe lanes, so it's half the rated max speeds (ie, for most of the premium performance pcie3x4 drives, it's about 3500/3000MBps reads/writes respectively), so half that because it's only 2 lanes.

Found this out the hard way, ended up selling the T480 and going for a T14 AMD instead, because for that particular use case I had, high speed reads/writes were important. Was wondering why my 970 Evo Plus was so slow, and thought I had a faulty drive for a moment.

Lenovo acknowledges this limitation at the PSREF: "Installed M.2 SSD is PCIe 3.0 x 4 but run at PCIe 3.0 x 2 due to M.2 SSD adapter limitation"

https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_T480/ThinkPad_T480_Spec.PDF

Link to post

I'm not sure what to think about that. I don't like the idea of getting half capacity, but 1.5 GBps doesn't seem so bad, even if it could theoretically be higher.

Has anyone here used this laptop? Am I understanding the specs correctly?

This isn't specific to this laptop, but how do you determine which NVMe to get? I see lots of numbers and am not certain how to interpret them.

If you think another laptop would meet the above qualifications, feel free to point it out. But my budget is rather tight (250 USD max for the computer, preferably under ~200 USD if possible), so I probably don't have a lot of options with regards to newer computers, which is why I was considering this slightly dated model.

Bonus: I found this article while browsing. Looks like the Wi-fi and Bluetooth don't work…

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The internal microphone doesn't work on my Dell Inspiron 14 7440 running ubuntu, though it is recognized on windows and I remember it working before I reinstalled the ubuntu system. When I open sound settings, the app doesn't recognize the internal microphone:

I ran alsamixer (newest version) in the terminal and didn't see the internal microphone, this is what it looked like (this screenshot shows all devices listed in alsamixer):

I also looked at pavucontrol and the app shows the internal microphone as "unplugged":

How can I get the microphone working?

Update: I tried plugging in a headset and plugging it out. When I plugged it in 2 microphones showed up, one called "headset microphone" and the other just called "microphone", screenshot:

But when I unplugged the headset both microphones are gone, does it mean that my laptop recognizes its internal microphone when a headset is plugged in? Also when I switch to the one just called "microphone", speaking to the headset microphone doesn't make the bar move as much as patting the laptop, so the "microphone" should be the internal microphone.

I installed the newest ubuntu desktop on dell Inspiron 14 7440, and when I open a video (either mp4 or webm) with GNOME videos it looks like this in the image, showing horizontal bars.

Is this a graphics driver problem? I haven't installed any kind of driver after the ubuntu installation, and if it is a driver problem from where should I install the driver?

I'm planning to buy an Inspiron or XPS model and install Linux on it, and I'd like to run neural networks accelerated by its NPU. Are there available drivers for the NPU in these models that supports debian or ubuntu-based systems?

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/20257982 (got no answers there sooo... someone here has something to say? Sorry if it's out of place...)

which one wold pair up better, less bottleneck and all that, a bottleneck calculator said the 560 works better, can i trust it? Is there any other gpus i should consider? (Small budget, Brazil is complicated)

(I use linux, if that changes something)

Hadn't bought a new laptop in a while. I wasn't expecting power efficiency to be that good! This is on a Lenovo Yoga Pro 7.

• Gnome DE
• With wifi up
• Backlight around 10% (LCD panel)
• tlp running with acpi-cpufreq with powersave scheduler

I've been saving up for a laptop for a long time and decided I want something that will be powerful and reliable for also a long time if I'm spending this much. so the 2 best options seem to be the Slimbook Hero or the Legion 5.

A Legion 5 16IRX9 with an i5-13450HX is around 250EUR cheaper than a Hero with a i7-13620H, a Legion 5 Pro with a i7-13700HX is around 150EUR more expensive than the Hero. Legion has a 3 year warranty, the Hero 2 years.

I don't know which has a better build quality and if warranty service is better with Slimbook bc you have to ship it to Spain if there is a hardware issue.
What else should I consider?

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Out_Of_Ideas/saved/6yzGjX

I configured a pretty sick PC build on PCPP that is supposedly Coreboot capable. I am wondering if it can be improved and if it is actually Coreboot capable.

CPU: Intel Core i9-14900KS 3.2 GHz 24-Core Processor

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler

Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard

Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 48 GB (2 x 24 GB) DDR5-8400 CL40 Memory

Storage: Crucial T705 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive

Video Card: ASRock Taichi OC Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB Video Card

Case: NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply: MSI MEG Ai1000P PCIE5 1000 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Case Fans: Noctua A15 PWM 140 mm Fan; Noctua A14 PWM 82.5 CFM 140 mm Fan

StarBook - Minimalist design. Powerful performance. The StarBook propels the open-source experience into the modern era!

Elacity video link: https://ela.city/cinema/view/0x9057304a41919008d79b3bb3fcebd69414e38b1f/52

or

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV5i9UMj8ac

#starlabs #starbook #mkvi #linux #elementaryOS

My current Dell XPS 13 has been my trusty old companion for the past 4.5 years and I'm very happy with it.
Inevitably, the battery isn't what it used to be anymore - it won't reach full charge anymore and discharges in 2-3 hours of normal use (webrowsing, coding etc).

I could replace the battery, but at 4.5 years, I guess it's time for an upgrade.

My general requirements:

• Good Linux support
• Portable (13-14")
• Great battery life
• Good keyboard
• A nice screen that doesn't have too much glare
• At least 16Gb RAM / 1Tb SSD

This is my work machine so I'm not especially budget-sensitive.
Durable build would be awesome, I travel quite a lot and it gets banged around in my bag.
I work in cybersecurity and do coding, so it doesn't need "content creator" features. The less "bells and whistles", the better.
I'd love a microSD-card slot.
I think I'd melt of happiness if it also has a HDMI port.
I don't game on this machine (except chess.com, lol) , so don't really need gfx performance.
I don't need touchscreen or 2-in-1 functions.
Reasonable mic/cam - but I think that's pretty much given on a modern high-end laptop..

I'm thinking I'm probably going with new Dell XPS 13 or some ThinkPad variant, but I'd be happy to hear some suggestions and experiences (both good and bad) of recent purchases from the community.

Ps. Framework/System76 don't ship here. Unfortunately. I'm stuck with the big-corpo brands.

The Sirius 16 is decidedly aimed at Linux gaming or workstation use cases. Its 16.1 inches with a 2K resolution of 2560x1440, so it's 16:9, better for gaming IMO than 16:10, but less good for other tasks.

It has a full aluminum chassis, an 80Wh battery, it can accommodate up to 96 gigs of RAM, 8 terabytes of PCIe 4 SSD, and it comes with USB 4, the latest HDMI 2.1 and Wifi 6E. But what matters is what's inside, and that's a Ryzen 7 7840HS, and a Radeon 7600M XT, with 8 gigs of DDR6 VRAM. The aluminum chassis really feels solid, and the whole laptop is pretty hefty, at 2.2 kilos, or 4.8 pounds.

The CPU is a Ryzen 7 7840HS, it's 8 cores, 16 threads, running at a top speed of 5.1Ghz. In geekbench 6, it got 2640 in single core, and 12635 in multi core, so it's more powerful than the i7 13700H I use daily on my own laptop.

In my Clevo Laptop with @novacustom@mastodon.online and @3mdeb@fosstodon.org Coreboot firmware I now have replaced another proprietary part!

The Intel AX200 previously installed waits for a new use case, while I swapped in the Qualcomm Atheros Y8512 pci-e Wifi card, which has #blobfree drivers and thus runs fully on Linux, not just on some #nonfree kernels (that basically break the open source philosophy by including proprietary code in the single most critical root binary on your system)

It works great, just downloaded a Firefox release. zip over wifi without a single stutter!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/12251322

#Specs

Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS 8 cores 16 threads TSMC 4nm FinFET 3.8 GHz base clock 5.1 GHz max boost clock

Graphics AMD Radeon 780M RDNA 3 12 GPU cores 2700 MHz frequency

Display 16” IPS WQXGA 2560x1600 (16:10) sRGB 100% 165 Hz frequency 1064.3M(8bit+2FRC) color depth 403 nits max brightness

Storage 2 SSD m.2 NVME slots Up to 8 TB SSD storage

Memory Non-soldered memory Up to 64 GB RAM (8, 16, 32, 64 available) 5600 MHz RAM 2 sockets, dual channel from 16 GB

Battery 68‑watt‑hour battery Up to 11 hours battery

Connectivity 3 USB 3.1 2 USB-C Full function PD3.0 (USB3.1 GEN1) with power delivery and video output 2 PCI Express 4.0 (max 4TB each one) HDMI Wifi 6 RTL8852BE-CG AC/AX Bluetooth 5.2

Others Full-size backlit keyboard with numeric keypad Webcam HD 720P 1.0M with physical switch 2 microphones 2 speakers 4Ω 2W Multi-touch touchpad Full aluminum chassis USB-C charging with smart battery system

Size and Weight 356.6 * 248.5 * 20.3 mm 1.86 kg

Hello,

I am looking for a budget reliable printer.

I know that some companies scam the crap out of you as soon as you buy their printers and I would like to not fall victim to that.

My budget is around 100 dollars, I don‘t care if laser or ink printer.

Of course I need a certain compatibility to Linux.

Thanks a lot already for your answers and have a nice day!

Edit: Thanks for the kind tips, I will definitely get myself a brother printer.

Hi linuxhardware gang

i've been having some issue on my headphone jack, and the sound quality has never been great. this is on a small mini pc running arch linux.

So what i'm looking for is a device i can plug into my usb (preferably usb-C) and Linux will use it to play audio. i plan to plug that device into my amp, which i can use headphone jack or those white and red plugs for.

I hope USB DAC is the proper term, i'm kind of struggling to find products that do this.

anyway, does anyone have experience with products like this on linux? i don't want to have to hack together the software side. even just a brand recommendation will help.

Hi everybody, I recently got a Roccat Burst Pro Air which has a battery in it since its wireless.

The problem here is that I cannot see the battery level on upower by any means because I think it never was developped for linux as roccat does not support linux for its devices (don't know if its in the kernel or in upower itself?).

I'm not a driver developer but a web developer. Maybe I can try to support this device in order to expose the battery level. But I don't actually know where to start.

Can anyone guide me?

Thank you in advance!

Anyone got any experience with running Linux on a Chuwi Freebook N100 yet?

Okay, most of the relevant information is in the title - I got a nice deal on an old Lenovo X280, threw Debian on there with KDE. I have an HP Elite book for my work, and thus a work provided HP G2 DisplayLink dock with USBC connection.

In order for this dock to work, I had to install the displaylink drivers for "Ubuntu" from here. The drivers work as expected, and I am able to dock the X280 to my workstation, and use both external monitors. It feels pretty nice when I am just browsing/emailing/bullshitting. But when I tried to play Minecraft on it, the game feels incredibly laggy.

At first I thought this was due to an under-powered graphics card, but I did some testing with the external monitors using an HDMI cord directly to the X280, and everything feels clean and smooth when I use it in that way. The other odd glitch is that when I have the laptop docked, and I am trying to play MC, if I put MC on the external monitor = lag. But if I just drag the MC window to the laptop's screen = no lag.

I'm assuming this issue is related to the dock and/or drivers. I've looked around for some sort of workaround, but came up empty handed. So now I think the solution might be a different dock.
The dock would need to:

1. support USBC connections to my HP Elitebook, preferably without new drivers needed for the HP (dumb work won't give me admin rights, but I think I could convince them to install the necessary drivers for me. I WFH, so it makes sense that I would need a setup at home.
2. support USB/Lightning to my X280
3. have 1+ HDMI out or 2+ Display port out

So... Does anyone have any experience with Linux (Debian preferred) compatible docks that don't introduce input delay when gaming?

ps. Sweet community you got here. I subbed, and it's DEFINITELY going to result in me buying more stuff...

Hi

I've bought a Dell g15 5511 i5-11400H 3050ti with Ubuntu 20.04 years ago because it was an offer too good to miss.

I'd like it to run a different linux distro without the Snap packages, that Ubuntu seem so keen on, and use a package manager with which I just feel more comfortable.

I know I could remove Snap from ubuntu which came preinstalled from Dell but I'd like to try something else on it, perhaps Linux mint or an Arch derivative.

I'm asking for suggestions as to what might be suitable.

I don't have a problem with booting up on a live ISO to try distros out but I wondered, how would I enable and continue to update the Dell firmware updates?

Is it as simple as just enabling the Dell repositories as I have done for the Ubuntu 22.04 update? Are the Dell firmware updates Ubuntu specific is my question?

It's a desktop laptop permanently connected as battery life under load is a bit low :-)

I use this for light gaming and not much else, usually play older games and RPG's like Original Sin. The 3050Ti has 4Gb memory so its never going to fly the latest AAA games.

I would want to be able to install the NVidia drivers for the 3050Ti GPU and be able to switch between the iGPU and the NVidia GPU.

My other installations run OMV, Manjaro KDE, Linux mint MATE LTS and Raspberry Pi OS. I'd say I've got some general knowledge with Linux, nothing in-depth.

Going forward I might use it to run a Jellyfin server container which is currently sitting on an aging HP laptop because the Dell's CPU and tGPU look more capable of handling Transcoding and give higher FPS.

Thank you for your insights.

Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated in any way to any of the parties involved in this review. I just enjoy reading Solène’s writings in general and found myself to be especially in fond of this specific article. I share this in the hopes that others might somehow benefit from this as well!

I know this question has been asked many and many times, but a) this kind of things can change with time (bugs may get fixed or appear, new generations can fix hw problems and get new ones, etc.) and b) I didn’t find it on Lemmy yet (but maybe this is just me being bad searching stuff in the fediverse), so here it is once again.

So, I need to buy a new laptop and I’m undecided between those two machines that, from what I’ve seen, are very very similar, but not exactly the same (apart from the chassis, that should be exactly the same, right?)… What are some differences I could use to decide?

And, if you own one of this two, would you recommend it? Why/Why not?