[drakonka]

I recently bought a gen4 ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Despite a couple of issues first getting started with Linux (I've been using OS X for years aside from running Ubuntu on my web servers) I'm now happily on Fedora 23. There was a kernel bug that I think is being patched atm, requiring booting with intel_pstate=no_hwp but no problems with Fedora other than that.

When discussing this on the ThinkPad subreddit a Red Hat employee mentioned that their standard issue work laptops are ThinkPads with Red Hat Enterprise installed, but most engineers then switch to Fedora. As a result Fedora tends to run very well on ThinkPads (according to him and in my so far limited experience), as they have many Red Hat engineers working on that OS every day.

[ymse]

The high-end Thinkpads are generally safe choices. I've been really happy with my Broadwell X250, although there were similar kernel issues when it was flunking new.

Still does ~20 hours with extended battery after more than a year of heavy usage. And they're some of the most robust portables available.

[nxzero]

>> "Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, who uses Fedora on all of his computers."

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_(operating_system)

Be interesting to know what hardware Linus use, though given security is a low priorty for him, not sure what this would mean.

Personally, I would like to know if the gen4 ThinkPad X1 Carbon (hardware, bios, firmware, drivers, etc) have any know exploits or notable security measures.

Anyone know?

EDIT: As a result of the comment below, as of 2012, Linus says, "I love my MacBook Air!" - source:

http://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-torvalds...

[dnissley]

Macbook Air 11": http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/skitched...

[ericlee4]

More recently a Sony Vaio Pro according to this interview.

http://www.businessinsider.com/linus-torvalds-qa-2014-6

[AdmiralAsshat]

He had a Chromebook Pixel before the Vaio. Wonder what made him switch.

[lake99]

I bet people give him tons of stuff for free.

[INTPenis]

I think Linus switches semi-often because as others have pointed out I've seen him with MBA's and OpenSuse.

I however enjoy Fedora very much and part of why I made the switch from Debian fanboy to Fedora convert was because I learned how to use SElinux and found it absolutely charming. ;)

[chris_wot]

I don't think security is a low priority for Torvalds, it's just his philosophy is broader and more nuanced on this issue that it makes him seem anti-security.

I actually don't agree with him entirely, but I understand his philosophy. Hopefully I'm not mischaracterising him, but I believe that in essence his view on security boils down to issues:

1. Security bugs are just a bugs and should be fixed and not treated much more differently than you would any normal, high priority bug.

I believe that's why they don't highlight security flaws in the changelogs. I think it's a mistake myself, but I do understand this position and it's not necessarily wrong. Note that I've not ever seen him say that security is NOT a concern, he just doesn't seem to want to prioritise it above bugs like those that call data corruption or kernel panics.

2. He has a view on trust - you must take care to keep your "network of trust" reliable. He write that:

"What happens is that the way merging is done is the way real security is done. By a network of trust. If you have ever done any security work, and it did not involve the concept of network of trust, then it wasn't a security work, it was masturbation. I don't know what you were doing but trust me, it's the only way you can do security, and it's the only way you can do development. The way I work, I don't trust everybody. in fact I am a very cynical and untrusting person. I think most of you are completely incompetent. The whole point of being distributed is I don't have to trust you, I do not have to give you commit access. But I know that among the multitude of average people, there are some people that just stand out that I trust, because I've been working with them. I only need to trust 5, 10, 15 people. If I have a network of trust that covers those 5, 10, 15 people that are outstanding, and I know they are outstanding, I can pull from them. I do not have to spend a lot of brainpower on the question. When Andrew send me patches, he actually does not use git, it's some kind of defect, but other than that, he is a very solid person. When he asks me to pull, he does it by sending a million patches instead, I just do it. Sometimes I disagree with some of these patches, but at some point, trust means, ... never having to say you're sorry? ... I dunno ... It basically means that you have to accept other people's decisions. And the nice thing about trust is that it does network. That's where the network of trust comes in. I only need to trust a few people that much."

https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/LinusTalk200705Transcr...

[Ao7bei3s]

The X1 Carbon has a Skylake CPU, so the problem that Linux doesn't have support for the higher C-states resulting in reduced battery life and reduced total CPU lifetime should apply to you, right??

Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11492070

(I have tested the predecessor (gen3) and liked it. I'm waiting for the 16GB gen4 X1 Carbon to become available here in Germany, drop enough in price to be affordable, and for Linux to support all the C-states.)

[drakonka]

I think an upcoming patch is meant to greatly improve this, at least judging by this, aside from solving the boot parameter requirement issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/4c6q6w/fixing_int...

> I have finally compiled a patched kernel myself and couldn't be happier with results. Not only battery life increased (~1 additional hour), but what's more important, performance on battery improved significantly.

(Note: I have not tried this myself yet...maybe this weekend)

Some other possibly useful links I just came across related to this patch:

- https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/4d6qj5/psa_linux_...

- https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RawhideKernelNodebug

[nja4]

So, after this, my skylake xps 13 will be a better candidate for Ubuntu?

[jpetso]

Looking at the patch, it doesn't appear to tackle the sleep state coordination issues that mjg59 was talking about. Which doesn't mean that the impact of this patch on power savings isn't still nice to have. I figure it'll take them a while longer to get sleep states working as intended.