Are older Thinkpads lik the T430 and X220 more FOSS now than current System76 laptops?
Seeing as how modern S76 laptops are shipping with Coreboot, and older thinkpads don’t (so you still have to jump through that hoop), I would think that the S76 is the clear winner.
The firmware is also on GitHub too for S76 I believe as well.
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I have a Thinkpad myself and I think my next laptop is going to be a System76 since I moved over to Linux. I remember watching an old video of a Coreboot dev with coreboot on a T480 and I got excited. Well that never happened, lol.
How easy is it to repair and upgrade a S76 laptop? Thinkpads are still king overall. If you need more ‘modern’ computer then s76 is about as good as it gets. If you want a laptop that allows you to save money, extend it’s life with upgrades, has lots of cheap parts for repairs, allows you to use a dock (this is often over looked but is amazing and a selling point), will chip concrete, and has a better keyboard then a thinkpad is ‘better’.
If you want a more updated thinkpad, an x230 can have it’s keyboard swapped out for a x220.
If corebooting is too much, S76 is good. However I would sayif that is so, maybe FOSS is more a buzzword than a true interest. As there is so many guides out there it’s not a barrier of entry of competency/skill but rather of laziness.
I think personally I would rather have an S76, but I feel like that’s more instinctive than rational. I will probably never ever compile and up a firmware myself for it (even though I do this all the time with printers), but I like that I COULD do that?
I’ve got an older X1 stinkpad upstairs for testing stuff like Azure AD Hybrid builds (Policy, have to test it on a phsyical machine). When I’m not doing that with it, it runs Pop OS like a dream, touch screen and all.
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It’s a bad comparison in a lot of ways.
The relevant Thinkpads(T420, T430, W520, W530, X220, X230) are all old, but cheaply available in good condition.
The hardware part is really nice, they’re build like bricks. You can always repair these devices, parts are widely available(Lenovo lists ~600 FRU’s for a T430). You can even upgrade/mod them(They even have socketed CPU’s, meaning you can implant a 45-watt quad-core CPU if you want; A common upgrade for a T430). I can replace my optical drive with an additional SATA bay, I can attach 3 external batteries, etc.
But to get the most out of these devices(including coreboot) you need to be an enthusiast, and not be afraid of clamping a flasher to the SOIC8 BIOS SPI flash chip, and use it with a RPi or something. From what I’ve heard from coreboot devs, these are some of the best supported devices for coreboot though. Depending on the device, you might want to replace certain things like the crappy centrino wireless adapters they often come with, or the ethernet board(I’ve seen in-person somebody modding a 2.5G ethernet onto his T430).
There is a reason you almost exclusively see Thinkpads in certain hacker conferences, these are enthusiast devices.
The S76 laptops hardware is pretty good, but no Thinkpad build-wise(I don’t have a S76 device, but I’ve seen them in person). AFAIK most machines from them are built by ODM’s - that’s not necessarily bad, just not as exceptional as early Thinkpads.
They make sure that your hardware works great with Linux, and they try their best to get your device mostly binary-blob-free in a painless way. HOWEVER certain parts are very difficult to do, for example AFAIK the S76 boards ship with the Intel mrc.bin blobs for RAM init, and with video BIOS blobs for graphics(I can’t confirm this, as I’m lazy and also don’t own such a device); I’m not an expert in this, but AFAIK coreboot support for a lot of devices like that are build using the Intel FSP, while the thinkpad ports were done without it, and thus have native(blob-free) RAM init etc.
Did you knew that all the Chromebooks(and most other devices by google, except most smartphones) are supported by coreboot(Via the Intel FSP blobs)? You can even flash these with coreboot, and disable the Intel ME somewhat.
(Disclaimer: I own a Thinkpad T430, running coreboot, and I’m very much not an expert on either topic)
Thinkpads are a fanboy thing imo. They’re good for what they’re built for, but over all are shitty laptops with no graphics. Robust, out of date.
Legit go with s76 for thunderbolt and ryzen. Why are you bothering comparing fucking sandy bridge 220’s to these even.
As someone with a recent Oryx Pro, I kinda regret my S76 laptop purchase. The hardware is nice (not great, but not terrible), and I like Pop! OS… but its had some problems:
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If I run it with the lid closed, sometimes the screen just falls off. I fixed it with some extra adhesive pads, but thats a terrible look to just have the top open, and the screen just face down on the keyboard.
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The fan is LOUD. And on ALL THE TIME. Especially if I tun on the NVIDIA graphics. I’ve taken to running it upside down for better thermals and quieter operation.
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The keyboard kinda sucks. Weird layout that I keep mis-typing on. Trackpad is off center.
All in all, I would have rather put more investment up front into a Thinkpad than deal with these issues day-to-day.
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Yeah, the key hardware is usually pretty solid but the build quality sucks.
They use Clevo as their OEM for laptop parts.
If you want performance go with S76, if you want a better user experience go with Thinkpads.
The thinkpads with tinkering can achieve the same level of openness as the S76. So at that point its do you want better performance or UX.
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Odd how? It looks normal to me?
If anything the think pad is more annoying with the odd placement of the Function key, Print screen and End Home and Insert keys, but the actual key placement looks fine on both fly typing.
There are two buttons between CTRL and ALT on the left side. I keep pressing the wrong ones since I use a lot of those kind of shortcuts day to day as a developer. Right Shift is also too small.
Also, the fact that the letters/trackpad are shifted left to accommodate the numpad is weird. It gives an odd feeling of being off balance and I end up typing gibberish sometimes.
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I think much better, in fact; Libreboot’s main audience comes from users of older Thinkpads, where the processor is old enough to run without Intel’s Management Engine firmware. I remember reading about the embedded controller or something still relying on proprietary firmware, but I think everything else can run with open source code.
Edit: Found it, it was the Thinkpad Embedded Controller. It looks like someone started an open source replacement, but it has not received any new commits since 2015.
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