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Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux

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On 6/10/2020 2:59 PM, Yves-Alexis Perez wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
> 
<snip>
>> 
>> My plan before this conversation came up was to keep an eye on
>> what fixes were needed to get things working on the
>> Ubuntu/Fedora/RHEL front and then once those were upstream work on
>> getting those pulled into Debian.
> 
> I really think most of the work should be done in upstream projects
> (so with upstream contributors), then making sure those changes are
> included in the relevant Debian version. That also means really early
> hardware shouldn't be needed since most of the *porting* work should
> have been done (and actually mostly by Intel and maybe AMD engineers,
> these days).
> 
Agreed
> I'd say this is mostly about having the correct fixes in the Linux
> kernel, but maybe there are other parts which need fixes (maybe Xorg,
> pulseaudio, stuff like that?).
I used to work on network switches and moving to PCs has been
eye-opening. It's amazing the amount there is that can break :)
- Audio is a constant headache (instead of earache).
- Graphics is frequently fun. Nvidia cards definitely add a challenge 
but I think that's improved a lot. OLED panels are throwing up some issues.
- Power management - suspend and resume, energy certification. Hibernate 
right now seems broken/not supported well which I suspect is going to be 
an irritant to a lot of users.
But ethernet, wifi, bluetooth, touchpad, thunderbolt, USB, touchscreen, 
card readers, thermal, secure boot, apps, firmware, fingerprint, 
camera...the amount of stuff packed into these devices still amazes me - 
and there is always something that crops up.
> 
> If you have experience on what was really needed in recent ThinkPads
> it might be useful to reach out to relevant teams. I only have
> hands-on experience with X250 (documented in the link I gave on my
> first mail), which is a bit old now I guess (I have hands-on
> experience on an X280 but it was maybe 18months after it was released
> so basically everything was already working just fine)
We're going though this on our 2020 platforms right now so it's an 
interesting point. I think I can safely say that it is constantly varied 
:) The impression I get though is this year things are going more 
smoothly than last year - I'd like to claim that this is because we are 
more experienced.....I might be kidding myself.

I should document it though - right now my gut feeling is I can't point 
to one or two candidates and go "they always cause trouble". It's truly 
varied

<snip>
>> 
>> Anyway - if there was interest we could explore what was involved
>> with choosing a couple of platforms, getting them to a Debian
>> developer or two and going from there. I don't know how early in
>> the process we'd be able to make HW available - it is *really* hard
>> to get hold of these early systems (based on personal experience).
>> That's a challenge I'm willing to take on if it's something that
>> there is interest in.
> 
> So right now what would be the target hardware / timescale we'd be
> talking about? There's definitely no reason that Lenovo product(s)
> roadmap(s) and Debian stable roadmap should be aligned, so there are
> few interesting things:
An interesting question. I'd actually like to bounce that back at the 
community. After all - if the aim is to have platforms that work with 
Debian the people who are going to want these are likely to be Debian 
folk (you're not the first choice for Linux noobs ;))

I have some ideas but is there a 'wishlist' or guidance on which 
platforms are the most popular? Either Lenovo specifics (makes my life 
easier) or general "it should have at least xxxx".

Anybody want to setup a Debian survey? :)
> 
> - - making sure “current” generations products work fine on Debian 
> stable/Buster, so they could be “qualified” to ship with Buster
> preinstalled (I'm unsure how realistic it for current products, but
> making sure *they* work is a first start I guess) - - making sure
> “next” generation products work fine on Debian stable/Buster so they
> could be qualified to ship with Buster preinstalled (maybe a little
> more realistic but I guess it also depends on the timescale) - -
> making sure “future” products work fine in Debian testing (Bullseye)
> so once it's released the products can be qualified on it and
> hopefully ship with Bullseye preinstalled
This makes sense but I'll be honest - I haven't run Buster on anything 
in a long time. For me too much doesn't work (touchpad, graphics, audio, 
networking usually). I go straight for Bullseye and then to unstable and 
sometimes to experimental.

> 
> For “current” products I guess we mean everything until the 2020
> generation (so including X13/T14/T15, I don't really know that much
> the rest of Lenovo lineup). For those I assume there would be no NDA
> needed (and actually there might already be some hardware in the
> hands of relevant people). For “next” I guess it depends a bit on the
> timescale and the level of upstream support already here. For
> “future” it's even more true, and my guess would be that most of the
> stuff need to be done by Intel (and AMD) people first.
Yep.
So we have a few platforms coming out in the next few months. X1 Carbon 
is usually high on users wish list - but maybe that's less the case for 
developers? (I personally quite like mine...)
The P series with the mobile workstations are nice machines too - but 
they can be beasts.

> 
> So I'd say “current” and maybe “next” are the most realistic if you
> want to start somewhere.
I'm wondering if I/we can choose a couple of "next" and try that and see 
what happens - but I need to go and shake some branches internally and 
probably have some conversations off mailing list (I like doing 
everything in public but...not sure Lenovo is quite ready to have all 
plans in the open - maybe I'm overthinking it)

Full honesty disclosure - this month is nuts. I want to give some time 
to this but please be patient if responses are slow. I wrote most of 
this email yesterday but didn't get to hit send until....now

Mark

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RE: [External]  Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Pirate Praveen <praveen@onenetbeyond.org> - 2020-06-05 11:10 +0200
  Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Mark Pearson <markpearson@lenovo.com> - 2020-06-05 15:30 +0200
    Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2020-06-05 16:10 +0200
      Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Mark Pearson <markpearson@lenovo.com> - 2020-06-05 18:10 +0200
        Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Yves-Alexis Perez <corsac@debian.org> - 2020-06-06 17:30 +0200
          Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Mark Pearson <markpearson@lenovo.com> - 2020-06-10 14:50 +0200
            Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Yves-Alexis Perez <corsac@debian.org> - 2020-06-10 21:20 +0200
              Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Mark Pearson <markpearson@lenovo.com> - 2020-06-12 23:50 +0200
                Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2020-06-13 04:50 +0200
                Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Yves-Alexis Perez <corsac@debian.org> - 2020-06-14 11:20 +0200
                Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Martin <debacle@debian.org> - 2020-06-14 14:30 +0200
                Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2020-06-24 23:10 +0200
    Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Pirate Praveen <praveen@onenetbeyond.org> - 2020-06-05 16:30 +0200
    Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Marc Haber <mh+debian-project@zugschlus.de> - 2020-06-05 16:30 +0200
      Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Mark Pearson <markpearson@lenovo.com> - 2020-06-05 18:20 +0200

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