In 2018, I was studying Linux in school and I had enough space from my Pell Grant that I could consider a very high-quality laptop purchase for educational purposes.
I readily selected a ThinkPad T580. Lenovo has/had a whole line of ThinkPads which are certified for Linux, about half and half Red Hat and Ubuntu. Curiously, many of these certified machines shipped with Windows 10. I ordered from the manufacturer's website, and the really cool part was the versatile configurator which let me LEGO-together a machine exactly of my choosing, from many disparate but compatible options. It was assembled and shipped direct to me from China.
So I received my Red Hat-certified notebook, immediately deleted Windows 10 without activating it, and installed CentOS, which was crashy and buggy. I decided that a more cutting-edge approach might help, so installed Fedora, and it worked a treat! I ran Fedora until Christmas 2021, when I basically renounced Linux, since I had no more personal or professional need to run it on bare metal, and installed the OEM Windows 10.
But that T580 under Fedora was always rock-solid. All hardware fully supported, no ifs, ands or buts. No crashes or bugs or problems that would send me to Support. (One time I got ketchup in the spacebar, though.)
I don't doubt that the certified Ubuntu experience would be just as smooth, and so I have no hesitation recommending certified ThinkPads to Linux enthusiasts.
Comments
No issues on my t470 with Ubuntu 22.04
In 2018, I was studying Linux in school and I had enough space from my Pell Grant that I could consider a very high-quality laptop purchase for educational purposes.
I readily selected a ThinkPad T580. Lenovo has/had a whole line of ThinkPads which are certified for Linux, about half and half Red Hat and Ubuntu. Curiously, many of these certified machines shipped with Windows 10. I ordered from the manufacturer's website, and the really cool part was the versatile configurator which let me LEGO-together a machine exactly of my choosing, from many disparate but compatible options. It was assembled and shipped direct to me from China.
So I received my Red Hat-certified notebook, immediately deleted Windows 10 without activating it, and installed CentOS, which was crashy and buggy. I decided that a more cutting-edge approach might help, so installed Fedora, and it worked a treat! I ran Fedora until Christmas 2021, when I basically renounced Linux, since I had no more personal or professional need to run it on bare metal, and installed the OEM Windows 10.
But that T580 under Fedora was always rock-solid. All hardware fully supported, no ifs, ands or buts. No crashes or bugs or problems that would send me to Support. (One time I got ketchup in the spacebar, though.)
I don't doubt that the certified Ubuntu experience would be just as smooth, and so I have no hesitation recommending certified ThinkPads to Linux enthusiasts.